I feel ripped-off!

I bought Norton Mobile Security (Full Version) last September.

I paid £29.99 for a retail box from Comet. Anti Theft came as a "free" plug in.

It worked fine until Norton cancelled my subscription early in January, even though my license is valid until next September.

I was not told about my subscription being cancelled and I did not notice until late in January.

Since then, I have spent over 6 unsuccessful hours on the telephone with Norton Support.

I have had to install logging software on my mobile device, and I emailed the logs to Norton Support at the request of the Technicians, even though I expressed that I didn't really want to do that.

In short, I have done everything asked of me by various Support Technicians, numerous times.

I have been promised a call back by them on at least 4 occasions and there has been no call back.

Today, on the Norton Management website, my PC, and my mobile device are both showing as 'offline' - even though they are both connected with a reasonably fast, and reliable connection.

When I could use the service, I found the 'Find Device' feature to be pretty useless.

Norton Anti-Theft tracks the device location using Google location services which are not very accurate in my area.

The 'Sneak Peek' feature seemed to be the best tool in the event  of having to retrieve a lost/stolen mobile device.

Since my subscription was cancelled in January, the Sneak Peek feature consistently fails, usually with the report "Failed to take a photo. Please try again later.". 

I am very unhappy that my problem has now been ongoing for MONTHS and I appear no nearer a solution than when I first reported it.

I want my Norton products to work as they are advertised.

I do not want broken promises from Norton Support.

I feel ripped-off because I have paid for a service that I am unable to use.

Please can anyone help?

Hi Karis.

 

Welcome to the Community.  Sorry to hear that you have had such a troubled time so far.  We will do our best to see that you have a slightly better experience here.

 

I think it would help if we knew a little more about your setup so that we can respond appropriately.  So please forgive me if I ask a number of questions.

 

First I should explain that we are dealing with two different products in Norton Mobile Security (NMS) and the Norton Anti-Theft (NAT) plugin.  When you say that you bought NMS from Comet can you confirm that this was the version that gets downloaded from the Norton Servers and is not the one that you get from what was the Android Market (Now Google Play)?

 

When you open NMS it should say something about "Subscription" at the bottom of the screen.  Can you tell us how many days it says you have left?

 

When on the initial screen, press the Menu key and then select "About".  What Version number does it say you have?

 

Can you also tell us what phone you have and what version of Android it is running?

 

As for finding the device I am inclined to agree that the NAT location service is not very good, however if you have GPS activated on your phone then I think you should find that the NMS location service is somewhat better, provided the phone is not buried too far within a building.

 

I suspect that much of your trouble relates to the way that the NAT plugin is functioning and we may have suggestions about how best to deal with that but I think I need to wait until you have responded to the questions above.

 

If you have any reference numbers for the calls that you previously made to Norton you may like to post them here so that the Norton Staff on the forum can look into what happened and why your problems were not resolved.

 

I look forward to your reply.  In the meantime - good luck!

 

On second thought do not post any reference numbers for previous calls here.  If the Norton staff can use them they will ask for them in private mails.  My mistake ....

I'm a little confused.  You said that Norton cancelled your subscription.  Could you clarify this?

 

Could you clarify the problem that you saw?  Could you send me your case numbers via private message so I can follow up on them?  Depending on the issue, logs would be needed to determine what was happening.  

 

For device location, we use GPS, A-GPS, as well as the Wireless Access Point information that Google Location Services makes use of.  Are there a lot of obstructions for GPS?  It sounds like you have an issue with using Google Location Services, is there an alternative that you are suggesting?  

 

Please let us know what we can do to assist.

Hi guys, and thanks for making me welcome.

I appreciate your trying to help me.

I have been a Norton customer since the 1990's.

Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.

I think I have the latest versions of all the software on my devices.

Installed on my PC I have Norton 360 Version 6.1.2.10 with 193 days remaining on the license.

On my mobile phone, a Samsung Galaxy S2 (GTI 9100 - Android Version 2.3.5), I have Norton Mobile Security Version 2.5.0.398.

On the Galaxy S2, the Norton Mobile Security app tells me I have 160 Days Left on the license.

Also on the Galaxy S2 I have Norton Anti Theft Version 1.3.0.122.

When I look at the Norton Management website, ‘My Devices’ tells me that Norton Anti-Theft has 175 days remaining.

When I bought the Norton Mobile Security, it was in a retail box bought from Currys, (not Comet as I said in my first post).

At the time I installed it, there was a different Version on the Android Market, but I think they are now the same?

During telephone support sessions, I have uninstalled/reinstalled both apps with Norton Support guiding me.

When I say that Norton Cancelled my subscription, I noticed that the Norton Management website informed me that my subscription with Norton Anti Theft had expired.

On calling Norton Support in February 2012, I was told by [Removed] that my subscription to Norton Mobile Security had expired on the 13th January 2012.

I have no idea why this happened.

I bought, paid for and activated my copy of Norton Mobile Security on 09th September 2011, and its the only copy I have ever owned.

It came with a one-years license.

It seemed like Norton Support did not believe I had a valid license, and I actually had to email a photograph of the retail box, complete with all contents and the receipt of purchase from Currys.

I also had to email them the Activation Code for my copy of Norton Mobile Security, which I felt extremely unhappy about doing.

I expressed my reluctance to give the activation code very strongly, but was told it was necessary to fix the issue.

With regards to my comments about the GPS location service, there are discrepancies of over a mile with the Google location services in my area.

For this reason, the Sneak Peek feature seems more useful to me in the event of my having to retrieve a lost or stolen phone.

I was not criticizing the workings of  the location service. I think its probably as good as it gets here.

I do not have many of the case numbers from my dealings with Norton Support.

It seems there is also a problem with the email of the transcript from the webpage, because I did not recieve the copies of my conversations.

I do however, have some screenshots, notes, and emails from which I can obtain the names of some of the people I spoke to, and the exact dates and times that I spoke with them.

I have sent you a PM with the information I have Erik, thanks very much.

If there is anymore information I can provide you with that would be useful, please let me know.

I appreciate the time you have taken, and your help with this matter.

Hope you all have a good day today!

Karis.

 

 

[Edit:Removed support agent name]

Hi Karis.

 

Thanks for the full response.

 

From reading it I would say that your subscription has not expired.  Norton Mobile Security (NMS) is telling you that you still have 160 days to run (which seems about right) and I can therefore only assume that NMS is fully working as it should.  It is certainly the latest version of the software as downloaded directly from the Norton Servers.  The issue you seem to be having appears to be with the Norton Anti-Theft (NAT) plugin which is why I have not suggested that this thread be moved to the NMS forum.  A number or people are having problems with the NAT plugin giving inappropriate reports on license status.  Norton are aware there is a problem and are working on it.

 

You can wait and keep an eye on this forum for Norton to find a solution.  Or if you wanted to try and get a quick solution I would suggest trying to uninstall NAT (also make sure on the website that the device is removed).  Then uninstall NMS then reboot your phone.  Reinstall NMS (your original activation key should still work) - run live update to make sure it is up to date.  Then you can decide if you wish to reinstall the NAT plugin.  You may choose to wait until the odd behavior is solved.  In fact you might just decide to unistal NAT and just leave NMS alone.

 

Even without the NAT plugin you can locate your device, lock it, wipe it or make it scream!  The point I was making about location is that in the UK, where I assume you are located, the "locate" feature of NMS seems far more accurate than the "locate" feature of NAT.  So using NMS to locate would be my first choice.

 

I hope that makes sense and is of some use.

 

Do let us know what you decide to do.

 

I hope that Erik will pursue why you appear to have received poor advice from the Norton Staff you dealt with.

 

Good luck and I hope you feel a little less ripped off.     ;-)

Thanks for your reply Andmike.

I got a call from Norton Support the other night. They told me that the problem cannot be fixed at this time, but that they are going to call me as soon as they do have a fix in place.

Today I sat down with my phone and decided to try uninstalling all the Norton apps and re-installing them once again as you had suggested.

It didn’t work. The “Sneak Peek” would still not produce any pictures.

I decided to try one final time, after which I was simply going to uninstall both apps and download a different security product to use instead.

This time, on adding the phone to the Norton Management website, I decided to give it a different name.

And guess what… It works!

So, now my phone will take pictures using the “Sneak Peek” button on the website.

It appears that giving the phone a new name when adding it to the Norton Management website, and not just going with the default name as I had in my previous attempts, did the trick.

One thing I did notice that still isn’t quite right, is that the location doesn’t update every five minutes with the phone in ‘Locked’ mode.

A ‘Locate Now’ button as I saw suggested in another thread seems like a great idea.

I am still dissatisfied with the ‘Support’ I got from Norton Support. Erik was investigating, but I’m happy that the app is now doing what it is advertised as doing, and I no longer feel so ripped off.

:smileyhappy:

Thanks again for your help.

Hope you have a good day today!

Thanks for the update karis.

 

Glad that you have got it sorted out even if the journey was a longer one than one would have liked.

 

Good luck for the future.