> Microsoft that the account was locked due to activity on the account that 'violated their terms of service' What I dislike here most is that the explanation

> Microsoft that the account was locked due to activity on the account that 'violated their terms of service' What I dislike here most is that the explanation is probably a lie. If someone violated the rules then how providing a phone number can fix this? You are allowed to violate the rules if you leave a phone number? I remember a similar case. I registered email at outlook.com and after I tried to log in from slightly different IP (because my ISP uses dynamic addresses) there was a message that there was a "suspicious" activity, someone might be trying to log into my account and I must provide and confirm a phone number to access my account. I don't understand though how this can help if someone indeed had stolen my password. They could just provide their number and get access to an account. Also, Microsoft promised that they won't store my phone number. This is also strange. What's the point of asking for a phone number if you aren't going to store it? I think this also was a lie, and in fact they were storing something like a hash of a phone number and thought that this can be considered as "not storing a phone number". So basically what I don't like is the deceiving language that they use instead of being frank: we want to know your identity. They behave just like those Indian scammers who persuade people to buy gift cards.