I just got a great message from Norton asked me to verify a transaction from September 16, 2003.
sender email address is LifeLock <no-reply@myidentity.norton.com>
Is this a real email address? A second email from LifeLock Disputed Alerts Team <alerts-service@myidentity.norton.com> directed me to call 800-693-1134 for assistance. Once I call that number, and give various PII, I get the message that the office is closed today.
Is this a scam? are the email addresses above legitimate Norton email addresses? Is the phone number a legitimate Norton phone number?
Thanks to you all for your helpful comments. Such a strange experience with this Lifelock alert. Now I wonder how much of this badness permeates the organization. Gotta think hard before throwing them more business.
The basic issue was me being directed to a closed support team, where I was prompted for PII before being told the support team was not there and hanging up. That is the hallmark of a phishing scam, leading me to call Lifelock asking whether the emails were legitimate, being told they were not, and then being told they were.
My view on the whole thing is that Norton and LifeLock are still two separate entities even though they have merged and now are under the GEN umbrella. The agents for one do not know and do not handle support calls for the other.
And the agents are mostly sales related and not technical help support. Therefore the software is mainly self service which means if you can handle it without technical phone support things are fine but if you need technical support you will get caught up in the runaround as you have experienced. This forum is full of posts concerning poor support and inability to even contact support.
That is just my old man rant talking to the clouds from here on my planet.
In any case good luck with your 20 year old alert and best wishes.
Alerts department is open 6 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Arizona time, M-F. number is 800-693-1134. (I think it is in a different continent). Matches the phone number in the email i received yesterday, which asked for a bunch of my PII before telling me the office was closed. (Probably should have told me the office was closed BEFORE asking for my PII. That's really what my complaint is about.)
I imagine LifeLock Alerts department locates your account/verifies your identity via automated prompts for PII regardless of whether Alerts department is open or closed.
When I called 800-693-1134.
I was asked...4 digit year of birth/last 4 social security#/zip code.
I was told...we're unable to locate your account...our offices are currently closed.
The department I reached at 1-800-745-6061, which i was told by the supervisor (see above) was the alerts team, is not the alerts team. The person who answered the phone described it as a general support team which also does sales. He did not mention that the department had anything to do with cybersecurity. They have no idea about the alerts I received, and said I should call the alerts department, which sounds like it is on a different continent.
Alerts department is open 6 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Arizona time, M-F. number is 800-693-1134. (I think it is in a different continent). Matches the phone number in the email i received yesterday, which asked for a bunch of my PII before telling me the office was closed. (Probably should have told me the office was closed BEFORE asking for my PII. That's really what my complaint is about.)
Alerts department is currently closed.
Alerts department was closed at the time that the supervisor (see above) transferred me. Explains the 20+-minute holdtime before I bailed out.
I have now been on the phone for over an hour, and have been on hold waiting for Lifelock alert team for about 20 minutes. I'm going to bail out and call back later. This is such an incredibly bad experience.
(live-blogging my tech support call -- currently on hold waiting for the LifeLock alert team)
[I am so full of confidence right now.]
[I wonder how many calls tech support gets because of silly emails, like the one i received from myidentity.norton.com, where the recipient is instructed to call a phone number, gives PII, and then is advised that the office is closed. I would be upset, too, if i was answering calls from customers, without the ability to even see the case number referenced in the email. Where as a tech support rep i have no documentation whatsoever as to whether the sending email address is legitimate, and i end up having to tell the customer contradictory things. I'm not blaming the rep, or the supervisor. They are doing the best they can (I think). Sounds like a fundamental issue with company culture. If senior managers had Norton accounts, and they were going through what I am, stuff would change fast.]
This may be the worst possible tech support call in history. I read her the case number which LifeLock Disputed Alerts Team <alerts-service@myidentity.norton.com> sent to me. (Recall that she initially said that this was not a Norton email, then told me it was.) I asked her whether the case number listed in the email was a legitimate case. She told me that it was not, then, she said that she can't see the case and that I would need to talk to Lifelock. I told her that it sounds like Lifelock and Norton were two completely different companies with different support. She is now transferring me to Lifelock, which is apparently at a different number than 844-346-3614. I whispered to my wife "she's going to hang up on me," at which point she immediately came back on the line and said she would not.
[note to self; do i really trust Norton if something really bad does happen to my identity? Or will i get some random untrained person to answer the phone, like i am experiencing right now? not in a million years. Look this whole thing started when i received an alert about a banking transaction from 20 years ago.
The lady's boss is now telling me that the phone number for Lifelock is 1-800-745-6061 (never heard of this number). He is now transferring me to LifeLock alert team. He said he would need to send me a verification code, so that the LifeLock alert team would not be inconvenienced. Give me patience.
Steve Sudhoff:
Is this a scam? are the email addresses above legitimate Norton email addresses? Is the phone number a legitimate Norton phone number?
email address @myidentity.norton.com appears to be legit.
I'm trying to contact Chat to verify phone number.
Edit: Chat dialog keeps closing after a few minutes.
Someone from Norton Lifelock called my cell phone and told me to call the 800-693-1134 and when I did I get the message that this number does NOT exist. I need to call and find out what the issue is. I cannot find it on the secure login page.