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Unable to access a microsoft account having a subscription, in order to cancel it

John Bingham 40 Reputation points
2025-12-06T09:37:37.4233333+00:00

Hi.

My issue concerns getting into the microsoft 365 admin center. I couldn't see any specifically relevant tags, so I selected what I did.

To post this question, I have logged into microsoft using my regular email, and had a code sent to my email for verification. However this account doesnt have my microsoft 365 subscription attached to it.

If I go into Excel, and select File->Account, under product information it shows:

Subscription Product for Information deleted for privacy protection

If I attempt to log in to microsoft 365 admin center using Information deleted for privacy protection, (I supplied a password initially) it comes up with verify your identity, text +XX Information deleted for privacy protection - which matches my phone number; but when I click this, I immediately get:

"Sorry, we're having trouble verifying your account. Please try again." (in red). I do not receive a text.

If I then click cancel it shows this account as being signed it, but I can't do anything with it (in the admin center for example) because it isnt satisfied that I have verified yet.

If I now click on use another account then:

I can log in with the email I've used to log into Microsoft Q&A no problem, but of course this doesnt have the subscription so it's no good.

If I enter my phone number, I get "We couldn't find an account with that username. Try another, or get a new Microsoft account."

If I re-enterInformation deleted for privacy protection, it asks me for my password, but if instead of entering it (as I did originally), I click "Forgot my password", I can then be emailed on my alternate email (the email I use here) which works albeit that after following this process and changing password, the whole situation repeats from scratch (unable to verify); Alternatively if I click text "Text my mobile phone", and I put in my phone number, it either wont accept the number format, or if I simply delete the zeroes preceding the country code, and network code, then it says: "Oops! We encountered an unexpected error while contacting you." (in red).

This then seems to be the whole of the problem - that the tool is for whatever reason unable to text me - though the phone number is definitely correct (at least entered here it is definitely correct: where it is shown as a bunch of Xs, the last two digits match, but obviously I don't know for certain the rest of it is right - though I expect it is probable).

But what can be done about this? And bearing in mind I cannot login and verify the account to which this verification method is presumably attached, I cannot change it, and thus this seems a vicious circle.

Can you please help?

Thank you,

Microsoft 365 and Office | Subscription, account, billing | For business | Windows
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  1. Ryan-N 8,555 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2025-12-06T22:30:29.9166667+00:00

    Please understand that our forum is a public platform, and we will modify your question to cover your organization domain name in the description. Please notice to hide these personal or organization information next time you post error or some information to protect personal data.

    Hi @John Bingham,

    Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A forum.

    Thank you for contacting us. We apologize for any inconvenience this issue may have caused you. Please allow us to provide the following information:

    In this case, to help you restore account access and assist with resetting and reconfiguring MFA, we recommend that you contact Microsoft’s Data Protection team.

    Once your account access has been restored, we suggest requesting their step-by-step assistance in setting up MFA to ensure this issue does not occur again in the future.

     

    To contact the Data Protection team, please follow these steps: Link to make a call: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/customer-service-phone-numbers-c0389ade-5640-e588-8b0e-28de8afeb3f2#ID0EBBD=signinorgid

    Instructions when calling:

    • Reason for the call: AdminCenter
    • Role: Global Administrator
    • Request description: Mention the keyword “AdminCenter”
    • If asked whether there is another admin: Answer “No” to be transferred to the support team and have a service request created.

     

    Note: We appreciate your understanding regarding the scope of support through this forum. Our role is to provide general guidance and assist with common troubleshooting steps. We do not have access to internal systems or administrative tools required to handle account or backend issues, but we will continue to support you within our responsibilities.

    I hope this information is helpful. Please follow these steps and let me know if it works for you. If not, we can work together to resolve this. Thank you for your patience and understanding. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please feel free to share them in the comments on this post so I can continue to support you.

    Looking forward to your response.

    If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment". 

    Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread

    1 person found this answer helpful.
Answer accepted by question author
  1. Ryan-N 8,555 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2025-12-09T16:10:30.6666667+00:00

    Hi @John Bingham,

    Thank you for sharing. I’d like to provide some additional information as follows:

    If calling the hotline is not effective, I’d like to suggest an alternative solution to contact Microsoft Support:

    You can create a trial tenant and, through that tenant, submit a ticket to Microsoft Support. After you create the ticket, a live agent will proactively contact you and directly assist with restoring access to this account.

    https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/business/microsoft-365-plans-and-pricing?msockid=0b383d9b8468649f297528d9851765ce

    User's image

    Once the tenant is created, you can follow the steps I’ve provided below to stop automatic renewal when the trial subscription expires.

     

    Steps to submit a ticket to Microsoft Support:

    1. Go to admin.microsoft.com using the trial account you just created.
    2. Click on Help and Support. User's image
    3. Enter the title: Need assistance restoring access for tenant … User's image
    4. Click on Contact Us.
    5. Choose the contact method you prefer. User's image

    After completing these steps, the system will receive the ticket and assign it to an agent. The agent will then proactively contact you using the method you selected.

     

    Steps to stop automatic renewal for the trial subscription:

    1. Go to admin.microsoft.com.
    2. Click on Billing > Your Products. User's image
    3. Click on your subscription.
    4. Click on Edit Recurring. User's image
    5. Select Off to disable automatic renewal.

    Alternatively, you can directly ask the agent who is helping restore access to assist you in turning off automatic renewal for your trial subscription.

     

    I hope this information is helpful to you. If you encounter any difficulties during the process, please let me know. I’ll be happy to assist you.

    If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment". 

    Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread. 

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  1. John Bingham 40 Reputation points
    2025-12-09T00:30:21.2533333+00:00

    Thank you for taking the time to give me this answer, but when I ring microsoft, saying "AdminCenter" clearly, is unrecognised; "Support Request" asks me for serial numbers, and everything else just resulted in me being redirected to online resources - which are of course no help what-so-ever

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