Greetings, This is going to be a long message, so feel free to stop reading if this doesn't apply to you. If you want to jump to the meat of the issue, search for two asterisks ** and you will get the main information without the background story.
On December 15th, my Microsoft Account was locked. I was given the standard information about going to a link to unlock it by having a code texted to me, enter that code and supposedly then it would have verified that I was me and gotten the account unlocked. However, as soon as I entered the code I got the message first, your account is now unlocked. Moments later, it was locked again. I tried to repeat the steps, only to be told I'd tried too many times and had to wait 24 hours. I called Microsoft Accessibility, and they basically said the same thing. I waited 28 hours, just in case, and the same thing happened. I waited another 25 or 26 hours and got the same thing. so, this is three days without access to my OneDrive, etc. I called again, and got the same answer. On the 5th day, I was rather stern without using any foul language, and insisted that they get me unnlocked because each time I only had one try at it, did everything correct, and was locked out again. This guy actually took the time to walk through the steps and saw that yes, it wasn't working as it should. He went to a different link with Microsoft and got me unlocked and said now, "this won't happen again, you are set." Eight days later, I was locked out again. I wrote someone I know personally that works for Microsoft and spelled out the situation and asked if there wasn't someone higher up I could talk with. This was December 28th. He was on vacation. On January 31st I shut off my computer, and had already turned off my Microsoft email on my iPhone, so that on Monday, January 3rd, I could call them and assure them I had not tried at all for 3 days, and didn't turn on my computer until I had them on the phone ready to connect with Quick Assist so they could see first hand how it blows out on the first attempt to unlock. After getting it unlocked with the nice ladies help, I strongly insisted I talk with a supervisor about this whole process. I was first told there were no supervisors ... but I said there had to be someone to handle customer complaints ... and after 40 minutes of being put on hold while she looked into who I could talk with, and her saying it is probably the groups I belong to that are triggering the spam warnings/suspicious activity, she put me in touch with her supervisor... Note, she did have a supervisor. He in fact, told me he was the one to give her the theory that the groups I belonged to were causing the problem. More on that soon. They got me unlocked again, but he theorized that it would be locked again because of the groups. He did say he would put in a ticket to the developers about this situation .... So, at that point, I changed my groups subscriptions to a Gmail address rather than my Microsoft Account address. I didn't like the way Gmail sorts things into the Inbox, and the "Important" box, so I created a new Comcast.net address, which I am now using for all my group subscriptions. While some emails end up in the Junk folder, because I'm not using my Microsoft Account Email, it hasn't resulted in my Microsoft account being locked. Back to my contact at Microsoft, I heard back from him later that day, and gave him the update as to where things stood. I requested access to someone higher up again to try and deal with this issue. He forwarded my email to someone much higher up the chain than him. Because that higher up person took this seriously, I was put in touch with two of their Microsoft 365 Office App Rangers. I had a conference call and spent a lot of time going through the issues and explaining how I no longer am using the Microsoft Account for these email groups, so the unlocking the account is not the prime issue; but am still having random emails from the groups ending up in Junk. Their solution, is below. ** I received the below from a Microsoft Support person whose title is: Microsoft 365 Apps Ranger <Deployment/Servicing/Activation/Accessibility> *from the App Ranger: The emails are ending up in the Junk folder because the "From" and "Reply To" email addresses don't match so Outlook treats it as a junk item. Adding the group emails groupn...@groups.io <mailto:groupn...@groups.io> to Outlook's safe senders list will not stop them from going to the Junk folder. You will need to add the email address in the From field to the Safe list Example from the header of a groups.io email: From: x...@gmail.com <mailto:x...@gmail.com> " Reply to: orbit-rea...@groups.io <mailto:orbit-rea...@groups.io> * my comments: It doesn't matter the group, and it applies to googlegroups.com as well; if the from and reply to fields do not match, Microsoft flags that as spam. If you are using your Microsoft Account email address for any groups.io or googlegroups.com email lists, this may indeed end up with them locking your Microsoft account. Microsoft sees these emails as spam, and it determines that you are engaging in suspicious activity that violates their privacy agreement because you are sending out spam... I think this is monumentally stupid on Microsoft's part, but they are being overly protective and do not seem to be able to determine that these are really from the group. If the group owners could do something to make sure the from and reply to fields read the same, that would solve the issue. In my experience, the emails that end up being treated this way are mostly Gmail addresses, and so perhaps groups.io and googlegroups.com cannot do anything to resolve this. The moral of the story: Do not use your Microsoft Account email for any email lists. And remember, the world is depending more and more on "Artificial Intelligence" to accomplish things. I think "Artificial Intelligence" is like Artificial Nails, they look like nails, but aren't. Richard "One can't be angry when one looks at a penguin." ~ John Ruskin My web site; https://www.turner42.com/ -- The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. Your V iPhone list moderator is Mark Taylor. Mark can be reached at: mk...@ucla.edu. Your list owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at caraqu...@caraquinn.com The archives for this list can be searched at: http://www.mail-archive.com/viphone@googlegroups.com/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "VIPhone" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to viphone+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/viphone/005301d80cbb%2495589da0%24c009d8e0%24%40comcast.net.
