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Ask Slashdot: How Do You Deal With Unreasonable Companies?
New submitter Ash-Fox writes: I recently ran into troubles trying to get reasonable quality of support from an anti-virus vendor, where they are attempting to cop-out of providing any reasonable support and then refusing to offer refunds under the guise of their EULA does not allow it. However, their EULA does not implicitly say that they cannot provide refunds in other circumstances, as the support tries to imply, and further living in Europe (as is the anti-virus headquarters), this EULA for sales is only valid if that was provided as the terms of sales contract, which it was not. How do other Slashdotters look to address companies that behave poorly and seek to only provide at best their minimum legal requirements?
We give them monopolies over public utilities.
1) Report them to the Better Business Bureau
2) Report them to the Attorney General's Office
3) File a lawsuit, either in small claims court or regular court, as appropriate
1) Report them to the Better Business Bureau
2) Report them to the Attorney General's Office
3) File a lawsuit, either in small claims court or regular court, as appropriate
Alas, he spoke the magick words "living in Europe".
There's nothing like having customers and potential customers worldwide all applying pressure on a firm to make them wake up and change their behavior.
Any social media. Everywhere. Unceasing.
Since the playing field is no longer level, it's unwise to try to bargain, but wise to accept their total surrender.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I'd phone them, make sure you're talking to someone a few levels up not just a tier-1 monkey, tell them your story and ask them nicely for a refund, and tell them that if they still say no then you have no option but to take them to small claims court and will also smear their name all over the internet.
If they are meeting "their minimum legal requirements" then you have no recourse, nor should you, other than choosing to terminate your business with them. You have done so, end.
n/t
Bad publicity seems to be the only way to get service from some companies. Make a few tweets about the situation that include their @handle or #brandname, contact Consumerist.com, etc. It sucks, but more and more companies just don't care unless you start being a squeaky wheel.
We just move the funding in our budget somewhere else, and those companies that don't care, might start to care once the money stops.
Sooooo you're looking for extended support and/or a refund because a piece of software doesn't work in an extreme edge case situation involving a subsystem of windows that is clearly marked Beta?
It's not the company that's being unreasonable.
It has been my experience that people who use the word reasonable, and use it a lot like you did, are the most unreasonable people on the planet. If you've made demands that you "feel" are "reasonable" (and I put that in quotes because a feeling is all it is- there's no reasoning involved) and the vendor doesn't agree, then your one and really only solution is to get a lawyer and sue. If you don't think that is justified (and most will use the financial excuse), then I guess that feeling wasn't that reasonable after all, was it? .
It's the only way to be sure.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
1. It's not built-in functionality
2. It's in beta (as of 8/10/2016) - Bash on Ubuntu on Windows && Installation Guide. This is only available to a specific subset of Windows users (eg Windows Insiders Program).
Disclaimer: "This is the first release of Bash on Windows and it is branded "beta" deliberately - it's not yet complete! You should expect many things to work and for some things to fail! We greatly appreciate you using Bash on Windows and helping us identify the issues we need to fix in order to deliver a great experience."
You can't expect 100% compatibility with something still in beta. There are broken things and things that will be changed. Expecting Avast to work with it right now or refund you for a beta-product is unreasonable. Maybe common handles things differently than civil law in this case. I know Europe has better consumer protections in many many ways than the US, but I can't see where anyone would reasonably expect a refund or extensive support for a beta add-in when the product works perfectly with production level software (aka Win 10).
You can encourage creation of multiple software vendors so that the competition between them keeps them all user-friendly and honest.
Or you can declare a "market failure" and establish a single-payer anti-virus protection for all — even the poorest and the otherwise disadvantaged.
Up to you, really...
Why is my real account disabled?
maybe there is something in Bash preventing it from working with Avast? have you asked them?
That's really the central problem from what you've posted. You need technical support so a ticket can get opened in whatever 3rd world coding farm they have outsourced the product to. Seeing that your support request is being handling by someone who's title says "customer retention" means you will never get a refund, and your issue will never be resolved. That's just not what they are there to do. On the org chart they probably roll up to the sales group.
Cut your losses and move on.
I recently ran into troubles trying to get reasonable quality of support from an anti-virus vendor
rotfl, I can't imagine getting much support at all for that.
How do other Slashdotters look to address companies that behave poorly and seek to only provide at best their minimum legal requirements?
I don't buy proprietary software.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
that Ubuntu bash should be working with Avast? Because if not, it's basically you being an annoying customer because you can't have all the features you want. Switch to Kaspersky or F-Secure if you are looking for a change, they are the best options.
Not doing business with them again is a start, but honestly one of the things I've found is that some businesses who do some *amazingly* bad support/PR, also seem to have public walls on their Facebook pages. I've had decent luck getting some response from businesses by posting a detailed summary of my issues on their wall.
I just deactivated my account, after they deactivated two of my business pages without giving me a reason. I'm done with them. #NeverAgain
Call your credit card company and list the charge as fraudulent.
As someone else stated, call the unreasonable company as well and talk with someone. Also, do some research and find the corporate number and give that a call if it's really bad. Their corporate overlords love getting those calls.
Sorry, but if you're paying for Avast, you're wasting your money. They have nothing worth paying for. Should have been using the free version and verified it worked with your setup.
So to answer your question, switch software packages. There are a few dozen anti-virus packages to choose from. None of which are really worthwhile.
You're running into the same response you'd get from any and all software companies, plain and simple. Live with it and move forward. There is nothing you can do.
You've already put a lot of effort into failing, why not just move on? They make a good point. You should have tested the software better. It would be NICE of them to give you a refund, but they have no reason to, especially if you at like a dick. Walmart and Amazon will give you a refund because you buy LOTS of stuff from them. A company like this can just write you off as a loss and move on. It's their choice. You can wage a social networking war against them.. as you appear to be doing already. I wonder if your Ask Slashdot for help is more of a form of clickbait in the this case. I don't think you need help, you appear to be aggressively pursuing the issue with nicely made propaganda. What you need is distribution and Slashdot is not the place to get it, but it's not the place NOT to get it. Reddit seems like a better target for this type of thing.
I force them to deal with me on twitter and i refuse to do it by DM (with the exception of the sending someone private info portion of it)
failing that I start yelling at people on the phone, Pretend like your an investor and you find your way up the ladder and get to yell at people who really are not prepared to deal with it. And then i'm persistent keep their assistants busy way busier than they are prepared for.
Waste their time and their money while your idling on facebook, or taking a shit, something bad happen at work? direct that frustration their way also. Dont' swear or give them an excuse to hang up but make them hang up or just stay talking to them until the solution has been met.
Pretty much in that order:
- You cancel whatever service you have with them so they get no further money if you can legally do so.
- You threaten them with cancellation, non-renewal or no further sales - most smaller companies will bend over backwards to maintain clients
- You threaten with social pressure (trade groups, other departments or companies you have ties with, social media)
- You go for legal action. In European countries this is a heck of a lot easier as consumer protections are baked into the law even if you have contracts saying otherwise. In the US you have fewer protections but small claims is often viable for small companies even if you can't recover the whole sum. If you have a legal team staffed, talk to them about your options but unless you do jury trials are usually too expensive unless you get a class action going.
Don't EVER use social media or other publishing options to outline issues you have with a company. It's too easy for a big company to bully you with lawsuits and you may say something that's not strictly true or legal or even shows you violated a clause or your contract. All communications from your company should go through a lawyer.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Don't mention "reasonable quality of support from an anti-virus vendor" instead identify them by name and repeat it often!
I don't know if your credi card or local provides it, but here in the USA, you can dispute quality of product if it is purchased in your state or within 50 miles of home. Your home computer is within 50 miles of home.
But, when disputing the charge make it simple, "when I install it, it breaks my computer." When I remove it, it works perfectly."
Fight Spammers!
I can't figure out to deal with a company and illegal policies.....
City treasurer doesn't have a problem with CenturyLink overcharging people on city tax ://///
It is even documented in plain view on their bill with the wrong %, no one gives a fuck cause 10% of the audited amount isn't enough for a company to come in a fix it. Heaven forbid the city take care of city taxes. They failed an audit a couple years ago, and are even WORSE now but not enough $$$$ yet to bother to fix it.
When I was out of work for two years (2009-2010) and before I filed for a Chapter Seven bankruptcy, my credit card debt got sold to three consecutive debt collection agencies. The first two responded well when I pointed out to the notes that indicated I was filing for bankruptcy and ceased taking action against me. The third one did not. So I played hardball by calling their phone line every minute. After 15 minutes of repeated calls that tied up their phone line (and deprived them of earning money), they took a look at the notes about filing bankruptcy and ceased taking action against me. Bullies don't like being on the receiving end.
Use the AV checker that grew between your ears!
Don't install every shit program, don't browse the web with javascript enabled by default (noscript, ghostery) and only download torrents from trusted uploaders.
Pass the odd software here and there through that online antivirus website and you are good.
1) Your Computer will run MUCH faster
2) You take responsibility
3) not a single virus infection in over 20 years
ohh and if you want extra protection. Just set your firewall to block any outgoing unless you white list it.
Make a complaint to the member of staff you're dealing with, if they're inadequately dealing with this then ask for a manager. If they then fail to deal with this properly within the required time then make a complaint to the professional body they're a member to, and then to their regulatory body.
The feature was released 9 days ago. A cursory examination of the Avast forums shows one of their developers reporting that the issue has been at least partially resolved, but won't be available until "the next Beta."
(https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=185328.15)
It's not altogether unheard of to have lagging third-party support for brand new features in your operating system. Having read TFA, it seems you sent one email about the problem, the support drone sent you back a response that seemed to indicate a misunderstanding of what you were reporting an issue with, and you immediately began demanding a refund. This doesn't seem like a "reasonable" expectation of support to me.
It sounds like you're a professional victim looking to stir up bullshit. Maybe you should go fuck yourself sideways, instead?
You are talking about somewhere between $50-$100, right? You walk away from it, and realize that your time could (HOPEFULLY?) be better spent on more productive things.
When a small store gave me incorrect change, and was unpleasant about the correction of that error, I walked away and never came back. Anything else would have not been worth my time. Unless you want to turn this into a hobby, I suggest you take a similar approach. Whenever anyone asks me about that store, I tell them a similar story, and advise them to go to a different store. That alone cost the store far more than when they jacked from me on my change. It was the store owner that robbed me.
I don't have anything to add over other answers to the question, but I'm not surprised that the submitter had those problems with Avast. I trialled one of their products for their office recently, had an issue during the trial, and just couldn't get any support. The only real response I got was from one of their sales guys trying to talk me into buying a more expensive option than the one I was trialling. Needless to say I crossed Avast off the list PDQ.
Stop buying Avira. As with most AV vendors they're bordering on dodgey.
Write a bug report to Microsoft since it's their program that doesn't work when you turn on the AVS.
...I have already put AVAST just 1 star on Google Maps so nobody will buy their coffee again. https://www.google.com/maps/pl...
...I shit all over them on social media.
Consumer software is made on a limited budget. Consumer software has to work on a variety of computers, have a low price, and a large number of buyers. If it doesn't work, give up on it. EULAs will sometimes say things like 'software should not be used in nuclear reactors'. So, it doesn't work, now move on.
All of these people protecting these bad companies in these posts are insane.
Freaking Name the company you are having problems with. What the hell is wrong with people protecting companies that screw them?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I start by being reasonable. That includes giving them enough time and opportunities to understand the problem, and then work on a fix. I also don't expect commercial products to be compatible with beta releases. How in the world can they even provide support for something that is under development?
Do you even know what the term Beta software means? Your AV vendor isn't going to chase a moving target (Bash on Windows). It's entirely reasonable for them to not support this configuration. In fact since BoW is likely a developer-only tool, your AV vendor may decide they won't ever support it. That's their choice, not yours!
Welcome to the world of Beta software. You are earning something called "experience." Now stop acting like a baby and move on to a different AV vendor. Or uninstall BoW. Or stop being a member of the Fast ring. It's your move.
In the US, millions, if not billions, of credit cards are being replaced with chips that have a new expiration date. This means one must contact auto pay creditors of the change. When this happened to me, all but one of my creditors had simple web pages to do that. The one was a VPN provider and I sent a message to their customer service asking how to make this simple change. The response was that I needed to cancel my account with them and start a new account because they could not change the expiration date. I then cancelled my service from them and have a new provider. I've also filled social media about this problem. They're begging me to come back with a big discount. Too bad, guys.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
We all know he's talking about McAfee.
Step 1: Stop giving money to them.
Step 2: Find a better vendor.
Step 3: No more headaches. Duh.
1. Be nice to them. Occasionally this gets you better service.
2. Know what your agreement says. Insist on following it.
3. Plan to switch vendors. At least be ready to. If a problem repeats itself or a second one arises, pull the trigger.
4. Publicity. Parent is right; a lot of places will have issues on their public wall or twitter feed get elevated support. Many of these places will only pretend to elevate support in public and then will ignore you, but sometimes they actually follow through.
5. Call a lawyer. Even just a quick letter from a lawyer often makes a difference.
Real lawyers write in C++
Find out if the company has a registered agent in your state, and if so, sue them in Small Claims Court.
This is a known issue and is being worked on by the actual Avast! support : https://forum.avast.com/index....
I don't know how the OP submitted the ticket, but it went to a "retention specialist" who probably thought he was trying to use it on Ubuntu (at least that's what I understand from the first email reply). And it is not just Avast!, see for example similar problems with Kaspersky: https://github.com/Microsoft/B... and more: https://github.com/Microsoft/B...
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
If a company won't offer the products or services you want, STOP GIVING THEM YOUR MONEY.
Every day is election day, and you cast votes with every dollar you spend. With those votes, you are endorsing the stores you buy your products from, the prices they charge, and the levels of customer service they give you. In addition, you're endorsing the quality of the products, the warranties provided by the manufacturers, and the level of customer service you're getting when your products break and you need service and quick replacements.
Again, if these companies aren't giving you what you want, stop giving them your money. This is what our capitalist free enterprise system is all about.
By the way, paying too much for crappy products and then complaining about it on the internet doesn't count. The money is what matters. If you paid for it, you endorsed it, period. If they don't deliver, don't pay them, period. That's how it works.
Avast is known to be a company that commits fraud on a daily basis. His chances of getting a refund are about the same as getting a refund from the Nigerian prince.
That being said, the CEO of Avast does keep track of the press, so his chances of getting a refund now are pretty high simply because his story made the front page of Slashdot.
Is there any problem to which thermite isn't the answer?
Businesses are going to work on what makes sense financially. So what they will do is add you to a ticket. Then when they get enough incidents they will consider doing something about it. Your best bet is trying to get MS to do the legwork on fixing the issues. They might not be able to but they might at least be able to identify the incompatibility which would make it easier for the AV vendor to fix it.
As far as handling the refund I generally tend to rule in favor of the customer if I feel it's a reasonable request. I'd rather have a happy former customer who could eventually become one again in the future based on how well I treated him.
Do you think that the execs were appalled that you were treated that way (and so at least some correction may have happened) or they treated you as someone more tenacious than usual who needed to be satisfied fast? Third option: legal implications not from the company's behavio(u)r, but the execs ignoring the complaint/situation?
I name them when telling other that I think they have been unfair. If you're not will to at least do that, then shut the hell up.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Avast, known purveyors of shitty sorftware
or the guy who knowingly bought shitty software that doesn't do what it claims and then expressed surprise when the OS changed drastically underneath it in ways that he'd understand if he wasn't full of shit.
Avast doesn't care about resolving false-positives, they would rather blacklist entire ISP's than remove the single false-positive in them.
Post embarrassing stuff about them online, like the fact that the business worlds chief management consulting firm runs their company on vanilla Windows, their expertise stored in PowerPoint files residing on a number of mapped drives shared to the desktop. The accounts running on an old VAX/VMS. The bulk of the work being carried out by unpaid interns fresh out of college, under the impression they'll one day become full partners. ref
First of all collect the complete story. Then make it public. Name the company. And depending on your country get legal advice. In many cases US EULAs are not valid in the EU to their full extend, as we have other regulations and a lot of fraud protection. In case the support was the usual thing a customer expects, they would have to deliver that. As you are a little vague on the issue and company it is hard to give you definitive advice.
While companies doing business in the US, even if they're in another country, have to use a payment system of some sort. Either you sent them a cashier's check or money order (unlikely) or a personal check (what's a check?) or you paid with a credit card. VISA or MasterCard or AmEx most likely have features that allow for some sort of chargeback if the customer is dissatisfied with goods or services purchased. Usually there's a window, like 90 days, during which you can contest the charge.
I've bought a SIMM card for T-MOBILE at BestBuy and returned it the same day because it didn't work with Google Voice. The store refuse to take it back because it had been activated (but the service was not hooked up), even though there's no signage saying that it was not refundable. My bank's VISA had no problem processing the return even though BestBuy contested the charge back. I used the US Commercial Code 2-602 which allows you to reject a sale of good regardless of if the seller has a "no refunds" policy or not. When I bought software "special offer" from MacUpdatePromo, it didn't work so I complained to them and they said "All sales are final and there are no refunds" So I complained to VISA and they got me my money back because I said I refused to accept the sale.
I've also done with with two European companies even though they said they aren't held by the US Commercial Code. Actually, if they're accepting payments from VISA or MasterCard, they are. So I got my money back from those sales.
If you gave them cash or a check, good luck. If you paid with a credit card and you're still within the return window, you probably won't have a problem. If this is something that they stopped doing a year after the sale, you'll probably just have to find another vendor and walk from this one.
Good luck.
Go hurt their PR. Make sure they pay 100 times in lost sales what they will not refund to you.
If you are in the EU, use the 2 years warranty to have them fix the issues, or demand money back. Go to consumer council with this. Product warranty is also true for software in EU, and the EULA is almost never valid if you are a consumer. It is probably full of crap, like no right to reverse engineer, even though this is a right no end user can give up in any way in the EU. In the US there is no protection of customers, so you are on your own.
I had a terrible with KLM who refused/delayed money they had promised as compensation for an overbooked flight.
Eventually I got the money - but before that I spred multiple bad public messages on social media and submitted a number of bad reviews on travel sites worldwide.
It wasn't that much money but when they openly admit that they are systematically overbooking flights and then seem to refuse refunds then they deserve no better than public flogging.
So far a lot of software has been able to claim somewhat confidentially "Compatible with windows 3.11 / 95 / 2000 / XP / 7" and so on.
But now Microsoft is adding new and completely unexpected new subsystems to their OS, without making that in any way "obvious" to the customer (and other software vendors) that there is a big change in the OS that might (and most definitely will) break existing software.
This basically means that most (if not all) third party Window software will become more of a "might or might not work this week" gamble to both the customer and the third party software vendor.
on social networks. works every time. and then shame them some more that you had to rant publicly because their officia customer support showed you the rhetorical middle finger.
There are also a lot of functional differences between different language versions of Windows. You would think it's just a translation, with everything else being identical, like every other piece of open source software, but it's not. It's a support nightmare. And then there are often price differences between different languages of Windows and Windows software, so customers end up running with totally untested combinations of operating systems and programs. It's not a supprice open source software is doing so well without much technical support, it just doesn't have all the crap that is likely to go wrong.
Seriously. How do companies deal with customers that make unreasonable demands? A beta feature in a continual beta version of Windows is now impeded by the AV software. Everything else works fine. The customers response; "stamp feet", insist that the AV company fix it immediately, demand a refund, launch a public shaming campaign on the internet.
How about you quit being a whiny self entitled little bitch! How about giving them time to fix it or for Microsoft to change the feature so that it works again, like a couple of development cycles. How about setting up exclusions?
How about you get a fucking life luser!
Supposing you get your money back, what are you going to do? Buy another antivirus?
Stop wasting your money in antivirus, they are B.A.D. (Broken As Designed)!
Antivirus software appeared about 30 years, it should be a mature technology now. The fact that there are still computer viruses proves that this technology is utterly useless.
Antivirus scanners actually increase the attack surface of your systems. These crapware run under the "System" account (= "Administrator" with the power to shoot oneself in the foot) and gaping holes are regularly found in them. They upgrade out of your control and are generally designed to communicate with a central console through a broken RPC system, poorly protected or sometimes not protected at all.
You have enough correct security mechanisms in modern operating systems to block or detect a huge majority of malwares.
My girlfriend is a realtor. She was advertising on Zillow. Every month, Zillow charges the wrong account, and charges the wrong amount. Every month, they say they'll fix it, but not only do they not fix it, they refuse to refund the excess charges. Yes, that's right, every month we say "We owe you $200, you took $400.", they say, "Sorry, we'll charge you $200 next month, but you can't have the excess $200 back. And we're going to charge you another $400 regardless."
First, try working your way up the food chain like a normal person would.
Then take it to Facebook and Twitter, and if all else fails, or register companysucks.org and put up a CMS with forums and advertise the site.
Or, get asterisk and set it up to flood them with robo calls, essentially DoSing their phone lines so they have no choice but to deal with you. This does work but I would not recommend this approach as anything but a last resort due to the legal risk. If you do take this approach, you should use an overseas SIP trunk provider.
Or... see if you can find dirt on them that anonymous might be inspired to take action on.
Posting anon for obvious reasons.
As I see it, there are three gaping problems here:
#1: You don't understand how subscriptions work. They are a contractual agreement between a customer and company that says "I, the customer, agree to pay 'x' money every 'y' period over 'z' period". There are usually early termination fees and restrictions. Why does this all exist? Because companies like to know how much money they'll have in the future - they bake these subscription fees into their cash flows as money that will eventually come in, and if a customer decides to cancel, that cancellation disrupts their expected cash flows - so they charge fees for that (usually - talking about generic subscriptions here). In Avast!'s case, they ask for the money up front (I'm guessing), and their EULA clearly states no refunds after 30 days. Whether you like it or not, that EULA is your contractual agreement with Avast! Perhaps you should try reading a EULA or TOS before clicking "I Blindly Accept All Terms and Conditions..." And leave out your preconceived notions about things like how you 'think' it should work, or how you want it to work - those aren't part of the contract you're agreeing to.
#2: Support clearly misunderstood you. Your second email jumped straight to 'give me a refund'. Tech support sees that and *of course* they're going to send you to customer retention. Because tech support doesn't handle refunds. They couldn't even if they wanted to. What you *should* have done is write back to support "No, you misunderstood. I am not trying to run Avast! on Ubuntu. I am running Avast! on Windows 10 which has Ubuntu as a feature. While Avast! is running on Windows 10, I'm not able to run Bash on the Ubuntu feature." (or something to that effect). If tech support misunderstands you, you're the only person who can possibly rectify the situation. You failed to do so. You also tried going into technical detail with customer retention - another failure. Once you mention a refund, any hope of talking about technical shit goes out the window. They're going to see that and think "Oh god damn, another nerd throwing a bitch fit...I'll just point him at the EULA and he can fight a wall if he wants to". Your hope that they're going to take the ticket *back to* tech support is misguided - tech support already said "I understand the customer's issue, and we can't resolve it. He expects us to run on Ubuntu and we don't...that's that. He wants a refund."
#3: This is something anti-viruses do all the time. Literally, 100% of the time. They will automatically block things that make your system vulnerable. That's what you're paying them for. It may have been intentionally blocked, or perhaps the automated aspects of the AV labeled Ubuntu/Bash as High Risk or some such. Or it could be due to a binary that Avast! has been blocking for a long time, and it's just now coming to your attention because nothing else you run uses that binary. If you want to use the Ubuntu/Bash feature with Avast! on Windows 10, your best bet is to contact tech support. See #2 (make sure *tech* support understands your problem, and correct them if they don't).
Post the NAMES of the companies and perhaps the phone drone to Slashdot and Reddit and Facebook.
Post the bad experiences and some good for all to see.
Document the experiences at the time, so you have backups when the lawyers call.
Give cold details, not hot cussing.
Can I have a rifle? I can fix this.