More than 170,000 people have signed up for Codecademy’s challenge to learn how to code in 2012, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is one of them. The challenge, Code Year, was launched by New York-based startup Codecademy on Sunday and quickly took off as Twitter and Facebook users adopte…

When I tutored Computer Science back in college, I came to one conclusion: There are just some people who are unable to code. You need a certain switch to be flipped in your brain to be able to do it, and there are some people just don’t have it.

That is why I have never suggest coding to someone who isn’t a coder. If you are really good with computers and have that coding switch on in your brain, then you have probably already dabbled in a little HTML work or backend modifications. But if you never had the urge to find out how computers tick,  then I doubt that you will be able to pick up a language just like that, Mr. Bloomberg. 

About a month ago, I had noticed that my Xbox account showed FIFA and some other unfamiliar games in my recently played games section. My first thought was that someone had hacked into my account. I looked at my Microsoft points balance, and sure enough, all the $40 worth of credit I had on the account had been used on some “GOLD PACK” thing in late October.

“It’s that darn FIFA game again!” the Microsoft tech support rep said when I called them right after making the discovery.

“Oh?” I inquired. “Has this been happening a lot?”

“Oh yeah. I’m really starting to hate that darn FIFA game these days.” He got my information and then deactivated my account while they investigated the issue. Towards the end of December, they reactivated my account, restored my $40 of credit, and even gave me two month of free Xbox live for my trouble.

The rep had asked me if I gave my account information to anyone else online, and I honestly don’t believe I had. I fell for a phishing scam back in my freshman year of college, so I know exactly what to look for with the scam and how to avoid it. Even so, I checked my email archives and found nothing asking me to sign into my Xbox Live or Microsoft account.

It’s possible that they brute forced the password to my account, as it wasn’t the most complex string of characters to figure out. I made sure that my password is much harder to crack now. But there might be something else going on here that Microsoft needs to investigate and address. Don’t these people leave any sort of paper trail when they’re making these fraudulent transactions?