How do I contact MSN Hotmail Customer Service?

There is no “number”. Being a free service, Hotmail’s customer service isn’t
as extensive, or as immediate, as that of a full featured mail or ISP service
you might pay for. But there is a way to try to contact them.

First, I know of no phone number to reach a live person. Like I said, MSN
Hotmail’s a free service, and I would not expect phone support for it.

To contact Hotmail Customer Service:

• Log in to Hotmail – ideally with the account you have a question on, but any
  account will do.

• Click on Help, in the upper right corner of the Hotmail
  page:

  

• Click on any of the questions in the list that’s presented:

  

• Underneath the resulting answer to whichever question you clicked on, are a
  couple of links:

  

  Click on “Contact Us”

Now, at this point I’ve seen this link take you to a couple of different
places. You may be taken directly to a page with a “Contact Us by Email” form,
if you scroll down far enough. Or you may take the path I’m going to
show here.

• In many cases you’ll be taken to the MSN Support Home page, and asked to
  select the service with which you’re having trouble:

  

  Click on MSN Hotmail in the “Standard Services” list.

• It should then take you to a page asking what type of support you want for
  MSN Hotmail:

  

  Note: that even though other options are listed, the only
  option that actually has a button I can press is Email Support
  / Technical Support.

  Press the E-mail button.

• Finally, you’ll be taken to a page which begins with “Helpful Information
  for MSN Hotmail”, but if you scroll down far enough you’ll find a form you can
  fill out to contact MSN Hotmail support:

  

  Fill out the form and press Submit.

That sequence above is the preferred method.

Another approach is to use the Report a Security Vulnerability which includes links specifically
for stolen MSN Hotmail accounts.

•

So after having presented all that information, I have to be honest and tell
you that from what I’ve heard and the questions I get here at Ask Leo!, you
probably will not get a resolution to your problem. While I have heard
of some people getting responses, the vast majority apparently do not.

It’s worth a try, but I wouldn’t count on it succeeding.

I honestly don’t mean to sound like I’m bashing MSN Hotmail. But based
solely on the number of reports of problems, I can’t recommend relying on
it.

And that brings me to my ultimate recommendation: don’t use any free email
service for something you consider to be vital or important. Providing customer
service is expensive, and one of the ways that free services stay free is that
there’s little or no customer service. If you run into trouble, you are
frequently out of luck, and can easily and quickly lose everything in your
account.

Good luck!

[This is an update to an article first
published September 3, 2004.]