Dear Microsoft Support Team
 

I was logging into my messenger today when I got the following message:
"Windows Live(TM) Messenger Service Staff says:
Important service announcement: As part of a recent system enhancement, we need you to change your e-mail address to continue signing in to the Windows Live(TM) Messenger Service.

To ensure that your access is not blocked and to learn more, go to http://support.microsoft.com/gp/Messenger/en"

This was straight forward enough. The company that owns my domain wants it back and I have to switch usernames and emails.

Well, overall that wasn't too complex, was it? So I'm reading through the page of information and I want a little bit of clarification. I'd be more than happy to simply email in a question, as my need for information is not urgent.

But then I actually tried looking for help. The link on the page I was told to visit leads to a help and support line. Problem is, it does not list Windows Live Messenger in its list of products, and the only way to send an email from there is if I shell out 59 dollars to send in a help request to a business solutions professional.

So I start to look at other support, hoping I might find a way to contact support. There is no contact information listed. Anywhere. Every link that might lead to contact information for support (including the buttons that say contact us) only leads to more confusing and poorly documented and labeled links, leading me down a labyrinthian maze to pure madness.

After carefully trying to locate a way to contact you for more than an hour, I have concluded that you do not in fact actually exist, and any attempts to communicate directly will be pointless, as there is no actual support. After careful consideration I have concluded that you can find whoever reserved MY email address for themselves, and shove a large, sharply bladed object into their rectum.

My sincerest apologies on your upcoming butt trauma,
Paul Long

That sounds like spyware/phishing to me.

Or an attempt to register many illegal accounts for use in a botnet of some sort. Remember, DDoS attacks rely on taking as many zombie computers as possible, making as many accounts as possible (email, site accounts, etc.), and then automating it all to throw as much at a site or service as possible in an attempt to cause a continuous buffer overflow that expends all the system's resources, thereby denying said site or service to the general public as the botnet floods it with more than it can quickly process.

Sounds like just another day in my life. Especially about the part where MS's website is a hulking Cthulian mass of strange links that lead you in circles to places that don't really exist. Even worse, I've tried calling them for customer support on my X360, and it is hard to find anyone in their customer service department that doesn't have a thick middle eastern accent. I mean, if someone is a minority working in America, thats fine, that was the foundation America was started on. But goddammit I would love if MS would make sure that people knew how to talk before they hired them as telephone operators.

It's more then likely a call-center in India or something. That's happening more or more these days, because we want call centers and customer service but we don't want to have to be the ones to work at one.

Lies. We dont mind working at call centers at all. We just refuse to work for the 17 dollars a day they will in India.

EDIT: Also regarding this topic....Imagine that, something from Microsoft poorly planned and difficult or impossible to use.

Just like the original XBox and its 60-button controller!

I kid, but Microsoft's site in general is in major need of an overhaul. I can't count the number of dead help links I run into while trying to get an answer on nondescript errors while debugging my programs.

At least he's not typing "M$"
 

Wait, what? Considering current-ish gen and not counting joysticks and start/select buttons:

Xbox: 8
360: 8
PS2/PS3: 8
Gamecube: 7 plus the c-stick


??

Yeah dude Jaguar was the sixty-button controller, Xbox was the sixty-ton controller.