Avast Sales office disgraceful behaviour

[autobob]

On April 17th of this year I decided to upgrade from Avast Free to Avast Pro Anti-Virus - it was on a special offer at the time. When I could not get it to download, I contacted Avast's Technical Department in the USA by phone (I live in the UK). They informed me that it was my old Windows XP Pro operating System that was preventing the Avast Pro Anti-Virus software from loading.

The Technical guy asked if he could quickly check out my computer. I agreed he could after which he recommended that an Microsoft Accredited engineer be allowed to fix the problem. So he basically sold me a Avast Total Support pack at a cost of £79.99 for a one time fix.

I agreed to this without thinking it through. Even though the engineer would no doubt get Avast Pro Anti-Virus to work, it didn't seem to make any sense to spend money protecting what, in effect, has become an obsolete operating system as far as Microsoft is concerned.

I decided I should change my operating system to Windows 7 and then purchase Antivirus from Avast to protect that.

On April 18th I used the Avast on-line Ticket system to raise a request for refunds for 1) The Pro Antivirus Upgrade 2) The Total Support Pack.

Eventually, on April 29th, I received a refund for the Pro Antivirus upgrade @ £9.99. Nothing about the Total Support pack though!

Using the same ticket, I asked again about a refund for that. I was told I would have to call AMERICA again!

I asked if there was any other way because I m based here in the UK and surely there MUST be a way to contact Avast Customer Service to request refunds without having to telephone the USA ( I did not know at the time that I could have used Skype and no agent ever told me about the facility either)

Any way, the agent dealing with my refund request sent my a message and I quote,

Posted on: 29 April 2014 16:56
 
Dear Robert,

I will resend your request to the appropriate department.

Best regards,

Magdalena Idzik
Customer Retention Specialist

AVAST Software a. s.
Budějovická 1518/13A
140 00 Prague, Czech Republic


I thanked her and waited.

By May 10th I had heard nothing and so asked Magdalena to chase up what was happening. No answer - nothing!

On May 20th I asked her again to respond. No answer - nothing.

It was then I thought I had better telephone the USA. I spoke with someone from Billing who first told me the Total Support product had been used and my computer had been checked.

I told him his information was incorrect. I was then left hanging on the phone (albeit Skype) for 15 minutes before the line dropped out.

I called back - got a different guy from Billing.

He told me straight - "You are not getting a refund because the product date has expired."

I never knew but apparently there's a 30 day limit after which no refund will be made.

I said I can prove that I entered the refund process will within the 30 day period with one of Avast's agents and it is in writing (through the ticket webform system.

The guy said I was not getting a refund but then tried to talk me in to keeping Windows XP and to sell me another Total Support pack for £125.00!!!

It seems Avast contrived to make me think one of Avast's agents was taking care of my refund request until the time ran out.

£79.99 is not a vast amount of money but for a company like Avast to resort to such tactics is nothing short of disgraceful.

I am extremely disappointed and disillusioned with how some business treat the customers. I really did think Avast was better than that.

[Deborah S.]

Hi autobob,
I am very sorry for the unpleasant experience you had with our phone support. I notified Adam Riley, our Senior Manager of Global Services, about the service you received, so he will investigate. He will reply to you via the email address you used to sign up to this forum.

Thanks for letting us know. We are working hard to improve our phone support, and Adam takes this feedback very seriously.

[lukas.hasik]

Autobob, your refund is on the way...

[REDACTED]

Hi,
Sorry about the delay in responding - I have not been on the forum since Avast's recent cyber attack.

I received my refund on May 28th, for which I thank you. This would not have occurred without your intervention.

However, there is something fundamentally wrong with Avast's concept of Customer Care because it should never have got to the stage where your intervention was required.

Avast's policy of providing no web based method to request refunds (customer service email for example) and making customers contact America via telephone or Skype is not good enough. I live in the UK and had to deal with someone in Europe - Prague.  In the end they stopped replying to my emails - the only place left for me to go was this forum.

It seems to me that Avast needs to be more customer friendly and not utilize systems that  seem designed to make it as difficult as possible to obtain a genuine refund. If this is not the case, then I did I have such a bad experience.

I still think Avast offers great protection for my computer. It's just sad that their Customer Care does not care.

[REDACTED]

Hello,

I as well have a story. Not as interesting as yours, but just as annoying.

I have had Avast's free software running on my MAC for sometime and I have been happy with it. So when the trial period on the software was over I decided to upgrade to the Avast Pro version. I did this on line with little success. I called your customer service, and was told that and I quote " you don't need our product for Mac" and I replied why is that? And there reply was "because Mac's don't get virus's" I was stunned. I'm a customer that has been using your product for sometime now, not knowing that your product doesn't work. ..............(that Sarcasm on my part). It has work very well for me.

Anyway, I was told to request a refund and I have 3 tickets in process with no reply. Could someone please help me get my refund. I would like to move on past this!

Thank you for any help that you can provide.

GBK consulting

[REDACTED]

Please go to this web page and select the refund button and complete: https://support.avast.com/Tickets/Submit/RenderForm - ignore the pop-up window (if you get one) click your language > click Customer Support.  This way, you have requested it both on the forum and put a ticket it.  However only put a ticket in ONCE, since more than once may put you at the bottom of the list.  Thank you.

BTW, I have a Mac, and they do get malware, so I would keep an AV on your machine as a precaution.  They just don't get them as much as Windows, but that may change in the future as more people migrate to Macs.  Avast only has one version available for Macs however.  You can check this out in the Avast for Mac forum section.

[bob3160]

Avast only has one version available for Macs however.

That version is the free version.
There is no Pro or any other paid version for the Mac unless you're booting into Windows using Parallels or VM on your Mac, then
all of the avast! versions are available on that platform.

[Eddy]

I called your customer service, and was told that and I quote " you don't need our product for Mac" and I replied why is that? And there reply was "because Mac's don't get virus's"

Sounds like you called the crappy third party and not avast itself.

[REDACTED]

referring billing issues to online tickets only is ABYSMAL customer service. billing issues often need immediate resolution, not being told you should get a reply within 24 to 48 hours. I hope avast will reconsider this idiotic practice. 

[CraigB]

24 to 48 hours is pretty good really, I've dealt with companies that state 3 to 7 days.

[REDACTED]

Not even "pretty good" when the same issue could be done in less than 10 minutes over the phone. Are you listening Avast?

[CraigB]

This might be possible with a small business but not with big companies, there is a process to follow and that's how it is I'm afraid.

[REDACTED]

Even Ameren handles these things over the phone, are they a small company? don't make me laugh. Even a smaller online retailer I shopped with through ebay resolved service issues both by email AND phone. there is just no excuse for it, end of story.

[CraigB]

Quite frankly you are unrealistic have a bad attitude imo and I don't see how any of this concerns you anyway, you are simply trolling a topic for arguments sake

[bob3160]

Even Ameren handles these things over the phone, are they a small company? don't make me laugh. Even a smaller online retailer I shopped with through ebay resolved service issues both by email AND phone. there is just no excuse for it, end of story.

If you have a problem or an issue, please start your own topic.
Do Not Hijack someone else's topic.
Thanks