Microsoft said 365 (which includes Outlook, Word and other popular apps) was being boosted with the addition of its Copilot AI (artificial intelligence) chatbot.<\/p>\n
It did not mention the option for customers to continue with their existing pricing if they did not want Copilot. <\/p>\n
That \u201cClassic Plan\u201d option only appeared if a customer went to cancel their subscription. <\/p>\n
Consumer NZ called that a \u201cflagrant breach of goodwill and trust\u201d and lodged a complaint with the Commerce Commission, which decided against a formal investigation but did send the tech giant a warning letter. <\/p>\n
The Commerce Commission\u2019s Vanessa Horne told the Herald: \u201cIn February this year, we provided information to Microsoft New Zealand, outlining that we had received complaints that potentially raised issues under the Fair Trading Act.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Microsoft email sent to 365 Family and 365 Personal subscribers from 11am NZT this morning offers them the option to keep their current (increased) pricing or switch to their old pricing (and lose Copilot), including a refund for period they paid the higher rate.<\/p>\n
The ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) said<\/a> it was suing Microsoft for \u201cmisleading\u201d 2.7 million Australians<\/a> by telling them that they had to accept the increase tied to the addition of Copilot or cancel.<\/p>\n Microsoft declined to say how many Kiwis have 365 Personal or 365 Family subs.<\/p>\n \u2018We apologise\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cToday, we began reaching out to our Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers in New Zealand regarding a subscription alternative that we could have communicated more clearly when we changed our pricing in October 2024,\u201d Microsoft said in a statement.<\/p>\n \u201cIn response to the demand for advanced AI tools, we introduced AI capabilities into the Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscriptions that we offer in New Zealand.<\/p>\n \u201cIn hindsight, we could have been clearer about the availability of a non-AI enabled offering with subscribers, not just to those who opted to cancel their subscription. <\/p>\n \u201cWe have been present in New Zealand for more than 35 years, operating on the principles of trust and transparency. We fell short of our standards here, and we apologise. We will learn from this and improve.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Result of strong action by Australian regulator\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cToday\u2019s announcement from Microsoft is huge, and very welcome news that will benefit heaps of people. We encourage every eligible 365 subscriber to take up the offer of a refund,\u201d Consumer writer Nick Gelling told the Herald after the Microsoft 365 email was sent to this reporter\u2019s personal email account at 9.38am.<\/p>\n \u201cWe think this announcement is highly likely to be a result of the strong action taken by the Australian regulator. In that respect, New Zealanders are lucky to have this win off the back of the Australian regulator standing up to a tech giant,\u201d Gelling said.<\/p>\n In its comments, Microsoft has not referenced the ACCC\u2019s legal action.<\/p>\n Gremlins<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re hearing of some teething difficulties with the offer, which has clearly been set up for Australian customers, but we have faith that Microsoft NZ will sort out those issues quickly,\u201d Gelling said.<\/p>\n A tech industry veteran who also received the 365 offer at 9.38am told the Herald: \u201cThe email says that the offer applies in New Zealand but it doesn\u2019t work here.\u201d<\/p>\n Another reader who is also a 365 subscriber said he tried the link after the 11am official \u201cgo live\u201d and it did not work.<\/p>\n He was told in a support chat:<\/p>\n \u201cThank you for your patience. I\u2019ve co-ordinated this case with our support team and confirmed that there is an issue with the link. The case has now been escalated to the appropriate team for resolution. Please allow 2\u20133 business days for us to address the issue, after which a new link should be generated so you\u2019ll be able to successfully switch to the M365 Family Classic plan and receive a refund.”<\/p>\n He was also told in the same support chat:<\/p>\n \u201cIt appears that the link only works for users who has M365 Personal plan. Right now, we are working on resolving the issue so M365 Family users can switch and get a refund.\u201d<\/p>\n Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald\u2019s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Microsoft said 365 (which includes Outlook, Word and other popular apps) was being boosted with the addition of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[9331,7501,836,62509,1135,138,10039,4381,2245,5504,24826,78,108,4507,609,111,139,69,19276,8617,11664,1523,3333,9366,6851,1527,8183,1361,165,44869,80],"class_list":["post-120091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-chance","tag-7501","tag-836","tag-62509","tag-australian","tag-business","tag-controversial","tag-customers","tag-early","tag-following","tag-hike","tag-in","tag-kicked","tag-late","tag-microsoft","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-offering","tag-offers","tag-option","tag-over","tag-price","tag-pricing","tag-refund","tag-return","tag-software","tag-that","tag-their","tag-uturn","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}