In the past, I've had to call the main Microsoft Corp number a few times for
this sort of nonsense. (Usually because a foreign call center was providing
the first level "customer support"). Generally, what then happened was that
the main number operator? transferred me to someone that was not first
level, and when I explained the problem, either provided a solution, or
transferred me to someone who did. This generally bypassed the "you gotta
give me a credit card number bit". It also occasionally gave me access to
patches that were not offered via the conventional manner. It also
occasionally gave me the opportunity to explain to marketing and support
management that the system was not helping to maintain good customer
relations, and some of the multiple automated "choose from these options"
were circular in the logic behind the choices and trees. This was back in
the days when the MVPs had to "mail bomb" one of the support execs to save
the MVP program.
The funniest one I ever got into with call centers and computerized systems
had nothing to do with Microsoft. Instead, it was an airline reservation
system that routed a US "domestic" multi stop flight thru a small city, in
of all places, Australia. It was obviously in error, yet would accept a
reservation, calculate the ticket total as the least expensive routing, and
issue a "domestic" US ticket with stops in Australia. The first couple of
calls just proved that others could duplicate the problem. It took two or
three calls to higher and higher levels to get the problem resolved. The
whole thing ended up resulting in paying half the real fare, and getting a
free upgrade to first class.
