By Juan Ignacio Osendi, MSN Messenger MVP – The first thing we should know in these cases is that the law is on our side: password theft is punishable by imprisonment. We should go to the nearest police station and report the theft, just as we would if a valuable item, such as a car, had been stolen. If we are minors, we should be accompanied by an adult, preferably a parent or guardian. If your parents tell you it’s stupid to do this, you should make them aware that with your password, any stranger can access your information stored in places like blogs, communities, email, etc., and can also impersonate you and commit fraudulent acts (such as emptying your bank account), which could put you in serious trouble.
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It’s not crazy or foolish to go to a police station to report the theft of a Passport account, and there are already precedents where offenders have been brought to trial to be sentenced and to compensate their victims. Yes, you read that right, you are entitled to compensation.
But not only should we notify the authorities, we must also notify Microsoft so that it can take the appropriate measures to recover our account or at least limit the intruder’s possibilities with our information until the problem is clarified.
To do this, we must contact MSN technical support here, filling out the information requested and explaining our difficult situation, as well as providing any information that proves that the account is legitimately yours (date of creation, when you lost it, etc.). Technical support will contact you quickly and ask you to answer a series of questions to prove that the account actually belongs to you.
Tip: When you fill out the contact form, save a copy of it, as well as the incident number provided when you click the “Submit” button. Oh! And remember to include a different email address than the one stolen, or technical support won’t be able to contact you. This isn’t the first time someone has made this mistake and then complained about not receiving any response from Microsoft.