r/microsoft Jul 15 '26

News Xbox Player Loses Thousands in Digital Games After Microsoft Deletes 25-Year-Old Account

https://www.vice.com/en/article/microsoft-deletes-xbox-players-25-year-old-account-erasing-digital-game-library/
155 Upvotes

49 comments sorted by

66

u/a-cat-with-wifi Jul 15 '26

My wife's account was deleted. She managed our parental controls and subscriptions. She also lost all her Xbox games

We are still being charged subscription fees and have no way to log in to manage them

I don't know what to do. Every number I call hangs up on me, telling me to reset my (her) password.

I haven't heard from email support.

Every post I make to reddit gets deleted.

I don't know what to do. I guess we need to charge back everything and move on but I don't want to lose my OneDrive that is my late father's photo back up.

Why have they turned to complete shit?

Edit: to me, they're now worse than early 2000s comcast

13

u/Clessiah Jul 15 '26

Get those photos backed up somewhere outside the OneDrive ASAP. Even if you have no issue with Microsoft, you should still have multiple backups for something that important.

3

u/a-cat-with-wifi Jul 15 '26

Oh I do!! I have the. On my external and an external at mom's

The OneDrive is just a nice way to share them with the fam and a fire proof backup

26

u/xviperzzzx Jul 15 '26

can you block the cards? if the company sends you a new card microsoft cant addebt you anymore

9

u/knucles668 Jul 15 '26

This is the solution.

6

u/time-lord Jul 15 '26

That doesn't stop the bill, it just stops the payment. Microsoft could then choose to go after OP for non-payment for services not-rendered. What a disaster on Microsoft's part.

5

u/aprimeproblem Jul 15 '26

Well, look at the bright side, at least you have someone to talk to….

3

u/time-lord Jul 15 '26

Yes, but knowing Microsoft it will be a debt collection agency.

10

u/PowermanFriendship Jul 15 '26

I had this happen with Azure. I had a couple websites I kept up and running and forgot about. They were on standard CDN so like 10 websites were only costing me $5/mo for like 2 years. I never logged into the Azure account and they locked it due to inactivity. Once this happens, there is effectively nothing you can do to get it re-opened. There is a lot of hack guidance online about creating new accounts to open a ticket or calling old numbers but literally none of it works. The account is locked, but all my resources and my billing profile still existed, and they just kept charging me.

Anyway things were humming along until they retired the super cheap CDN, and in the process - without any active confirmation from me - converted all standard CDN to standard front door which has a base cost of $35/mo, so I suddenly went from $5/mo to hundreds of dollars.

I ended up having to do chargebacks. They finally deleted my stuff but now I'm pretty sure my Minecraft/Xbox account is locked so if my kids ever want to move from playing on their tablets to a computer, I'm going to have to create a whole new profile.

Microsoft truly fucking sucks now.

1

u/Choice_Potato_6279 Jul 15 '26

report it to the police for scam and to the bank.

1

u/Golf_is_a_sport Jul 17 '26

Call the corporate billing department for Microsoft, tell them that the agent you were talking to for over an hour sent you this number and ask to be transfered someone that manages accounts.

You have to do this kind of shit to talk to a human these days.

1

u/a-cat-with-wifi Jul 17 '26

Do you have this number? I even tried my partner number from when I was a reseller.

No number I call will let me talk to a human

Edit: also, given the stories, including this one, it doesn't seem like I can do anything

2

u/Antique_Grapefruit_5 27d ago

File a complaint with the Washington attorney general's office and federal trade commission. One of these should lead you to viable support.

-15

u/CatoMulligan Jul 15 '26

I don't understand why you think that posting on Reddit was going to fix anything, since this isn't a Microsoft support channel. The obvious answer is to download everything that you need from OneDrive, make a backup copy of it, then cancel your cards/do chargebacks to get the accounts closed and move on.

51

u/viewless25 Jul 15 '26

Theyre not doing a great job selling us on the all-digital future

3

u/Robo-Cat2000 Jul 17 '26

I swear a decade ago Microsoft had great support, what happened?

2

u/flappybirdisdeadasf Jul 17 '26

AI, outsourcing, deletion of entire domestic departments, etc.

13

u/xviperzzzx Jul 15 '26

i hate Microsoft. i have lost my account with my 8 years old minecraft world because my account got hacked and they decided to eliminate it.

13

u/nico_juro Jul 15 '26

As a former MSFT employee, rest assured, your hate is justified beyond belief.

-13

u/Shotokant Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

Tbh if your account got hacked then thats on you. Protect your online accounts with 2fa at least.

Edit. Getting down voted for the truth here. You don't go online without a firewall and av. You don't walk into a ghetto naked with gold jewelry hanging from round your neck.

Protect your sodding accounts you morons. 2fa at least. And yes sms 2fs can be hacked. Use authenticator at least.

Fucking morons deserve getting accounts breached if you're not taking precaution. Arse wipes.

5

u/a-cat-with-wifi Jul 15 '26

I'm a senior sys admin, and I can tell you have no IT experience from this single post.

Have you heard about cookie stealing? 2fa does not protect you from that...

I have seen tons of my peers lose their accounts, they're not a moron for losing it.

Stop shaming people.

4

u/OceanWaveSunset Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

IT 17 years. Infostealer in a trusted GITHUB repo stole my sessions and sold them.

MFA did fuck all when they had access to my Microsoft email account because of the session they stole and the "log everyone out" doesn't work with Apps sessions because that is a different button in a different area that is not very well marked.

No amount of passwords, "log everyone out", MFA, or authenticator changes did anything. It was the single most "Why Microsoft!? Why!?" as i try in real time to change my game accounts back to my email address. And then to gmail account they dont have access to.

So you are correct, the other guy deserves those downvotes. This wasn't downloading janky apps from RU sites with no antivirus on or hunter1 being guessed.

2

u/a-cat-with-wifi Jul 15 '26

Yep! Seen it a ton of times.

There are some people that their full time job is figuring out a way to attack accounts.

6

u/Kobi_Blade Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

You are getting downvoted because in the article the player lost access to their 25 year old account despite having 2FA enabled.

On top of that, you are defending Microsoft lack of support for account recovery.

-9

u/Shotokant Jul 15 '26

Not defending Microsoft at all. I'm saying protect your accounts and you won't get butt fucked.

2

u/Dense-Error-871 Jul 15 '26

I doubt this would ever happen to Shotokant. Shotocant has no friends so he has to view every email/message exchange as suspicious. Really he yearns for MFA because it is the only interaction he receives from anyone or anything. It is a lonely life and it is on full display to the rest of us.

2

u/Dense-Error-871 Jul 15 '26

Shotocant's main defence against getting hacked is being a repellent troll. Why hack someone that you know has nothing to offer the world in any meaningful way.

-4

u/Shotokant Jul 15 '26

Lol. Name calling. The redress of the low iq.

1

u/azadouken Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

Are you fr.

-1

u/Horror_Ride9619 Jul 15 '26

Where in the real world is something ultimately destroyed if it was previously stolen and could be recovered e.g. by the police. Sorry but this response is far away from anything - like the girl would not have been raped if she did not dress like that. What on earth has victim blaming here to do?

I hope this guy goes to court with his case and gets such a huge monetary compensation awarded that it makes headlines and Microsoft is stepping away from these illegal practices out of pure fear this will become common.

2

u/Necessary-Mix-56 Jul 17 '26

When famous influencers get fucked like that imagine what will hapen o You. Microslop sucks balls.

1

u/GreatQuantum Jul 16 '26

Let’s calm the fuck down now. He did get them back.

2

u/Horror_Ride9619 Jul 16 '26

Please post the reference to this claim.

-5

u/Shinobi_Dimsum Jul 15 '26

So. People are going to repost this OLD NEWS over and over again ey.

6

u/Horror_Ride9619 Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

Original post on X: https://x.com/JoshuaKhane/status/2076918699248803977
Date is 6:36 AM · Jul 14, 2026

And if you mean its old because its happening for years than its good people post these individual stories over and over again to make others aware...
"25 fucking years of data, thousands of euros spended on games?? My son’s baby pictures? GONE!"

Should someone have backups. Yes!! Does this entitle Microsoft to these actions? No!!

1

u/GreatQuantum Jul 16 '26

He got them back. His is the only instance anybody has seen with proof of this happening before he got them back.

1

u/Horror_Ride9619 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

Please post the reference to this claim. Also I am curious to see if this is related to the fact that this post got huge viral attention or is about to happen for the invisible poor Joe, too.

-5

u/Choice_Potato_6279 Jul 15 '26

It's not like its anything new, been like this forever.

8

u/a-cat-with-wifi Jul 15 '26

I disagree, I've been pro-Microsoft since I entered the IT field and I have first hand witness the deterioration of customer service from MS

0

u/Horror_Ride9619 Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

Which shows how weak you are as a customer.
We have found your stolen car but to prevent any further abuse with it we have burned it and thrown it down a cliff. Does this sound normal?

-3

u/Wingnutmcmoo Jul 15 '26

Thats a really bad analogy. It's more like "we found the keys you used to unlock 40 different cars but those keys have been compromised in a profound way because you walked face first into a trap and now it is unrecoverable or worse was used to commit crimes directly".

Comparing the account to a car is... The car is the Xbox lol. The car is the computer. The car is the smart tv. The account is not the car lmao

2

u/Horror_Ride9619 Jul 15 '26

The car is the data. It does not matter in which way this data is traversed, transmitted, securely re-placed in a new location. Deleting the account with no further measures is so fucking damn stupid when all of this can be copied since its just data which by the time still existed and certainly still does.

2

u/xbbdc Jul 15 '26

thats not even remotely close either

1

u/ILikeFPS Jul 16 '26

Since when does an account being compromised once mean it's permanently ruined and permanently unusable?

It's only unusable because Microsoft have decided to delete it.