Thursday, June 11, 2015

Do You Know Much It Cost to Open Up a Microsoft Account for a CHILD!!!

[Completely off the professional topic, but its a part of my QA life as well....]


My 3.5 yrs old like calling (video) using his tablet. He kind of expert now in this regard. I used to sign in with my skype account and he used to use it. Now a days, as its getting out of control a bit, i decided to open him one skype account for him so that he does not randomly call my contacts. When i went to create skype account, it tells me to signup for Microsoft account. So i went to create it, filling up all the info using his real birth date. After submitting info, Microsoft detected its a child account and thus they prompt with a screen where it says a parent has to login to verify this. So i did. Now comes the unexpected fun part. 



It prompt me with another thing- wants me to verify that i'm an adult. A page was displayed with credit card purchase option. They want to charge my credit card $0.50 (even though they will donate this money to charity). To open a child account, Microsoft basically charge money! I have not seen it for the adult. (I personally would not mind donating money for good cause. )




Why i'm screaming about it? It does not make any sense, at least for me. For a 3.5yrs old 
- it required to read all those text on screen
- and fill up all those fields, 
- with the capcha security question, 
- then, read the instruction again and tell their parent to come over have them log-in to this PC - and submit the credit card info! 

Really! Microsoft ! what a genius way to verify its an adult who is creating an account for his child. 

I understand that Microsoft wants to make sure it was not created without parents permission, but does not make sense either of their adult verification process. Btw, i had no issue creating a google account for my 3.5 yrs old.   

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