Microsoft’s Truly Awful Tech Support

Two days ago I went online and purchased Office 365 for Mac (2016) and downloaded it. But when I tried to open any of the apps (Word, Excel, etc.) none of them would launch. I got a pop-up that said “Invalid” and when I clicked on “More” got a window full of alphanumeric code. I saw something about “library” in there.

I tried to access MS’s online chat and after a long session we tried deleting various files, deleting all the Office apps and reinstalling Office. No luck. I went through this process twice.

I got another, supposedly higher up tech person. He was going to have me repeat all that and I let him know it had all been tried. Could we please just download Office 2011 for Mac, which I had deleted on the advice of my first techie. He navigated me to the appropriate web page and started the download. When we were all done it turned out we had Office 365 for Mac 2016 all over again!!!

The last tech sent me an email apologizing for the problem. He gave me both n 800 number to call and a support website URL. I tried the phone and got nothing but a continual outgoing message to go to the support website. No advice of my call being answered by a real person, no telling me I was in a queue position. So I ended the call and tried the support website, which put me through the same bunch of crap as my first two tech “support” attempts. And its responses to my inputs told me it was clearly some kind of AI robot, not a real person, as it clearly never read my original message.

I am now downloading the Apple apps for the MS files I have used up to now (Pages, Numbers, etc.) and as far as I’m concerned Microsoft can go bankrupt.