Just the other day me and my Girlfriend bought a new Windows 7 tablet (Acer Iconia W500) – the tablet is pretty good but before purchasing it we did allot of research and most people said that windows 7 wasn't an ideal Operating System for a tablet. So we had planned to use the Windows 8 Upgrade Offer to upgrade our Windows 7 to Windows 8 for only £14.99!!
Things started off great, we received our tablets, set them up and played around with them. They are a little bit slow at times but overall I think there awesome. We both started filling in our request on the Windows 8 Upgrade Offer Website.
For my Girlfriend, the process was simple, she input her contact details clicked next and got a “confirmation” page. Sweet. For me however the process can be comparable to licking fresh dog shit. No actually sorry I would have preferred that than what I got…
So it started on the Upgrade site, I input my details and clicked next (bare in mind I have the same tablet), immediately I was given a screen that asked for my key – which was odd but I just filled it in with the key that came with my tablet.
Once complete I clicked next again, and was given a “failed” page which said I was not eligible – however no further information was provided to me.
So now I had a problem, I knew I was eligible because my girlfriend has the same tablet, same OS and it was bought the SAME TIME – So (because I was at work) she phoned the Microsoft Support as instructed on the website.
So first ring – they instruct her of another number she must call, this number seems to point to an Indian call centre (obvious by the accents) – the line was terrible, the people could not understand her and apparently there was plenty of background noise to break the language barrier completely even though there was no chance of communication working successfully anyway…
So just a one off you might think, well no actually, she rang over 10 times, they either could no understand her problem, didn't know what a Tablet was, didn't know what to do, put the phone down on her or just asked her to call the Microsoft Support number again, which would forward her back to the Indian call centre!!! HOW REDICULOUS IS THAT.
So eventually she had enough and rang the Microsoft Support number again, told them that she was fed up of trying to talk to the Indian call centre because of the problems I mentioned above, she actually told the guy “I refuse to talk to them” – he said okay well call this support number and they will sort you out… HOWEVER THIS NUMBER WAS THE SAME INDIAN NUMBER, when she said “hold on no this is the number that is unhelpful to me”, the guy in the call centre just kept repeating “thanks for phoning Microsoft, have a good day” and ignoring her!!!
So then we took to the live chat service, again I had the same problems, I actually said in my opening message that the call lines were junk and explained all the trouble, there response was “please call our Support Line” – I mean WTF SERIOUSLY!?!?!
After some messages demanding to speak to the supervisor (at one point they said there wasn't one!) I was finally passed on to someone who I’m pretty sure was pretending to be the supervisor.
This person pretty much did the same thing, she made herself sound helpful at first then just said “call Microsoft Support” and within a minute DISCONNECTED CHAT!
So now we were both SUPER PISSED OFF, we forgot about Windows 8 and was a little more interested in killing someone important.
After a bit of calm I decided to go for the “form” approach and filled in the contact form on the site, this brought me some useful response, however this has not fixed my problem.
Another call to the call centre today with a reference number from the contact form has yielded some more promising results, apparently there is a major problem with the system and they will get back to me ASAP while they try and fix the problem because my Windows 7 is activated and should be eligible.
Let me tell you, for such a large and influential company, support is definitely an after thought with Microsoft, just think, were not phoning up with a silly virus warning or we forgot where the power button was… We wanted to BUY SOMETHING from them and be LEGITIMATE.
And they wonder why more people have counterfeit Windows than the real thing, high prices and no support is not going to persuade anyone to pay for something.
Fingers crossed I will get a response soon form Microsoft with a solution – anyone else having terrible Microsoft support?
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You're forgetting the one call that I was most annoyed at; I was passed around from the microsoft switchboard through 5 people and finally got to talk to what I was told was a supervisor, they said they where going to get their manager to call me within the hour, when she called I explained my problem to her, she said "ok..." then I heard the hold music for half a second and the phone went dead, blind panic on her end perhaps? Oh and because I had to wait for her to ring me (and was an unknown number)… Read more »
This is basically what I was like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc&feature=related
Apart from loving the company.
I remember once i had to call Microsoft support and i run into the same communication problems.
Serioulsly bud, ACER? With Windows?
I have no good words to say about Acer.
I know lots of people with Acer laptops and got into allot of problem.
Not only that but they came full of crap.
And windows 7 on a tablet is really a bad choice.
You should have considered a IPad or a Galaxy Tab, that is great and cheaper than IPad.
Struggling here too. Tried to go through the upgrade offer and got "fail" twice with a Visa debit card, so moved on to using Paypal, another "fail" all windows closed
Paypal transaction did go through, but no email from MS with a key or download site.
Support was ok, but just advised by "Neena" that it had been escalated. No email confirmation or reference #, so who knows if it will go anywhere.She did a heck of a lot of typing, so seriously hoping so!
Update: they never helped us and we both now have ipads......sucks to be you microsoft.