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Does anyone else know what causes this? About 10 times now, different accounts have been locked and needed to be unlocked using a phone number and an activation code. I'm using MS's recommended practice of using regular, free Skype (we only have 10 accounts), but it has been a disaster.

Passwords are long and randomly generated, so nothing has been hacked as far as I can tell. I'm not violating the terms and conditions.

I can't find anything helpful anywhere else.

edit The accounts are only used on PCs and a couple of cell phones - installed by me, with the password I assigned.

edit 2 Testing a new account now, that nobody knows about. It's worth noting that MS makes the following mistakes or odd choices while handling Skype accounts:

  1. When logging in, the username is checked separately, before entering a password. If it doesn't exist, it won't take a password, and tells you about it.
  2. When creating a new account, the password isn't entered twice for verification, only once.
  3. If you paste the password, instead of typing it, MS requires you to add a phone number before allowing you to create the account.

edit 3 The new account got blocked too - nobody else knew about it. I also created a Live account with a gmail address, and it got blocked too. It wasn't even used for Skype. To be perfectly honest, I think MS is just harvesting phone numbers - since that's what's required to unlock these accounts.

This is ridiculous: in effect, you can't have a Live account without giving your cell phone number, but MS won't tell you that upfront. Instead, they just lock your account and ask you to unlock it. This is now a pattern that I've witnessed on at least 7 new Live accounts.

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  • As you're a bsiness have you considered using the Office 365 professional.business accounts that offer Skype for Business where you might get better results...
    – Kinnectus
    Oct 21, 2016 at 16:54
  • Microsoft recommends to use the free skype if you are a small business: support.skype.com/en/faq/FA34551/… Oct 21, 2016 at 17:06
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    maybe there is a device with the wrong password that "tries" to login with an old password and these attempts lock the account.
    – Asaf
    Oct 21, 2016 at 17:50
  • no, the accounts are only used on devices I installed Skype on, with the passwords I assigned - strong, random 16-character, complex passwords. Oct 21, 2016 at 18:26
  • Perhaps someone else has learned the account names and is trying to log onto your account, failing repeatedly. You might make yet another account name, and make sure no one who is not trusted knows the name. It could be a disgruntled employee... Oct 21, 2016 at 19:30

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A few years later now, I've learned this: you can use a single cell phone number to unlock multiple accounts. You get one text message per account, with a one-time use code, and that's all.

Each one of these accounts has stayed unlocked since then, I've never had any other issues with them.

So my recommended practice is: just create the accounts and use them, MS will lock them after a short while, so then go and unlock each one. Alternatively, possibly register those accounts to a cell phone number to begin with, and maybe they won't lock at all.

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