Not too long ago I had a Motorola Q with Windows Mobile 5. It's supposed to have MSN Messenger on it, but one day it mysteriously stopped working. I put up with this for a while, but eventually I called Bell technical support. The conversation went something like this.
Support guy:
"Thank you for calling Bell technical support. How can I help you?"
Me:
"Hi, I've got a Motorola Q and MSN has stopped working on it. I keep getting a message saying that the service is not responding. This has been going on for a few months now."
Support guy:
"I see. We don't have a solution for this problem, so we'll need to do a bit of investigation. Can you please give me your MSN username and password so we can diagnose the problem?"
Steve:
"Uhh.....no."
Support guy:
"But we need that information so our support team can verify if the problem is with your MSN account."
Steve:
"I understand why you want the information, but it's my MSN username and password."
Support guy:
"Sir, your information is safe with us. We have a very explicit privacy policy that prevents us from disclosing your information to anyone outside of the company."
Steve:
"I understand that, but bear in mind that I too am subject to several NDAs and privacy policies. Even if I wanted to give you my MSN username and password, which I don't, I still couldn't do it because that would give you access to my contact list, which includes many business contacts. With my MSN username and password it would be possible for someone to masquerade as me and acquire confidential information."
Support guy:
"Well, I'm not sure how to proceed then. If you don't give us that information, we can't test to see if there's a problem with your MSN account."
Steve:
"Well, if you're just trying to find out if my MSN account is the problem, why don't I just create a new MSN account, attempt to login from my phone, and see if the new account works? If it does, we know the problem is with my old MSN account."
Support guy:
"Umm...I guess that would work."
Tech support taken to school once again.
I guess the whole "we will never ask for your username and password" line that most companies feed you only applies to their own software, and not software from third parties such as Messenger accounts. :)
(Apparently that was too short of a comment. Get on that, Steve.)