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:
- 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.
- When creating a new account, the password isn't entered twice for verification, only once.
- 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.