I have to say, the account verification system appears to be deeply flawed. There are too many assumptions about the way that people manage their accounts, and the retrieval process appears to allow only 2 attempts before terminating not just the process, but the account itself.

This issue is due to a an email with an attachment which was not properly identified or flagged by Outlook - the on-screen messages did not flag the content as a script, though this must be what was used to hijack my account. Essentially, the fault is Microsoft's.

I have now been advised by the automated system that the best option is to create a new account. This will not do, since I have multiple login's (facebook being one) which depend on this email.

Please can a human with discretionary ability get in touch to resolve this issue.