Avast WEBforum
Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: REDACTED on September 27, 2014, 05:27:44 PM
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The avast! phone support scam has been going on for years now. I personally get at least 1 call per month from clients of mine who have been bitten by these scumbags. It shocks me that avast! allows this to happen - I just don't get it.
If you've been scammed into purchasing anything from avast! or its "affiliates", I recommend contacting your credit card provider and having the charges reversed. This is what I recommend to my clients now. It's the only reliable way to get a refund.
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If you or your clients run into this, report your experience to Adam Riley: riley[at]avast[dot]com
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Thank you. I may do that.
If I get around to it, I also am going to call the telephone support myself - posing as a hapless user - record the session, and upload it to YouTube. That way Mr. Riley can see what's happening directly. I will update this thread next week with a link.
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1. Thank you. I may do that.
2. I will update this thread next week with a link.
1. You're welcome.
2. Please do so.
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+1!
Most certainly report the incident.
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Report the incident(s), that is fine.
Keep in mind that (depending on where you live) recording the session and posting it on the internet can be a illegal act.
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Keep in mind that (depending on where you live) recording the session and posting it on the internet can be a illegal act.
Oh crap... All the more reason avast! needs to deal with this themselves. It's really disgraceful what they're allowing to happen.
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If you or your clients run into this, report your experience to Adam Riley: riley[at]avast[dot]com
I had the same scam from Avast. I cannot get secure line working, it said "Avast secure line has encountered a technical issue"
When I called, they said They need to remote into my computer, and quoted me $108.00 payable with a credit card for the fix. I am really giving up in disgust with Avast. I have never been so angry with buggy software that slows computers in my life. But the phone fix scam? Sorry, that is the final straw.
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If you or your clients run into this, report your experience to Adam Riley: riley[at]avast[dot]com
I had the same scam from Avast. I cannot get secure line working, it said "Avast secure line has encountered a technical issue"
When I called, they said They need to remote into my computer, and quoted me $108.00 payable with a credit card for the fix. I am really giving up in disgust with Avast. I have never been so angry with buggy software that slows computers in my life. But the phone fix scam? Sorry, that is the final straw.
I can understand your frustration and obvious disappointment.
I do hope you report your experience as suggested. :)
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I had the same scam from Avast. I cannot get secure line working, it said "Avast secure line has encountered a technical issue"
When I called, they said They need to remote into my computer, and quoted me $108.00 payable with a credit card for the fix. I am really giving up in disgust with Avast. I have never been so angry with buggy software that slows computers in my life. But the phone fix scam? Sorry, that is the final straw.
Secureline has a specific area of the forum for it's discussions, try asking here https://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=53.0 for help rather than the third party phone support.
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Earlier I posted a simple question, and I see that either my post didn't go through or for some reason has been deleted:
Can you please describe how the "phone scam" being mentioned here works?
I only ask because if there's a scam afoot I'd like to know what it is so I can be prepared to avoid it.
I see it's been described above as something like "I called for support and they quoted me a price to provide help"... If that's the whole of it, it seems more like a business model than a scam.
And no, I don't think you should have to pay to get a product to work, but that's what these forums are good for.
-Noel
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I was having trouble getting avast set up for the first time and called in for support. I spoke to a man with an indian accent and he asked to remote into my pc. He opened sysinfo and went to windows error reporting and proceeded to tell me that the fault errors listed there indicated I had a virus and I needed to pay over $100 to get support. He told me that the problem was that I had Malwarebytes installed along with Avast, and that I should only have 1 antivirus software installed.
What this guy didn't know was I know precisely what fault errors are, what malwarebytes does as opposed to Avast, and what a load of BS he was feeding me. It was a fresh install of windows and there was no possibility of virus on the machine, I had even overwritten the boot record and formatted. The faults were from an old soundblaster driver that I hadn't updated yet. He was trying to scam me out of my credit card number. No telling what would have happened if I had given it to him.
This, coupled with the fact that most mornings I wake up to a false positive telling me THREAT FOUND but the scan results button doesn't work and nothing comes up wrong on when scanning with AVAST, ESET, Malwarebytes, Spybot, tdsskiller, rkill, adwcleaner, even combofix, and I am just totally fed up with this software.
I regret having purchased this product and do not plan to renew when my license expires. AT this point I feel I cannot rely on Avast tech support for anything, and am totally on my own for any support issues other than what I can glean from this forum.
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It was a fresh install of windows and there was no possibility of virus on the machine
Please explain how you exactly did it.
I needed to pay over $100 to get support.
No you did not. support is free. Here on this webboard as well as through the contact form and ticket system on the avast website.
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why should you be interested in how he did a fresh install of windows and i have had exact same experience with man with indian accent ,remote control request, then telling me that i needed to pay over £100 to fix errors and so he could remove windows defender! (i have it disabled permanently and use avast) ! my windows install is always mint condition and optimised for my usage!
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It was a fresh install of windows and there was no possibility of virus on the machine
Please explain how you exactly did it.
I needed to pay over $100 to get support.
No you did not. support is free. Here on this webboard as well as through the contact form and ticket system on the avast website.
This is not True. You are wrong. Support is not free. I called Avast support number, and the person told me I had to pay $108.00 for Avast support to dial into my computer, and fix the Avast anti virus secure line. I have since cancelled it, and even after following Avast instructions to stop billing me, they still charge my credit card. You sir are 100% WRONG.
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It was a fresh install of windows and there was no possibility of virus on the machine
Please explain how you exactly did it.
I needed to pay over $100 to get support.
No you did not. support is free. Here on this webboard as well as through the contact form and ticket system on the avast website.
This is not True. You are wrong. Support is not free. I called Avast support number, and the person told me I had to pay $108.00 for Avast support to dial into my computer, and fix the Avast anti virus secure line. I have since cancelled it, and even after following Avast instructions to stop billing me, they still charge my credit card. You sir are 100% WRONG.
Hello Joseph
I believe a misunderstanding in posts.
The statement that "support is free" I believe was talking about "The Support Is Free Here on this Web board/Forum"
And if you submit a ticket I also believe that too is Free. :)
The Phone Support you experienced is done by a 3rd Party support service.
There are many,many complaints as yours about this service,
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got Avast a few days ago. On come this "microosft partner" icon it says I have 108 registry error in a 1 month old brand new computer. I call the number ....after the woman with Indian accent accesses my computer she wants nearly 200 dollars I do not have that kind of money. She was willing to lower it....doubtful) but now am stuck with chrome which i do not want or like and cannot access my internet except through it. I want Chrome gone and anything else she might have put on....how do I do this or to where should I go...BTW she told me I needed a new driver(in a month old computer???) Can anybody he;p me.?
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You can safely clean the registry with CCleaner (http://filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/).
Have you tried to uninstall Chrome? ???
You may need to follow these instructions (https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=53253.msg451454#msg451454)
And start a thread here (https://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=4.0).
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got Avast a few days ago. On come this "microosft partner" icon it says I have 108 registry error in a 1 month old brand new computer. I call the number ....after the woman with Indian accent accesses my computer she wants nearly 200 dollars I do not have that kind of money. She was willing to lower it....doubtful) but now am stuck with chrome which i do not want or like and cannot access my internet except through it. I want Chrome gone and anything else she might have put on....how do I do this or to where should I go...BTW she told me I needed a new driver(in a month old computer???) Can anybody he;p me.?
1) Month old computer you should be able to save any personal files and just use the company factory reset process if you want it back to square one.
2) Other than that do you have a system image or backup setup? If so use that...
3) Just FYI even on a brand new computer, straight out of the box, if you use a good cleaning program like CCleaner or Wise... will still find tons of crap to clean.
4) Uninstall Chrome and just run CCleaner or Wise
Whatever you do don't give any money to anyone... it's a scam.
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You can report it all you want but its been going on for years and avast is well aware of it but yet it doesnt stop?Its not going to(from the looks of it).If any other company advertised this as phone support everyone would say that company itself is a scam and cant be trusted but here its ok and the only response is report it and thats from users(which are trying to help) as avast remains silent.dont get me wrong,ive been using avast for a long time but the last year or so really been wondering?
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You can report it all you want but its been going on for years and avast is well aware of it but yet it doesnt stop?Its not going to(from the looks of it).If any other company advertised this as phone support everyone would say that company itself is a scam and cant be trusted but here its ok and the only response is report it and thats from users(which are trying to help) as avast remains silent.dont get me wrong,ive been using avast for a long time but the last year or so really been wondering?
Yes it has been frustrating and is hard to understand the persistence in the use of 3rd. Party support
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avast! represents a real conundrum for me. I have been using avast! since 2004 (my God that UI was horrid!) on all of my machines. I started a small IT business in 2005 and have recommended and installed avast! on hundreds of machines since then. Generally I consider avast! to be among the best overall antivirus/antimalware products available. That said, there are some things about avast! which annoy the CRAP out of me - and the phone scam tops the list.
I understand AVAST is a business and that their goal is to make money. But this phone scam is simply dishonest and reprehensible. Any goodwill I've had for AVAST is gone as a result.
For those who still don't understand exactly what's happening, the scam goes like this. A not so savvy user has a problem with avast! on her computer so she visits AVAST's website looking for help. She quickly sees *free* phone technical support is available and calls the number provided. The support technician remotely connects to her computer, quickly finds several critical problems, and offers to fix them for a fee, often including a long term support contract, ranging in price from $100-$300 USD. Of course, their are actually no problems, but it's easy to deceive the unsophisticated user simply by showing her a few logfiles, DLLs, and TaskManager and throwing in some technospeak. So now she has paid $300 for nothing.
The management team and board at AVAST should be ashamed. Without any argument possible, they are crooks. I am sorry to be so honest, but it is what it is.
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You can safely clean the registry with CCleaner.
Registries do NOT need to be "cleaned".
-Noel
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You can safely clean the registry with CCleaner.
Registries do NOT need to be "cleaned".
-Noel
When you run the removal tool from a third party AV, you are in essence cleaning the registry of all items not removed by the regular
uninstall method. This is needed before you replace your AV.
Therefore, there are times when the registry needs to be cleaned.
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Make up whatever terms you want.
It's clear that deletion of items from a database maintained by other programs is perfectly safe. How could I have been so blind? You need to delete everything from your registry to ensure it's as clean as it possibly can be. Only then can you be happy.
-Noel
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Make up whatever terms you want.
It's clear that deletion of items from a database maintained by other programs is perfectly safe. How could I have been so blind? You need to delete everything from your registry to ensure it's as clean as it possibly can be. Only then can you be happy.
-Noel
It would have been a lot easier to admit that there are times when cleaning (deleting) information from the registry is needed.
I know, it hurts to admit even you can occasionally be incorrect in your statements.
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Perhaps I haven't been clear. People who know how to keep Windows in tip-top shape for years and who know how Windows works do not run "registry cleaner" applications.
Nothing about the registry needs to be "cleaned". Windows keeps itself tuned up just fine.
The term "cleaning" was invented to support sales of products that you don't need. Call it the modern "door to door brush salesman" approach if you like. It's a self-actualizing market. Some of the applications might not do harm every time you run them, but rest assured that some bozo writing a "registry cleaner" application can't possibly know everything in YOUR particular system that might rely upon data in the database, and make no mistake, "cleaning" is another term for "deleting data".
By requesting that some 3rd party application delete data from your database you're doing no less than risking destabilizing your system.
If you have specific problems with applications that won't uninstall themselves properly or completely, seek out SPECIFIC REMEDIES from the maker of those products. You'll note that Avast offers an "AvastClean" application of their very own. They do not point you to some registry cleaner.
But hey, go on and run whatever applications you like, including registry cleaners. And while you're at it go on believing that Windows must be reinstalled regularly.
-Noel
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I don't recommend deep registry cleaning for novice users but CCleaner is quite safe I've found over the years, many programs don't have their own removal/clean up tools and even when they do they still leave behind a lot of rubbish and a light cleaning tool such as CCleaner can help remove some problematic leftovers.
Even after running vendor removal tools I still find 10's to hundreds of leftovers of just about all programs through the registry and sometimes still remnants in Programs - Program Data -user folders and the Window 32 Driver folders ::)