Gamertag remains active after 5 years of inactivity

Matheus Willder · Jul 31, 2020

I have a long problem with a gamertag and I will try to explain it briefly but in detail. In 2012 I closed a Microsoft Account that had the MatheusWillder gamertag associated with it. In 2015 I discovered that the account and the gamertag were still active
and, after speaking with Support at the time, I managed to close the account permanently, but I was left without access to the gamertag, which I would like to use in this current account. Now we are in 2020 and the gamertag remains unavailable for new use,
even after the 5 years that, according to the Microsoft Terms of Use, a gamertag is deleted and becomes available again due to inactivity. The main question is: why? Why is the gamertag still active even after so long since the account has been closed?

I can access the profile, add myself as a friend, see my old profile picture, that is, everything is exactly as I left it even after all this time, here is the link:

https://account.xbox.com/en-us/profile?gamertag=MatheusWillder

I have already contacted Chat Support, but to no avail. I was just told that the gamertag no longer exists, but it remains unavailable and the profile remains active, as you can see in the link above.

Unfortunately I used the new gamertag system to create a new one recently in this current account and seems not possible to go back to the old system without an Xbox 360 but, still, I would like to know why the gamertag is still there and if there is some
chance that I can use it again, even after creating a gamertag on the new system. The MatheusWillder gamertag is my real name, I use it on all my Social Networks, except here, because of this problem.

Is there anyone who can help me out here?

Thank you,

Willder

:)

HomegrownSilky

You wouldn't be able to use that as a gamertag anymore because it exceeds the new 12 character limit for gamertags.

killerkaesar

Xbox accounts that remain inactive after 5 years are not recoverable, if there is not activity in that time the account will be deleted

Smwutches

Please refrain from creating duplicate threads.

No one here can say exactly why it hasn't been released. The 5 year policy you mentioned in your previous thread started in 2016 (which means the 5 years would be 2021) and was changed on August 20, 2019 to 2 years if the person does not sign into their
Microsoft account within 2 years (still 2021). So if the system is going to free it up based on the terms of service, it won't be freed up until next year, but as stated in your original post, it would not be possible to change your tag to that one anymore
since it is over 12 characters.

killerkaesar

Xbox accounts that remain inactive after 5 years are not recoverable, if there is not activity in that time the account will be deleted

Also there is no way to combine the achievements of both accounts.

bowski477

Unfortunately you cannot request the gamertag if it is already in use. However the user is required to sign in once every 5 years for the account to remain active. If they do not it may become available in the future. Remember that there are other MS services
that use MS accounts and gamertags. So just because it's not active on Xbox does not mean it is inactive.

Gamertag remains active after 5 years of inactivity