The Guarantee - I Want My Money Back

I simply want my money back for a product that does not do what it should and is unfit for purpose. I purchased Bitdefender because of very good reviews - and the offer of a 30 day money back guarantee clinched it for me. I have made contact with the Support three times now to no avail. Here is the second email. The third one in January was merely a reminder that I had not heard from them.

START

Friday, 19th December

“Dear Sir,

I wish to ask for a return of my money. I purchased Bitdefender on 22 November 2008 and I have had nothing but trouble since.

First, after installing on a Windows Vista computer it refused to open the “Show” window and so I was unable to alter any of the settings for such things as the scheduled regular scan.

Second, it got corrupted on my laptop (Windows XP) and screwed it up somehow – I emailed the problem with a description of what had happened to Support but never received a reply.

Eventually I was forced to uninstall the program and put a different AV program on. This found and cleaned up several viruses; I feel that one of them may have been responsible for the corruption of Bitdefender that I had reported in vain.

I then decided to give Bitdefender another go and tried to reinstall it on the laptop. It refused to install and told me that an earlier version had not been removed properly and I had to run the uninstall tool. This I did. I was then informed that I had to run an online antivirus scan, which I also did. No viruses were found. However, Bitdefender still refused to install on the basis of an earlier version not being removed.

This is the error message: “The installation cannot be finalized because the installer has detected a previous version that was not uninstalled properly. Please run the manual uninstall tool first (Available here http:\www.bitdefender.com/uninstall) and run the installer again.”

I then tried the whole process over, ran the uninstall tool again, and did another online virus check - the result was the same. It still will not install. I have now wasted over five hours going through the reinstall process twice to no avail.

Given the fact that I have had no reply from Support, I cannot alter the settings on my desktop computer, and I cannot even install the program on my laptop, I ask you to refund me my money - £19.95 ASAP.

I can promise you that I shall remove the program from my desktop computer; for one thing, a scheduled scan in the middle of the night is hopeless for me, as the computer is always turned off then. For another, whatever new AV program I select will naturally go on both my computers.

I attach below a copy of my original purchase order, dated 22 November and look forward to hearing from you and receiving my money back.”

FINISH

To bring the story up to date, I finally had to reformat my hard drive and then reinstall all my programs just to get rid of Bitdefender. Three days down the drain by the time I had finished all this. I am now using AVG along with Malarebytes and this combination works for me.

HOW CAN I GET MY MONEY BACK? Do I have to go on the offensive merely to get my rights and mount a campaign? For instance, I could try emailing this story to the news desks/reviewers at all the major computer magazines but all this just to get my contract with Bitdefender fulfilled?

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unknown

Contact customer service over here: http://www.bitdefender.com/site/KnowledgeBase/getSupport/

You didn't had any fast replies because you haven't completed "My Account" information.

Wrathwielder

I simply want my money back for a product that does not do what it should and is unfit for purpose. I purchased Bitdefender because of very good reviews - and the offer of a 30 day money back guarantee clinched it for me. I have made contact with the Support three times now to no avail. Here is the second email. The third one in January was merely a reminder that I had not heard from them.

HOW CAN I GET MY MONEY BACK? Do I have to go on the offensive merely to get my rights and mount a campaign? For instance, I could try emailing this story to the news desks/reviewers at all the major computer magazines but all this just to get my contract with Bitdefender fulfilled?

I had many of the same problems you are having, plus MANY more. I finally got fed up and went into support and sent a request to sales for my money back.

They got back to me within 2 days and put through a refund for my 15 license order...except they only refunded me for 5 of the licenses.

I emailed them back (and DigitalRiver as well) and within a day or so I received another email with the correct refund amount...

So they seem to be very responsive regarding REFUNDS, but unfortunately not so much when it comes to tech support...

kevinbarry

To Florin Stiuca: I actually had filled in "My Account" and it seems to be functioning - as long as it is activated and working, that surely should be enough? Either as an explanation or an excuse for lack of action, not filling in the account seems weak, especially since it had been done.

To Wrathwielder: You seem to have better luck with refunds than I have! I still cannot get an answer from Support.

To everyone: I followed Florin's advice and contacted Support using his supplied URL. I hung on to a chat window for almost 2 hours without any one starting to chat to me, although the icon suggested to me that 5 minutes might be an expected response time. In the end I was forced to reboot my computer for a totally unrelated reason and lost my chat window.

I then decided to email Support, expecting via the icon, that 24 hours might elapse before I received a reply. This all happened on February 6th and it is now the 10th of the month. No one has got back to me. I am sure that Florin is competent and means well and is giving advice on what SHOULD happen. However, what actually does happen with Support is different. Nothing happens, at least for me so far.

Any suggestions as to my next step?

fungus

Kevin

Any suggestions as to my next step?

Yes, replace BD with some other brand of software. BD doesn't seem to work on all computers.

Do it today.

Fungus

kevinbarry

Kevin

Any suggestions as to my next step?

Yes, replace BD with some other brand of software. BD doesn't seem to work on all computers.

Do it today.

Fungus

Hi Fungus,

Like I said, I have been forced to replace BD with AVG which works fine on my computer and keeps the nasties at bay. I'm sure BD is OK on some computer configurations, just not mine.

Why will they not honour the guarantee that they offer? All I want is that Bitdefender live up to the contract that they established with me.

Sm3K3R

Hi Fungus,

..... with AVG which works fine

Bad choice for security my friend.Get something better.

kevinbarry

Bad choice for security my friend.Get something better.

What would you suggest? So far AVG has worked alright. I used to use Norton some years ago and gave it up after it bloated out; I tried Macafee which came bundled in with something or other and did not like it at all. Avast! wasn't bad, but I had problems with a conflict with some other program, so turned to AVG.

I'm in the market for suggestions. Anyone?

ronchicago

What would you suggest? So far AVG has worked alright. I used to use Norton some years ago and gave it up after it bloated out; I tried Macafee which came bundled in with something or other and did not like it at all. Avast! wasn't bad, but I had problems with a conflict with some other program, so turned to AVG.

I'm in the market for suggestions. Anyone?

I am also looking for suggestions. Why not AVG?

I stopped using Norton 360 after a series of BSoD (and reinstalling it twice). Now I have three outstanding issues with BitDefender and their support does not respond. I justed posted questions about all three on these forums.

I am seriously thinking about switching all my personal work and files to a Mac.

Orphan

I am also looking for suggestions. Why not AVG?

I stopped using Norton 360 after a series of BSoD (and reinstalling it twice). Now I have three outstanding issues with BitDefender and their support does not respond. I justed posted questions about all three on these forums.

I am seriously thinking about switching all my personal work and files to a Mac.

Kevin,

It sounds like you have a lot of problems with your computer! How often do you do regular maintenance?

When you unistalled all of the various AV products, did you use their specific uninstall/removal tools or did you just use Windows Add/Remove? Did you use a registry cleaning tool after each AV product was uninstalled? If you didn't follow the above steps, that could be the biggest part of your problems.

If you decide to uninstall AVG, just Google "AVG TOOLS" and download the removal tool from AVGs website.

As far as which product to use... Do some research on the Wilders Security Forum, visit the various support forums and then make a decision as to what AV program is best for you.

Cheers

Orphan

kevinbarry

Kevin,

It sounds like you have a lot of problems with your computer! How often do you do regular maintenance?

When you unistalled all of the various AV products, did you use their specific uninstall/removal tools or did you just use Windows Add/Remove? Did you use a registry cleaning tool after each AV product was uninstalled? If you didn't follow the above steps, that could be the biggest part of your problems.

If you decide to uninstall AVG, just Google "AVG TOOLS" and download the removal tool from AVGs website.

As far as which product to use... Do some research on the Wilders Security Forum, visit the various support forums and then make a decision as to what AV program is best for you.

Cheers

Orphan

Thanks Orphan.

Regular maintenance I guess is somewhat irregular! I defrag with Perfect Disk about once a fortnight or a bit less often; I run Glary Utilities now and then; and CCleaner when I think of it. In other words, I do keep a check on the system but I am unorganised in my approach. I use Add Remove Pro for uninstalling. But I did not clean up the registry each time - although it has been cleaned a few times since. I'd say I'm better than average on maintenance but the average is pretty low as a lot of people probably do none.

My system is running fine now (XP by the way) and everything goes fast. The interesting thing is that I had no problems until I installed Bitdefender in the first place and then tried to remove it.

All I want is Bitdefender to return my money as they promise on their site. A thirty-day guarantee (if Support cannot fix the problem) is promised and they do not abide by this. The number of complaints that Support does not bother to reply at all is staggering in my view.

I think I shall be emailing the main computer magazines with the story if I do not hear from Support within a week. We are only talking £20 but I hate to be ripped off by someone simply breaking the contract and refusing to reply.