One of the new users could ask a service for a password re-set on one of your accounts, and that service will send the re-set email to the old address. If you have used these Hotmail addresses to sign up for any other services, such as Facebook, then you may be at risk. There is, unfortunately, a potential security problem with recycling email addresses. There's not much you can do about this, except make sure you have sent your current email address to all the people you know. If so, I would expect the emails to be delivered to what are now the 'wrong' people. However, some of your old contacts might still use these addresses. These new owners will not have access to your old email or contacts, but they will have different security questions, which is why you can't answer them. The new owners would see your efforts to gain access as hacking attempts. If they are not available, then Microsoft has returned these names to the pool and someone else has taken them. ( has replaced Hotmail and Live Mail, but Microsoft still allows users to create accounts using these old addresses.) If they are still available, grab them. Go to and try to create new accounts using your old addresses.

That's why you can't recover them using the page for Forgotten password or other sign-in problems.

I'm confident that all the contents of your two old Hotmail accounts will have been deleted. After 90 days, Microsoft deleted the account and eventually recycled the address. If you logged on within 90 days, you could retrieve your account - and your email address - but not your email. If you failed to log on for 30 days, Microsoft deleted your email and contacts, but did not delete the account. If you opened an account and did not use it for 10 days, Microsoft deleted it.

Microsoft only counted 'active' accounts and took draconian measures to deal with ones that weren't.

My main concern is that there is info in them that could lead to identity theft and financial fraud.Ī lot of people used Hotmail for temporary accounts, or set up accounts that they rarely if ever used. It appears they've been hacked, and I have failed all attempts through Microsoft's automated questionnaire. Although I know the email addresses, I have completely lost access to them. I had two Hotmail accounts back in the heady days when I was young and in a band.

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