Afraid this is a Scam

jimbo45 said:

1) no problem with these products if bought from Amazon etc

Misleading. Amazon, like eBay, makes no warranty as to the efficacy of products sold by advertisers.

I've had 3 lots of these --still working properly after at least 1 year and surviving all updates and Windows upgrade releases without losing activation

I suspect more good luck than good management, or luckily the off-chance that it/they were genuine products from legitimate sellers. Again, caveat emptor.

if these things were activated by "illegal means" or dubious server keys then normally the thing would expire after 180 days.

No such condition tied to fake products, they expire when MS detects and decides to de-actiavte the license .. 18 days, 180 days, 1800 days, whenever.


Software and Amazon/eBay do not mix.

jimbo45 said:

That used to be true but people like amazon don't want their brand name to be driven down by selling dubious and pirated products.

Still true. That might be their marketing line, but still little is done to address the issue. And they accept no responsibility if it happens.

Also in the event of products not working -- did you read the comment on Credit cards -- the credit card company or bank must refund the money in the case of products not working as advertised.

After what period of time .... 18 days, 180 days, 1800 days ... ??

jimbo45 said:

Hi there

1) no problem with these products if bought from Amazon etc -- I've had 3 lots of these --still working properly after at least 1 year and surviving all updates and Windows upgrade releases without losing activation-- if these things were activated by "illegal means" or dubious server keys then normally the thing would expire after 180 days.

Two comments here . . . I can agree that Amazon.com is a legal reseller of Microsoft product. However, if Amazon "resells" a Microsoft product from a third party, it's not a sure thing.

Second, Microsoft is not going to let anyone use their product one day, much less 180 days if they know the product has been installed with an illegal product key, or activated by illegal means. In fact, if the key is illegal (not withstanding MSDN keys), it just will not work. i.e. I have keys from a past subscription. Each key works for one installation; if I sell it to three or four people . . . well, you get my drift.

As @idgat said,

No such condition tied to fake products, they expire when MS detects and decides to de-actiavte the license .. 18 days, 180 days, 1800 days, whenever.

jimbo45 said:

2) Buying from unknown suppliers is always AYOR. I doubt really whether most of these cheap products are really a scam because I'm sure Ms would have raised concerns about this now -- nothing so far on the Internet.

I really think though there's no excuse for horrendous English mistakes from some of the more dubious Chinese etc suppliers -- Google translate for even quite complex stuff works really well these days --unlike the obvious "Machine-ese" translations of a few year ago so any of those companies --AVOID.

You're preaching to the choir here, Jimbo. My post is titled "Afraid This is a Scam". Further, I'm not the one who bought the software.

Also, I called out the company name as suspicious. And, the particular email message I saw needed no translation via google, or any other translation method.

jimbo45 said:

3) If you pay with a CREDIT (not debit) card and the product fails to work you can get money back in most jurisdictions from the CREDIT CARD COMPANY or BANK if the supplier fails to give you a refund.

Actually, a debit card is pretty much the same as a credit card, in that if there's a question, the bank can take back the payment.

How do I know? I was in a recreational town and gave my debit card to pay for a small amount. Almost immediately, new charges were added to my account. My bank caught it, called me, and when I confirmed I hadn't made the purchases (almost impossible to be in three or four places at once) the bank took back all the charges except the first one I had actually made.

jimbo45 said:

The best way also if worried about installing software that you think is dubious is to take an image of your system BEFORE installing so just restore if you want to get rid of the software.

Again, you're preaching to the choir. Not only did I have a full backup, but I also downloaded from a "test" machine that didn't come anywhere near my production machine.

jimbo45 said:

Malwarebytes or any other A/V program won't protect you against scams in any case -- also has Malwarebytes over the last few Windows releases ever come up with anything that Windows defender and its real time protection modules have failed to recognize.

Duh! However, in this case, the company in question seems to have a bad rep, but there's evidence it's cleaned up its act. That said, although a scam won't be seen, a full scan will eliminate any question about malware before and after proceeding.

jimbo45 said:

WD these days is built on to the extremely robust security systems based on that designed for Ms's cloud AZURE service which probably has one of the best security systems out there for that type of service.

Windows Defender has failed me in the past; however, that was quite awhile back. I would say it's about as good as you can get for day-to-day protection.

In the event Windows Defender should fail, Macrium Reflect daily backups will pick up the slack and restore my stystem to what it was before.

The bottom line here, is that I had my friend's blessing to go ahead and install Microsoft Office Pro Plus, which she had already paid for, and if necessary, we would do a clean install. However, that turned out to be unnecessary.

We were also prepared to turn all the "evidence" over to the Arkansas Attorney General, Better Business Bureau, and Microsoft.

Wynona said:

We were also prepared to turn all the "evidence" over to the Arkansas Attorney General, Better Business Bureau, and Microsoft.

My friend has kept all the information about her purchase, download, installation, and activation of Microsoft Office. In the event she's notified the product isn't legitimate, she will turn the evidence over to all of the above.

Wynona said:

Well, I knew better.

I've been going back and forth with myself on whether to do a clean install or not; guess this experience has made me decide.

She had already tried to install, and some strange things were/still are going on with the computer, so I'm betting she's already infected.

I was beginning to wonder how she could mess up a brand new computer so badly, and I think I know how now . . . This isn't her first computer, far from it, and she's never had this much trouble before.

Thanks, Dalchina, Try3, elbmek, and xsteveuk. I'm convinced . . . especially since I'm finally connecting the dots. Sigh . . .

And now for the rest of the story . . .

In response to Jimbo, I lined out everything I'd done to stay safe, but was still concerned enough to consider a clean install because of the strange things that were happening; especially with her passwords!

So, when she opened Gmail, she kept getting a message that "Something's not right" with error number 301. Turned out that was Google Hangouts, and everyone and their dogs seem to get it sometime or another. Clearing the Cache in Firefox seems to have cleared that one up.

The other problem was with passwords. Every time she turned around, her password would no longer work. That one was a doozie!!!

She has two laptops; the older one was getting a little old, so she opted for a new one. Both are registered in the same name, with the same Microsoft account. I had the newer laptop at my house, and she had the older laptop at her house.

Sometime before I got involved, OneDrive would notify her the password was incorrect, so she changed it. Then OneDrive on the older laptop notified her its password was wrong, so she changed that one too. No matter how many times she changed the password, the OneDrive password just would not "stay put"! It was driving her nuts!

On top of these problems, she had bought and tried to install Microsoft Office, but it failed.

So, she brought me the computer and asked me to straighten it out. So, we stand on each side of my gate, masks on, and she hands me her computer.

Bear in mind that I have always had several computers, all registered in the same name and one of two Microsoft accounts. One Drive has never given me a moment's trouble with passwords, so I'm pretty new with this particular problem. I just knew she was having password trouble.

The first thing I did was to change the OneDrive password to the same as the Microsoft account password (which is as it should be). Now, OneDrive was working properly, and I let her know what I'd found so far.

I installed Microsoft Office, then shut her computer down.

When I booted it back up to make sure everything was OK, there was OneDrive with a problem again! When I tried to open it, the password was wrong . . . again!

I called her to give her the info, and she said the same thing had happened on the old laptop! That's when it clicked with both of us! She changed the password on one computer but didn't know it changed the password on the other one also! So! The password wouldn't work on the one I had . . . I changed the password . . . ad infinitim!

I told her to leave things alone; then I changed the password one more time, gave her the new one, and everything works correctly now!

Now Windows 10, OneDrive, and Skype all work with the same password! It seems that Skype requires the same password as Windows! I don't think it did in the beginning, but it does now.

thanks everyone for the input, interesting reading

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Wynona said:

Now Windows 10, OneDrive, and Skype all work with the same password! It seems that Skype requires the same password as Windows! I don't think it did in the beginning, but it does now.

I have Skype and its a different password to any MS ones I have. I do not use an MS account to open though, so that might be the reason.

treblefree said:

Why do people buy Microsoft 365 ?

Ever since Microsoft went to a subscription based model i have been using Libreoffice...it's free and does nearly everything Microsoft does.
Since, i have no use of Excel Spreadsheets,Databases,Powerpoint presentations etc as i am not in business environment as i only use Libreoffice Writer to update my cv due to being furloughed...job hunting in this new uncertain times.

totally agree. After I got stung - I spoke to MS and they said we wil lsell you a proper key. No I said, on principle, I already have one. So I downloaded open office, which works just fine. And, on advice from within, I also downloaded Libre, another very good piece of software. No going back for me, no need.