Windows 10: Why Does Microsoft Hate the US Military and US Citizens Abroad? An APO question

Why does Microsoft so vehemently hate US military members and US citizens living abroad on diplomatic or other assignments? It would almost be funny if it weren't so concerning.


As I've tried unauccessfully to add an APO billing address, I've been told that you can't add APO as a billing option because according to Microsoft's "Shipping options, costs, and delivery times" policy:


"We don't ship to personal mailboxes, U.S. territories other than Puerto Rico, or APO addresses."


But no one knows why. This strange contempt for APO addresses is never explained, especially when the people typically using those APO addresses are military or diplomatic personnel stationed in foreign countries with no other access to US mail.


This hatred for APO is even more baffling because shipping to APO uses domestic rates. Amazon, for instance, has little trouble with most items (but no Amazon pantry, which is understandable). Microsoft even uses the USPS regularly, and USPS is the same carrier everyone who ships to APO uses.


Nor can anyone with an APO billing address easily buy from Microsoft, as Microsoft appears to lack the capacity to digitially "ship" purely electronic digital downloads.


Whatever APO addresses did to make you hate them, Microsoft, it would be nice if you'd stop taking it out on military and US citizens abroad.

:)

 

Why doesn't Microsoft ship to APO addresses?

"As of moment, the option to send to APO/AFO addresses as a delivery or billing address is still not yet available. We strongly advise that you use a regular billing address instead. "

Okay three things:

1) How long have APO addresses been around? Military mail has been around since the late 800's, the British Military started handling mail for their military members in other countries in the 1800's and US Military Mail has been around since at least the
40's.



2) Amazon has no problem shipping to APO addresses and they haven't been around half as long as Microsoft. When my first XBOX One showed up non-functional Microsoft suddenly was able to ship to APO addresses, but not before that or after. I asked
for a reason not an excuse. What's the real reason? If Microsoft is concerned about military members selling their products on the local economy there are two things they can do: limit the number of the same items military members can purchase or Microsoft
can contact the base to report the military member for breaking military postal rules which makes it illegal for any military member to make a profit from anything purchased and shipped via the military postal service.

3) If you couldn't use your home address which address would you use? I have one address I just can't invent another.

"We would like you though, to let us know about this so we can further improve our services." You represent Microsoft don't you? You know about it, right? Who else should I need to tell if a representative knows about it? It took me a chat session
and two phone calls (57 minutes and 112 minutes long) to purchase a laptop from Microsoft. It shouldn't be that difficult to purchase a laptop from someone and I shouldn't have to explain anything about the military postal system that's been around for at
least 70 years especially not on veteran's day.

 

Why doesn't Microsoft ship to APO addresses?

Again they shipped me a new XBOX to replace the one that showed up not functioning directly to my APO box. Microsoft is nice enough to give a military discount and Microsoft sells through Amazon who ships via USPS, but they dont give the military discount
through Amazon. I tried to get them to let me buy from Amazon and refund the difference, but they’d rather send me from one customer service person who couldn’t help me to another for over two hours: it took me over three hours of working with their customer
service to get to a person who could manually enter the correct address. At least a couple of years ago i could still use my APO address for billing, but thats been removed, now.

 

APO Option for Microsoft Account Payment Options

Hi,

Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.

Please reply to the below questions to get better understanding on the issue:

• Where are you trying to add the APO address?
  
• Are you getting any error message while updating the address?
  

However, to add the billing address to your Microsoft account, please follow the steps from the given link:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4026662/microsoft-account-add-and-change-information

Hope it helps.

Nikhar Khare

Microsoft Community – Moderator