previouslyLibreOffice accuses Microsoft of deliberately using complex file formatsas locking the user inMicrosoftPolicies on Office hinder the development of open source alternatives such as LibreOffice. Now, Microsoft has banned LibreOffice developer Mike Kaganski from using its service, citing "violation of [its] Services Agreement."
According to Mike, this happened last Monday when he tried to send a technical email to the LibreOffice developer mailing list (which is normal, he does it all the time), but Thunderbird returned an error saying the email couldn't be sent. After trying again, his account was frozen and his Microsoft account was completely logged out.
Kagansky speculated that his emails and account were flagged by a bot or something because he was pretty sure nothing in the emails violated Microsoft's terms of service.
So he decided to appeal, but later accused Redmond of being "extremely incompetent in IT" because of the appeal. The automated system asked him for his phone number, and when he provided it, he received a "Please try another method" error message.
The problem is there is no other way. So he decided to contact Microsoft support directly. After some searching, he found a link to contact the team with a button asking him to "Log in to contact support."
His problem is that he cannot log in at all, so how can he log in and contact customer service? As Kagansky himself said:
Yes, you read that right. "This is the page where we discuss login issues. Have you tried our FAQ suggestions? Still can't log in? No problem! Contact our support team and we'll have your issue resolved soon! But first, please log in before continuing."
He eventually submitted a complaint using his wife's account and received an email from customer service. The instructions in the email asked him to go to a login page and provide a phone number (which he already tried) upon receiving the account suspension. Microsoft ignored his detailed report of the failed process, marked his ticket as resolved, took no real action and simply closed it.
His account has not yet been reinstated. As for the email he was trying to send, he was later able to send it using Gmail and it did so without any issues. If you're interested, you can read the full text of the email yourself to see if it violates Microsoft's service agreement.
Mike isn't the only person whose account has been locked out recently and seems impossible to recover. On the 17th of last month, Reddit user u/deus03690 shared how Microsoft locked his account, which contained 30 years of "irreplaceable photos and work" on OneDrive.
Their appeal, like Mike's, has yet to come to any conclusion. The user said Microsoft contacted them 10 days later, asking them to fill out a recovery form and promising to help "every step of the way," but they never heard from Microsoft again.