Got an email offering to fix your Outlook or refund you for the Microsoft outage? It’s probably a scam; he - The Economic Times
Scammers are exploiting Microsoft's ongoing global outage by sending fake emails promising Outlook fixes or refunds, as the tech giant gradually restores services across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
The disruption began around 11:17 a.m. EST on Thursday, November 12, with Outlook users across the US reporting problems opening inboxes, sending emails and accessing their accounts. Downdetector recorded nearly 130,000 Outlook problem reports shortly after 1 p.m. EST that day.
Microsoft's recovery efforts have started showing results. The company's latest update on Friday said service availability was improving across North America, with progress also reported in Europe and Asia-Pacific. However, the outage has not been fully resolved as of Friday, November 13.
Scam tactics emerge
Scammers may use the disruption to impersonate Microsoft support, send fake password-reset links and offer refunds to users waiting for their email services to return. These messages can use Microsoft's logo, familiar branding and language that looks like an official service notification.
Common warning signs include fake recovery links that steal passwords, refund offers requesting bank information, urgent account warnings threatening suspension, fake Microsoft support calls, and payment demands for supposed repairs.
Tech-support scammers impersonate well-known companies, including Microsoft. They may ask victims to install remote-access software, disclose financial information or pay for unnecessary services.
Refund policy clarified
Microsoft has service-level agreements for eligible business and enterprise subscriptions. Customers may qualify for service credits if an incident breaches the applicable service commitment, but these are not automatic cash payments to every Outlook user.
Personal Outlook.com and Hotmail users should not assume they are entitled to an outage refund. Businesses should retain incident records and check the applicable Microsoft service agreement before submitting a claim. The two incident references are EX1550543, covering Exchange Online, and MO1550821, covering the wider Microsoft 365 disruption.
Identifying genuine support
Microsoft has published guidance on identifying genuine support communications, listing domains such as microsoft.com, microsoftsupport.com and mail.support.microsoft.com as legitimate. A familiar sender name alone is not enough to establish that a message is genuine.
Microsoft makes one important point: it does not proactively contact people with unsolicited technical-support offers. Genuine Microsoft error messages do not provide a phone number and ask users to call for an urgent repair.
Recovery status
Microsoft says recovery is progressing across multiple regions, with email delivery and service availability improved in several areas. However, some customers may still experience intermittent access problems. The company has not announced a final restoration deadline.
The wider incident has affected Outlook, Exchange Online, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, Copilot and other Microsoft 365 services. Microsoft has found no evidence of malicious activity behind the outage, though scammers are exploiting the disruption.
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