[BlazingArizona]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but kiss that account goodbye. When you lose the password to a conventional e-mail account such as you get from your Internet provider (or have the password changed on you by a hacker, in your case), recovery is a simple matter because your provider knows who you are. Your Internet service is set up with them at a specified street address, with the e-mail account as a feature of that service. You just have them reset the password and send you an auto-generated replacement. But when you open an account with Gmail, Hotmail or other free public e-mail-only service operating "in the cloud", the service doesn't know who you are. When you contact them claiming that you have lost your password, they ask for some personal information related to the account. After a couple of days you get a form response saying they could not verify that this is your account, and you're screwed. Just walk away, sign up for another free public account, and use it to tell all your friends that your old address is now lost to a Russian spammer.

[PJ-Comix]

I am now convinced that providing incredibly CRAPPY support is a marketing ploy on the part of hotmail. See, they really want you to sign onto their PAID service so they treat users of the Free service like dirt. I also see a similar marketing ploy by airlines. When I was a kid the airlines treated EVERYBODY like royalty. In fact one time we even flew first class and I didn’t notice much difference from coach except that we sat closer to the front of the plane and got to talk to the pilot. Nowadays, airline personnel treat coach passengers like DIRT. Why? Because it gives them an incentive to fly First Class. So now Hotmail is crapping over its Free users because they want people to PAY for their service. If not, you get treated like dirt.