It's about what they DON'T tell you

While on a service call the other day I discovered a customer who had been paying for Microsoft's MSN Messenger Plus for the past seven years. Her reason for giving out an extra $30 per year to the Big M was to ensure her mailbox never got full.

It turns out that a few years ago Microsoft removed in-box size limits on Hotmail accounts. Now they grow with you depending on your usage habits. Did anyone bother to tell her? Possibly, but she doesn't remember getting any e-mails about it.

So, Microsoft was happy to continue charging her credit card every year. I wonder how many others are still paying to have an increased mail box. Sure there are a couple other benefits of the service, like larger attachment sizes (which also keep getting larger - for free), and the benefit of not having to log in every 30 days without losing your account (but she checks her Hotmail everyday anyway).

For her, the service was redundant so I helped her to cancel the annual subscription. Boy, was that difficult. I can't imagine someone barely computer literate to try and figure that process out. It was made so difficult to navigate to the right page to find the right option and even if someone wanted to opt out they might give up out of frustration.

So easy to start, so hard to quit. Kinda sounds like a bad habit. Shame on Microsoft!