I've recently started receiving daily emails from people using Microsoft-associated addresses that begin with "v-." This was quiet for several years, but now each message is followed by a calendar invitation. The senders appear to be trying to establish contact or confirm that my address is active. These used to be treated as third-party outreach rather than official Microsoft communication—is it still reasonable to ignore them, especially when there's no related support case or request I'm expecting?
4 Answers
Generally, yes. The “v-” address usually indicates a contractor or third-party worker rather than a direct Microsoft employee. In many cases these messages turn out to be sales outreach framed as a licensing or compliance audit. If you aren’t expecting the contact and don’t have an open support ticket, there’s usually no need to engage.
Read receipts aren’t the only way senders can track engagement, but you can disable or strip read-receipt requests. Some organizations remove read-receipt headers from messages sent by external parties, which can reduce this kind of tracking and cut down on unwanted follow-ups.
Microsoft uses contractors for services such as Microsoft 365, SharePoint, and Teams, so a v- address alone doesn’t prove the email is malicious or officially sponsored. Still, if the message isn’t connected to an existing case or something your organization requested, ignoring or filtering it is reasonable.
I ignore these messages unless they relate to a support case I opened. Repeated calendar invites are especially easy to decline or filter, since accepting the invitation—or responding to the sender—can confirm that the mailbox is monitored.
A licensing audit can sound urgent, but it’s worth confirming who actually initiated it before treating it as an official Microsoft audit. Third-party vendors sometimes use that wording to open a sales conversation.