cheap versions of Microsoft Office 2019

[memory]

Was looking on ebay for Office 2019 out of curiosity and see many on there for around $10. Can these be legit or should avoid them?

 

[UsandThem]

The old saying of "If it's too good to be true, it usually is" rings true on this question.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Bidding-Buying/Low-Cost-Microsoft-Software-Licenses/qaq-p/29272358
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...-on-ebay/74b3fc16-6b33-4472-a023-bfd467814e86
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/get-windows-10-free-or-cheap,5717.html

Now the might work just fine, or it might not. If these $10 Microsoft Office and Windows 10 PRO keys were totally legit, who in their right might would pay so much more buying them from places like Amazon, Newegg, Best Buy, etc? Some of the keys are stolen, some are corporate volume licensing, and some could be grey market. You just never know what you're going to get.

 

[memory]

The old saying of "If it's too good to be true, it usually is" rings true on this question.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Bidding-Buying/Low-Cost-Microsoft-Software-Licenses/qaq-p/29272358
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...-on-ebay/74b3fc16-6b33-4472-a023-bfd467814e86
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/get-windows-10-free-or-cheap,5717.html

Now the might work just fine, or it might not. If these $10 Microsoft Office and Windows 10 PRO keys were totally legit, who in their right might would pay so much more buying them from places like Amazon, Newegg, Best Buy, etc? Some of the keys are stolen, some are corporate volume licensing, and some could be grey market. You just never know what you're going to get.

Worse case scenario, what could happen if you get a fake key? Stops working after a period of time or could a virus be possible from something like this? Why does ebay or other sites allow the sale of fake keys? Takes too much resources to weed out the bad from the good?

 

[UsandThem]

Worse case scenario, what could happen if you get a fake key? Stops working after a period of time or could a virus be possible from something like this? Why does ebay or other sites allow the sale of fake keys? Takes too much resources to weed out the bad from the good?

Since you're just buying the key, it would be up to you to download it from a reputable site (ISO from Microsoft). Some sellers sell the key along with a generic USB with an installer, but that's a bad idea to do it that way. If the key isn't legit? Microsoft periodically updates its database to deactivate keys that have been sold / used against their service terms. So they could flag the key, and then you're out of what you paid for it.

As far as why Ebay and other sites allow it? Hard to say for sure. The most likely reason is it's too much for them to monitor, along with having sellers in different countries with different laws, they likely let Microsoft deal with it.

 

[mxnerd]

Why not just use free LibreOffice or WPS Office? or even free MS Office online?

https://products.office.com/en-us/office-online/documents-spreadsheets-presentations-office-online

==

eBay just want to earn their money and they have no way to verify whether something is legit or not.

 

[lxskllr]

I'm slowly standardizing our office around libreoffice, and the .odt format. Works for us.

 

[Puffnstuff]

The cheapest legit one I saw was on Amazon at $319.

 

[Muadib]

I'm slowly standardizing our office around libreoffice, and the .odt format. Works for us.

Does that include training your co-workers? That's going to be quite the learning curve.

 

[lxskllr]

Does that include training your co-workers? That's going to be quite the learning curve.

No one here knows how to do anything as-is. Our needs aren't extravagant, and if something fancy needs to be done, it's usually my job to make it happen.

 

[FedericoUY]

There are some guys on hardforum that sells legit office keys for around $25. I've purchased win10 keys before and have had no troubles at all (more than 1 year ago). Cheers.