Adding contacts and spam requests from multiple contacts.

I've had this problem for years and its gradually got worse and worse.
Whenever I add a contact to my messenger it fails to add them properly, right
clicking only gives me the option to "send email" to the person, I then
delete the contact and add them again for it to show as "send offline"

The contact never comes online though, I've tried this with multiple people
and multiple accounts and the only way I can add and chat with someone as
normal who is new is if they add me first and I get a add request from them.

I also seem to get hundreds of requests to add contacts, mostly spam ones
and old contacts I've deleted. There seems to be a monumental problem with my
MSN account as its about 10 years old now, my newer account works just fine
but I need the old one working as its my primary account.

Greetings,

Since this has been happening for years, I assume this means through several versions?
Assuming yes, Messenger would've re-built the local contact store, so it's most likely
something wrong with your account on the server side. Unfortunately your best bet is to get
this escalated by directly contacting Messenger support:
https://support.live.com/eform.aspx?...ger&ct=eformts

Note that it will probably take at least one reply by you after your initial request to have
your problem escalated even though it's quite obviously not a problem you can locally fix.

Re: spam requests. The latest bunch seem to have come from the various spammers who have
collected Messenger and Hotmail credentials throughout the last few years by using phishing
schemes. Even though you personally may not have given out your username and password, if
*anyone* else on your contact list did, spammers can now log into their account, grab their
entire contact list and sell them off the highest bidder. Sadly it seems that Messenger will
need better spam controls in the future to handle this problem.

--
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger
MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
MessengerGeek Blog: http://www.messengergeek.com
Messenger Resources: http://messenger.jonathankay.com
(c) 2010 Jonathan Kay - If redistributing, you must include this signature or citation
--




"Lawz" <> wrote in message
news:9F8B038C-E1B0-44C9-A705-...
> I've had this problem for years and its gradually got worse and worse.
> Whenever I add a contact to my messenger it fails to add them properly, right
> clicking only gives me the option to "send email" to the person, I then
> delete the contact and add them again for it to show as "send offline"
>
> The contact never comes online though, I've tried this with multiple people
> and multiple accounts and the only way I can add and chat with someone as
> normal who is new is if they add me first and I get a add request from them.
>
> I also seem to get hundreds of requests to add contacts, mostly spam ones
> and old contacts I've deleted. There seems to be a monumental problem with my
> MSN account as its about 10 years old now, my newer account works just fine
> but I need the old one working as its my primary account.

Thanks for your response, I'd hoped you would respond and confirm what I
first thought. I've always thought it was something to do with the server
side of things as it has happened over a few versions now and just gets
worse. At present I'm no longer able to add contacts to speak to unless they
add me. What are the chances of MSN taking this more seriously and fixing it
their side?

"Jonathan Kay [MVP]" wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> Since this has been happening for years, I assume this means through several versions?
> Assuming yes, Messenger would've re-built the local contact store, so it's most likely
> something wrong with your account on the server side. Unfortunately your best bet is to get
> this escalated by directly contacting Messenger support:
> https://support.live.com/eform.aspx?...ger&ct=eformts
>
> Note that it will probably take at least one reply by you after your initial request to have
> your problem escalated even though it's quite obviously not a problem you can locally fix.
>
> Re: spam requests. The latest bunch seem to have come from the various spammers who have
> collected Messenger and Hotmail credentials throughout the last few years by using phishing
> schemes. Even though you personally may not have given out your username and password, if
> *anyone* else on your contact list did, spammers can now log into their account, grab their
> entire contact list and sell them off the highest bidder. Sadly it seems that Messenger will
> need better spam controls in the future to handle this problem.
>
> --
> Jonathan Kay
> Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger
> MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
> MessengerGeek Blog: http://www.messengergeek.com
> Messenger Resources: http://messenger.jonathankay.com
> (c) 2010 Jonathan Kay - If redistributing, you must include this signature or citation
> --
>
>
>
>
> "Lawz" <> wrote in message
> news:9F8B038C-E1B0-44C9-A705-...
> > I've had this problem for years and its gradually got worse and worse.
> > Whenever I add a contact to my messenger it fails to add them properly, right
> > clicking only gives me the option to "send email" to the person, I then
> > delete the contact and add them again for it to show as "send offline"
> >
> > The contact never comes online though, I've tried this with multiple people
> > and multiple accounts and the only way I can add and chat with someone as
> > normal who is new is if they add me first and I get a add request from them.
> >
> > I also seem to get hundreds of requests to add contacts, mostly spam ones
> > and old contacts I've deleted. There seems to be a monumental problem with my
> > MSN account as its about 10 years old now, my newer account works just fine
> > but I need the old one working as its my primary account.
>
>
> .
>