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?

Comments

"living in Europe"

[Chmarr]

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".

Re:"living in Europe"

[aphelion_rock]

(1) Name and Shame on Social media
(2) Name and Shame on Slashdot
(3) Assuming you paid by credit card - go through the process of getting the transaction reversed

try this

[JustNiz]

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.

Re:try this

[msauve]

"Not even possible if they're not in the same state."

From the summary - "...living in Europe...". As imperialistic as the US is, and as parochial as many of it's citizens are, I'm pretty sure there aren't any "states" involved in this situation. And if you're using "state" to refer to a European nation's political subdivisions, it appears you're wrong.

You have already done it.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

It is a known issue with AV software

[Ecuador]

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...