because in an effort to reduce spam and keep bogus emails from being received, Hotmail has increased security and screening. Everytime I sent someone an email and then logged into my account later that day, it would ask me to verify a string of numbers that were shaded, or disoriented, ect. This is the primary reason I switched to gmail. I also encouraged my friends to switch as well. Plain and simple, Hotmail is doing so much to keep bad things out, it's keeping the good out as well.