Buying Microsoft Office: With Or Without Key Card?

GoshenGeek · Sep 16, 2016

I will be purchasing Microsoft Office Home & Student 2016. There are essentially two ways to purchase:
(1) Buy the Key Card - mailed to me - that contains the product key, then use the key to download the product.
(2) Use a download only site that apparently will send you (email? phone?) the product key.

Method # 1 seems secure. This is offered by the well known sites such as BestBuy, Amazon, Walmart, etc.

Method # 2 is offered by other sites such as Red Box Software & TbhTech.

Question #1: Can method #2 be trusted or is this just a scam?
Question #2: Can I trust the companies Red Box Software & TbhTech? Does anyone have experience with these companies?

Anon-469e6fb48c · Sep 16, 2016

Where are you buying it from is my question.???

I have bought game time cards on amazon and the time keys came right in the email.

plodr · Sep 16, 2016

Reviews of Red Box software
https://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/www.redboxsoftware.com
https://redboxsoftware.pissedconsumer.com/
https://redboxsoftware.pissedconsumer.com/do-not-deal-with-redbox-software-20160301800944.html

I can't find a thing on a tbh Tech company that sells software.

The price I see is usually $149.99 except at Cosco, if you are a memeber and Walmart
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Microsof...-Non-commercial-Medialess-PC-English/46455766
Walmart you get a PC key card, no disk. I'm not sure if you can purchase the card in the store or have it order it and have it shipped to the store for pickup.

DavidGP · Sep 17, 2016

Hi

Never bought off option 2 retailers, personally dependent on cost from the online retailers, I would check with Microsoft direct and possible option is Office 365 and this is a yearly cost but you always get latest version, https://products.office.com/en-us/university (this is for $79 is a 4yr subscription so is $19 per year, yes you would have to continue with subscription in year 5 but never know if a better deal is around or $79 per year is still a good deal)

I have full Office 365 and the benefits are good, they include 1TB of OneDrive and 5 Office accounts, so install on 5 PCs all come with 1TB of OneDrive.

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Buying Microsoft Office: With Or Without Key Card?

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