Norton Utilities 16 Will not Activate or Update

Here's a transcript of my conversation with Norton today....

CHAT STARTED AT 3:10 PM

Kate | 3:10 PM

Hello Colin! My name is Kate and I am a virtual assistant. In case we get disconnected or you need to reference this conversation, your case number is 74610294

Kate | 3:10 PM

I understand you are looking for assistance with your Norton licenses. Is that correct

Colin Richardson | 3:10 PM

Yes

Kate | 3:10 PM

Could you please tell me more about what kind of license related assistance are you looking for?

Colin Richardson | 3:10 PM

Something else

Kate | 3:10 PM

Could you briefly describe what you are looking for assistance with today?

Colin Richardson | 3:10 PM

Norton Utilities Premium has stopped working

Kate | 3:10 PM

I understand. My apologies for being unable to assist you with this. I am transferring you to a specialist for further assistance.

Colin Richardson | 3:11 PM

Goodo

You are now chatting with Fulwadiya J  3:11 PM

Fulwadiya J | 3:11 PM

Welcome to NortonLifeLock Service and Support Colin.  My name is Fulwadiya.  Give me a minute to pull up your account and take a look at the information you submitted on the previous form and we can go from there.

Colin Richardson | 3:11 PM

Ok thanks

Fulwadiya J | 3:11 PM

I will surely help you with your concern.

Fulwadiya J | 3:12 PM

Please take note of case number 74610294 for future reference. You can contact us back with this same number if this chat session is disconnected.

Colin Richardson | 3:12 PM

Done

Fulwadiya J | 3:12 PM

Colin , I really apologize for the issue you are facing to use the Norton Utilities Premium. The Norton Utilities Premium you can see in account was provided free of cost  as per the ongoing offer available then for the Automatic Renewal service in Norton 360 product. That was not at all linked to Norton 360 product, that was a offer as a goodwill gesture. However, now that Norton Utilities Premium offer been discontinued and the product itself has been deactivated hence  Norton Utilities Premium will no longer work now. We do apologize that we were unable to share information prior to the deactivation and the reason for the same is that the offered  Norton Utilities Premium was never linked with the product so it was not tracked by Norton.

Colin Richardson | 3:14 PM

So it was a gift that was taken back again by Norton?

Fulwadiya J | 3:14 PM

Norton replaced this free Norton utilities premium subscription with a paid subscription of Norton utilities ultimate,  recently Norton discontinued this free service. that's the reason you are not able to use this free perpetual service.

Colin Richardson | 3:15 PM

So basically I can never trust Norton again?

Fulwadiya J | 3:17 PM

I really apologize, the  Norton Utilities Premium was a free service offered to our Norton members as now it was discontinued and come with new product of  Norton Utilities Ultimate.  Also as you are one of our valuable customer, I would like to inform you that the standard price of the Norton Utilities Ultimate is A$69.99 for 1 year . I can offer you this product at A$39.99 for 1 year which is our discounted price  . This is  offer and I assure you that we have done our best in case of price. So would you like to avail this offer from my end?

Colin Richardson | 3:19 PM

No I do not want to pay Norton any more money. I cannot afford it. This is an absolutely disgusting money grabbing tactic by Norton and one that I will be sure to advise everybody about via various social media outlets.

Fulwadiya J | 3:21 PM

I really apologize for the inconvenience caused to you, we are escalating your case to senior level team.

Colin Richardson | 3:21 PM

Thank you. I shall wait.

Fulwadiya J | 3:23 PM

No, Is there anything else I can assist you with?

Colin Richardson | 3:24 PM

No, I am waiting for a senior level team member to comment on this fraud.

Fulwadiya J | 3:24 PM

It was my pleasure assisting you today. Thank you for being a Norton customer and have a great day!

Colin Richardson | 3:25 PM

So Norton are washing their hands of me?

At this point Norton just hung up on me. Will proceed to uninstall all Norton products from all of my devices and install something from a more trustworthy supplier such as Kaspersky or similar.