Too cheap Office 365's on ebay....what are they?
Discussion
I have just switched to an iMac 24" so need to buy an office suite and have stumbled across these on ebay.
They promise single or multi user 365's for a few quid - My dad got one a few months ago with no issues but said it had a random email address associated with it initially.
Does anyone know exactly what they are doing? Is it just unused accounts on old machines or something sinister?
The cost element isn't a worry its £5 i'm more concerned about someone gaining access to my documents if you're essentially using someone else's account....
They promise single or multi user 365's for a few quid - My dad got one a few months ago with no issues but said it had a random email address associated with it initially.
Does anyone know exactly what they are doing? Is it just unused accounts on old machines or something sinister?
The cost element isn't a worry its £5 i'm more concerned about someone gaining access to my documents if you're essentially using someone else's account....
There's no such thing as a free or perpetual Office 365 licence.
What these will invariably be are large scale academic (usually .edu) accounts, volume licensing of a sort, hence getting a random email address to use with it. They might last indefinitely, they could be pulled at a moments notice.
And no - they are not legitimate in any way, shape or form.
What these will invariably be are large scale academic (usually .edu) accounts, volume licensing of a sort, hence getting a random email address to use with it. They might last indefinitely, they could be pulled at a moments notice.
And no - they are not legitimate in any way, shape or form.
Probably not a security risk using word/excel etc, but 365 includes OneDrive access and I certainly wouldn't want to be using that if you don't know who else might be linked in to it.
If you want a 100% legitimate version, check if your work are on the Microsoft Home User Program, as that gives you a discount on a proper subscription, 30% off I think. Alternatively, depending how your work license it, you may be able to use it at home, my previous employers had the licence for the individual, meaning we were able to use it on private devices too.
If you want a 100% legitimate version, check if your work are on the Microsoft Home User Program, as that gives you a discount on a proper subscription, 30% off I think. Alternatively, depending how your work license it, you may be able to use it at home, my previous employers had the licence for the individual, meaning we were able to use it on private devices too.
joropug said:
The cost element isn't a worry its £5 i'm more concerned about someone gaining access to my documents if you're essentially using someone else's account....
This is the real point. Leaving any legality aside, if somebody gives you a login rather than a license key then you will just be an account under their control and they can do anything they like with your documents.extraT said:
Didn’t a court somewhere decide it was legal to (re)sell the licences, much to MS’s annoyance?
Yes they did and it is certainly not illegal as suggested by a previous poster to resell licences at whatever cost the seller chooses - this is a very common and oft-repeated misconception on here.extraT said:
Didn’t a court somewhere decide it was legal to (re)sell the licences, much to MS’s annoyance?
Yes you get a random email address, but password is unique and you can reset it.
To be clear: you don't get a license. It's not a "random email address", it's a corporate or educational account that is administered by somebody else. They retain full access to "your" account including your files and can change or revoke it at any time. You can change the password as much as you like but that won't make a blind bit of difference. In fact they can quite easily change "your" password and sell the account to somebody else and there wouldn't be a blind thing you could do about it.Yes you get a random email address, but password is unique and you can reset it.
Up to you if you want to take that risk but you can be pretty sure that the people selling these are not legitimate businesses interested in maintaining a long-term customer relationship.
Pre-365 licences are one thing, but 365 is a subscription product that you have to pay for every month. They don't get "left" on computers, or anything like that.
You could (and should) change the password. The administrator of the academic superuser account could reset the password for these generated accounts at any point and/or delete it and everything on it and you'd have no comeback whatsoever.
You'd probably be ok using 365 apps, but I wouldn't store anything on OneDrive.
You could (and should) change the password. The administrator of the academic superuser account could reset the password for these generated accounts at any point and/or delete it and everything on it and you'd have no comeback whatsoever.
You'd probably be ok using 365 apps, but I wouldn't store anything on OneDrive.
If its part of a corporate or edu package the main admin will also have access to areas such as the protection and compliance centre where they can search for specific keywords and be presented with documents etc if stored in OneDrive.
Personally I'd look at paying for a 365 home subscription, you can then share it with 5 or 6 family members and all can have office apps / 1tb OneDrive storage etc without sharing their data with each other or a random stranger, its around £80 per year from Microsoft, but you can buy keys from Amazon etc for a little less (they are valid and not dodgy resold licenses under someone elses license plan)
Personally I'd look at paying for a 365 home subscription, you can then share it with 5 or 6 family members and all can have office apps / 1tb OneDrive storage etc without sharing their data with each other or a random stranger, its around £80 per year from Microsoft, but you can buy keys from Amazon etc for a little less (they are valid and not dodgy resold licenses under someone elses license plan)
Sounds like I’ll swerve it. Annoyingly I don’t need any of the cloud features I just need a word processor and excel effectively, might try using google docs as an interim measure.
I don’t really want to pay a subscription but would happily pay for a legit offline only version if I can find that cheaper even if it’s an older version.
My current office is an old home use program but it’s for windows only I believe.
I don’t really want to pay a subscription but would happily pay for a legit offline only version if I can find that cheaper even if it’s an older version.
My current office is an old home use program but it’s for windows only I believe.
I pay for 365 as part of the "home use" program, i think it costs me £55 a year for 5 users (family), works well for me as use one drive for my phone pics backup.
I have also purchased a few 365 accounts off ebay for people, this time last year you got the downloadable version too, it still works for my uncle, the last 2 I've done have only been the online version and the sellers vanish overnight.
Normally a Spanish school email address that you get assigned.
I have also purchased a few 365 accounts off ebay for people, this time last year you got the downloadable version too, it still works for my uncle, the last 2 I've done have only been the online version and the sellers vanish overnight.
Normally a Spanish school email address that you get assigned.
These sites seem to sell proper licence keys rather than just a login to a .edu version:
https://theunitysoft.com/
https://www.electronicfirst.com/office-home-and-st...
I'm not sure about the second one but there are reports that the first one works ok.
Of course if you don't have to use MS there is always Libre office - https://www.libreoffice.org/
https://theunitysoft.com/
https://www.electronicfirst.com/office-home-and-st...
I'm not sure about the second one but there are reports that the first one works ok.
Of course if you don't have to use MS there is always Libre office - https://www.libreoffice.org/
Mr Pointy said:
These sites seem to sell proper licence keys rather than just a login to a .edu version:
https://theunitysoft.com/
https://www.electronicfirst.com/office-home-and-st...
I'm not sure about the second one but there are reports that the first one works ok.
Of course if you don't have to use MS there is always Libre office - https://www.libreoffice.org/
Yes - those are the old standalone versions rather than O365 subscriptions and will probably be fine.https://theunitysoft.com/
https://www.electronicfirst.com/office-home-and-st...
I'm not sure about the second one but there are reports that the first one works ok.
Of course if you don't have to use MS there is always Libre office - https://www.libreoffice.org/
joropug said:
Sounds like I’ll swerve it. Annoyingly I don’t need any of the cloud features I just need a word processor and excel effectively, might try using google docs as an interim measure.
I don’t really want to pay a subscription but would happily pay for a legit offline only version if I can find that cheaper even if it’s an older version.
My current office is an old home use program but it’s for windows only I believe.
The old microsoft office can still be bought legitimately and perpetually using the same "reselling spare licences" trick and that is entirely offline.I don’t really want to pay a subscription but would happily pay for a legit offline only version if I can find that cheaper even if it’s an older version.
My current office is an old home use program but it’s for windows only I believe.
joropug said:
Sounds like I’ll swerve it. Annoyingly I don’t need any of the cloud features I just need a word processor and excel effectively, might try using google docs as an interim measure.
I don’t really want to pay a subscription but would happily pay for a legit offline only version if I can find that cheaper even if it’s an older version.
My current office is an old home use program but it’s for windows only I believe.
You can use a free Outlook.com account and get the online equivalent of Google Docs.I don’t really want to pay a subscription but would happily pay for a legit offline only version if I can find that cheaper even if it’s an older version.
My current office is an old home use program but it’s for windows only I believe.
Personally I seldom do anything on my home computer that needs "full" Word/Excel.
joropug said:
No you’re right I don’t either it’s just nice to have it if you need it.
I’m going to try and get a stand-alone legit version that will last me or look into the alternatives I think.
The 2019 version is out of stock but they have the 2016 version for £23 (there may be 15% off for a couple of days).I’m going to try and get a stand-alone legit version that will last me or look into the alternatives I think.
https://theunitysoft.com/product/microsoft-office-...
Mr Pointy said:
The 2019 version is out of stock but they have the 2016 version for £23 (there may be 15% off for a couple of days).
https://theunitysoft.com/product/microsoft-office-...
Out of stock for Mac but I’ll keep an eye out cheers https://theunitysoft.com/product/microsoft-office-...
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