Microsoft Money Passport Login Borked
Sunday, August 1, 2004 at 5:27AM 2 Comments After all these years, I have never had occasion or need to contact Microsoft technical support. Until yesterday. Since 2000, I have dutifully used Microsoft Money to follow every transaction, and while we haven't successfully used it to change our spending habits, we have gnat's-ass precision when it comes to answering the age-old query, "Where does the money go?" It's been a great help.
Yesterday, I went to Money to track transactions as I do every several days. But this time, I couldn't log in. I tried to bypass the online login that uses Microsoft Passport and just log directly into the local Money file. Still no juice.
After continued finagling and jostling with backup files, I decided to check Microsoft's support site, where I found the number to contact Microsoft. If I'd done some more clicking around, I would have found this alert on Microsoft's site and another news story that spoke directly to my issue. When it comes to your Money file, though, you want to talk to somebody.
I spoke to two people. After being on hold for only about five minutes, the first one took my personal information and the product registration info. He got my phone number, last name, and e-mail address wrong. There was a language barrier. When I asked him to read back my phone number, he said, "No, I got it." He transferred me to the Money team, where I waited on hold for about 20 minutes. So far, not looking like a winner.
The Money team representative (also not a native English speaker. I'm not judging, I'm just observing) deeply knew his stuff, corrected my personal information, apologized for the problem I was seeing, and explained that it was a system-wide occurrence related to their Passport servers. Surprising since I had unsuccessfully tried to login to the Money file around the Passport service. Within five or ten minutes, I was back in business. He called back after we were disconnected, and sent a follow-up e-mail.
First, nicely done with the support, Microsoft. But in the future, try to avoid doing something that's going to lock everyone in the world from seeing their money. We don't like it.
And if you're having this issue, check here or call Microsoft.
Reader Comments (2)
Charlie's approach: Click around on Microsoft's web site. Panic when answer is not apparent within a given time span. Consider killing self. At Jennifer's urging, call tech support hotline and eventually get problem resolved.
Jennifer's approach: Click around on Microsoft's web site. Give up after two minutes. Call good friend who works at Microsoft tech support and wheedle help from them.*
*Note: Jennifer's approach was not used in this case, so it cannot be weighed fairly against Charlie's approach in terms of effectiveness. I'm just noting it for the scientific study of "comparison of personal problem-solving styles within a household."
sid's approach? why machine no work? sid smash! smash into little pieces, and then smash the little pieces into more little pieces! smash!
thank you for the mix. so far i only hate about two of the songs, hee hee.