Deleting unused email accounts

[Kos]

Is it possible to delete an unused Hotmail account?
My son's account has been taken over by a spammer who sends drivel out to my son's contacts if ever anybody sends an email to his account.
He has a new account now so would like to remove his old, unused one, to stop getting flak off his contacts about him spamming them when it isn't actually him.

[jno]

isn't it still the case that if you just stop accessing a Hotmail account for a month it gets automatically deleted?

[squarebear]

Ask him to change his password to his hotmail account and this will stop. No need to make a new one.
He will have filled something in like this: http://www.square-bear.co.uk/mitsuku/msn.htm
I made that as an example of how easy it is to trick users out of their emails. Within an hour or two of me putting it online and passing it around, I had over a dozen genuine email addresses and passwords.

Naturally, I did nothing with the accounts, apart from warning the owners how stupid they had been. You should never pass your password and login details to anyone.

[Kos]

Trouble is JNO, if anyone sends him an emailI assuem it registers as the account being used?

I'll try that SquareBear however I don't think people are logging into his account, it seems like he has been infected with something that whenever an email is sent to him or he replies to one it automatically triggers spam to people in his Contacts ist.

[squarebear]

Does your son use MSN messenger (or live messenger as it's now called)? If so, I can almost guarantee he's given his password out.

[jno]

yes, that's a point... try changing the password, it worked for me when I got hacked, then just abandon the account

[ChuckFickens]

you can close a hotmail account here

http://mail.live.com/...ountConfirmation.aspx

And it will stop accepting any emails, if it's left for 120days it's will be deleted permanently, otherwise it's possible to reactivate it at any time upto 120days just by logging back in to the account.

But as Squarebear says all you really have to do is change the password on the account to solve the problem