I haven't seen anyone talking about this online store

Question

There is this office and windows key store called esd codes and they sell office keys. They seem legit since they're affiliated with Microsoft and they have mostly positive reviews but I the description of every office key and I mean every has a note stating "if office (literally every single one) version is not available, you will receive the Professional Plus version at the same price" which they are trying to make it look like an upgrade but from what I searched the professional plus versions are bought in bulk by big companies and organizations and after they stop being updated they are being sold for cheap probably by employees. I have found multiple for less than 2 or even 1 buck and I feel they are scamming people.

nikolinode · Answer

You’re right to be cautious — and this is an important topic because software licensing fraud is common, especially with very cheap Office/Windows keys.

When you see prices like $1–$5, it almost always means one of the following:

a) Volume/Enterprise Keys sold unofficially

Large organizations buy enterprise licenses (e.g., Office Professional Plus) in bulk. Those keys:

Are not meant for retail use
Are often tied to volume licensing services
May be resold illegally by insiders or unauthorized sellers

Microsoft explicitly states that these keys are not for consumer use, and using them may violate the license agreement.

b) Unauthorized resellers

Some storefronts claim to be “affiliated with Microsoft,” but they’re not official Microsoft partners. They might be:

Gray-market key aggregators
Sellers of keys obtained through shady means
Selling keys that will later be blocked or deactivated

Positive reviews can be fake or from users who got a key that worked initially but later failed activation.

Risks with these cheap keys

Risk	Explanation
Invalid license	May work temporarily but not legally valid
Revocation	Microsoft can block the key later
No updates/support	You won’t get full official updates
Security concerns	Files/licenses can be tampered
Microsoft account issues	Tied to your account improperly