I purchased Norton thinking it would be a good product and it would help keep everything running smooth. I purchased a year and settled in thinking everything was good. How wrong I was...
I got an email about 2 weeks ago or so saying that my free trial was about to expire. I thought "what trial? I paid for it!". It also said that auto renew was turned on and I didn't have to do anything at all unless I wanted to turn that feature off. Well I knew that bank account didn't have the 93 dollars and change in it and I wasn't about to pay for something twice so I went to the sight and turned off auto renew.
6 days later I got an email saying that the my account had been charged anyway!!! I called the company and of course there were only unhelpful people speaking to me in VERY HARD TO UNDERSTAND BROKEN ENGLISH!!! They told me that they would refund the money and that I would just have to wait. I also requested a refund of the overdraft fees that wouldn't have been charged had they done what I asked and not charged me. Of course that won't happen. They told me that they would schedule a higher tier of support to call me back later in the day. That also didn't happen. So now it comes to this...
This is apparently a big enough problem that it has it's own question posted on the first page for tech support. This is not a surprise to them. They, who I entered into contract with to protect me online, have not fixed the problem and therefore basically robbed me. Because of the unwillingness to protect me, help me, or resolve this issue for me, I may have to seek outside assistance.
I'm not a betting man but if I was, I would say there are more people out there who have had this problem. If that is the case, a little class action lawsuit might get them to FIX THE PROBLEM!!! It's not even about the money. It's about the press. I don't care if they lose the case or win it, I do want the news to pick up on it and I'll do whatever I need to to make that happen. Oh yeah, gag orders? lol, Tell you what, go ahead and get all the gag orders you want. It won't matter. Once America has heard the truth, they cannot unhear it and believe me when I say a gag order won't stop me from saying it.
I've had enough of these corporate thieves and their holier than thou attitudes.
I'm sorry about your experience. I can't explain why you should get an email referring to a free trial so I hope that in all this you were in contact with Norton itself and not one of the many scammers that contact people pretending to be Norton or Microsoft.
The best way to resolve this is to contact the Norton OnLine Support team using the CHAT route as below and clamly explain the situation. This uses your computer keyboard and not your phone and all the feedback we get is that they are quick and helpful.
They have access to the subscription records and can correct errors including making refunds if they have ignored your cancellation of the AutoRenewal.
I'm not clear but I hope you want to continue to use N360 so if you need help with it please let us know here since there's a lot of good practical support here.
I used Norton’s website through the whole thing. I contacted them via phone and through their support chat. They were as helpful as herpes. They told me that they would refund what they took and that I would get it back eventually. The point of the matter is they took the money without my permission and in fact in spite of my express request that they not take it. That account is for online purchases so I only keep enough in it to cover what I purchase. When they took out the money it caused me to incur overdraft charges which I had to transfer from another account. I won’t get that money back so they basically stole money from me. call it what you want but when someone takes your money aginst your wishes, it’s illegal. I certainly will never pay for a service that claims to protect me when they can’t protect me from their own company. As far as I’m concerned, they can all go find the nearest convenient fire and die in it.
Please don't use abusive language about staff or others; it doesn't get you anywhere.
It's quite possible that 6 days was not enough time for the system to change the autorenewal charge and cancel it since I know from experience that is nothing to do with Norton that it can take much longer for this for changes to initiate or cancel a monetary instruction.
But what I don't understand is
<< I wasn't about to pay for something twice so I went to the sight and turned off auto renew. >>
How did the question of paying twice come in?
You initially bought one product and installed it, activated it and because perhaps it's the default set the autorenewal on one product. Even if you had installed a trial version as well you would not initiate any possiblity of being charged unless you activated it and so had two products running both with autorenewall.
I'd be grateful if you could explain what I'm missing.
Meanwhile I'll flag the situation about not being called back as indicated.
Being nice got me nowhere either so I have nothing to lose do I? Here’s what happened…
I bought and paid for the full product. About 3 weeks later or so I got an email saying my free trial (which I paid for) was about to expire and that my credit card would be charged for the price of the product (which I already paid for). I went immediately an turned off autorenew and figured that was it. Thank god I kept all the emails. 6 days later I got an email saying that I had been charged anyway. I got on the phone and on the norton tech chat at the same time and talked to two people about this and neither one of them had any problem at all finding where I had cancelled autorenew. They both said the money would be refunded an I asked them about the charges that I incurred as a result of this theft. They told me I could call the bank and try to talk them out of it at first. Once I told them that this was unacceptable and they needed to fix what they caused, they then told me I could call the bank and put them on conference and they would try to talk them out of it. Since I don’t have that capability, I explained that this too was unsatisfactory and I once again begged them to take responsibility for the screw up that their system caused. They told me that they had another tier of support that they could schedule a callback that same day around 3 oclock with. Of course that call never happened.
I have a right to be angry as would you or anybody else. None of the people I talked to would take reaponsibility for what happened. I did exactly what the email said and this company did exactly the opposite of what it said. It did not protect me and in fact the only trouble I’ve had since I bought the product was the company trying to steal my money. I’m not goig to pay a company to protect me f they can’t deliver and they absolutely did not. In fact I lost money as a result of dealing wih this shady company.
If you don’t want upset people then you better learn how to protect them. If the software is so bad that 6 days notice isn’t enough, and I woul never admit that my software was that crappy if I was trying to make a living with it, then you scrap it an get something that works. I would never admit that my software couldn’t work any faster than that. That only tells me that your update system for virus databases or anyhig else might have such a lag that my system could be completely ccrashed by the time your software even figures out it should be running.
For the record, in any court of law in the world, taking money without permission is theft. In any civil court, the guilty party is liable for all damages caused as a result of their actions. Does that only count for poor people? Why not corporations? I haven’t asked for anything unreasonable. I only asked for my account to be returned to it’s former status. Not a cent more,not a cent less. The fact that nobody who works for that company can accomplish that simple feat tells me loads about the character of the company and the people who work for it.
Have you attempted the suggeston of the support rep to contact your bank to see if they will forgive the fees?
With your email documentation, that in itself may be enough for them to reverse the charges. If not, did you keep logs of your online chat. That should give you enough information for the bank.
BTW Most posters here are just volunteers trying to give our help from our experience with the Norton products. Only user names in red are Norton employees.
Ok, the usernames I was replying to were red. Just to be crystal clear and so there is no mistake, here is the problem…
I paid a company in good faith to provide me with protection for my computer. That company then used the information that I had given them to help themselves to my bank account without my consent. When I called to resolve the issue, I was told that eventually the problem would be sorted out and I was welcome to do all the work to sort out residual problems that they directly caused. In other words, we screwed up now you fix it. The money is not nor has it ever been the issue. I have plenty in other accounts. The problem is the casual attitude they take to charging me for online protection an then robbing me within the first month. I paid for a year so you can understand why I was shocked when I got billed within a month.
There is no situation in which this is acceptable. I’m not going to pay premium prices for the honor of being betrayed by another corporation.
OK, now I understand what happened more clearly. It should not have happened. Sure you have every right to be angry ... but showing it is not always the best way to resolve a situation.
With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, if you had reinforced your online cancellation of the autorenew with a CHAT session then the double dipping would almost certainly not have happened ... but things do go wrong.
None of us here can help you any more than we have tried to. I have flagged your situation in a message to senior Norton staff and so keep an eye open for a Private Message for you when the icon up top right goes yellow since they often communicate that way on situations like this.
It would do no harm to contact your bank, if you have not already, and tell them of the situation and that a refund is in the works so that they know you did not deliberately overdraw the account. I've had this happen and done this as well as when I forgot to pay a credit card on time and it always helps.
The money was never the issue. I have plenty in other accounts to cover this. The problem is that under no circumstance ever should it ever become necessary to reenforce anything with a company whose sole job is to protect me. That is the very reason I paid them in the first place. You are correct in stating it shouldn’t have happened. you are the first person to say so.
boacrow wrote: Ok, the usernames I was replying to were red. Just to be crystal clear and so there is no mistake, here is the problem...
Did you somehow post somewhere else? I only see Hugh and myself here, and we are both volunteers trying to help.
I understand the aggravation of chasing down erroneous charges, but unfortunately as long as businesses rely on computers to run their businesses, there will be errors that a human would have caught.
A business cannot ask a bank to change/reverse a bank transaction on an account that is not theirs. That is up to the account holder.
If you only got Symantec to pay your charge, you would still have a record of an overdraft on your account. If you do as has been suggested here and by the Support rep and go to your bank to get the charge reversed, it also clears the possible blemish on your credit record.
I think the important thing that everyone is overlooking is the fact that I paid a premium price to a company that can't even protect me from itself. As I said, the money isn't now, nor was it ever the issue. The problem I have is paying someone to perform a task and not only do they not perform the task, they create aggrevation galore in the process. I had an online business once and if my shipments were not 100% satisfactory, I didn't stop dealing with the customer until it was and they were happy. I only had it happen once and that was due to a lost shipment. Nothing at all to do with me, but I sent a replacement at my cost and that satisfied the customer. Now if I can do that with a junker desktop out of my living room, how come a multi- million dollar software corporation needs more than 6 days to cancel a payment that isn't owed in the first place? If their software can't catch that, what else can't it catch? Why should I believe that a company that goes into my bank account and takes money that it isn't owed is looking out for my best interest?
The simple fact of the matter is, the price of the product does not reflect the quality. One quick scan through the forums here was enough to convince me that there are more problems than there should be for the price they are asking. If I'm going to pay such a high price for a product, I expect it to at least protect me for a couple of months. If I pay for it twice I really expect it to be flawless. Volunteers, employees, I don't care. I came to have my say and that's it. I don't need anyone else telling me that no one is to blame here. I don't need someone to treat this like a victimless crime. I don't care what the company book says to tell the customer in the event of catastrophic customer service failure. I don't buy into that whole "It's nobody's fault" garbage. Someone has to be at fault. The money didn't get bored and decide to go on vacation all by itself. The email accounts didn't just suddenly decide they were lonely and struck up a conversation with each other. Somebody programmed these things to function a certain way and the only options are...
1. The system erred in which case the service that I paid for was defective and I therefore should recieve a complete refund of any and all money that I paid to the company.
2. It was programmed to do exactly what it did in which case it was deceptive from the beginning and I should recieve a complete refund.
Either way, I was not happy with the low level of service and I'm out of pocket anyway. Try that anywhere else.Go buy anything at all and see if they charge you twice for it. I got scammed once but it won't happen again.
Now I just need someone to come back and tell me what I should have done to fix their mistake again. By the way, it's not about the money. It's about the extraordinarily faulty service. Someone check that out and get back to me. Someone offer me some sort of assurance that the service won't try to access my accounts again on it's own. I should probably close the account because it would most certainly be my fault if the company software decided to go rogue again and empty my account again.or maybe I should just put thousands of dollars in the accounts so that it can take what it wants.
