Do Not Give Them Your Credit Card

DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR CREDIT CARD OR BANK INFO! Bitdefender automatically sets customers on Auto-Pay. When you decide to drop them, you will have to contact multiple outsourced/overseas phone numbers and spend hours on the phone trying to get them to take you off of auto-pay and refund the overcharges. They will also entice you to accept special offers to renew. When you do, you may be double-charged (LIKE ME) - because you were already on auto-pay (by default). They will not reply to your online requests - or issue a refund either.

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somu

Please go this link , Its well explained how to disable auto renewal.No need of worry you can set yourself disabled auto renewal.

http://forum.bitdefender.com/lofiversion/i...php/t34003.html

AnotherDave

While it is true that you can disable auto-renewal, it's kind of sad that anyone would have to resort to "research" in order to make sure of this.

We purchase this product because we want security and protection against being taken advantage of and to avoid shady things happening to us.

The product is promoted as a "for your protection" and "user friendliness" product scenario.

And yet, if you have a problem such as a "double charged" transaction, BD's credit card processor (Avangate) will refuse to cooperate with you and will not provide you with your deserved refund for the improper transaction. Instead, Avangate will tell you that you must contact BitDefender to sort it out, at which point your request will be delayed and they will assign it to a BD salesperson who will email you 4 to 7 business days later offering to extend your license. And then you have to ask *yet again* for the double-charged transaction to be credited to you, and then wait another up to 10 business days to watch for your refund for the double-charge.

Hardly encouraging, and far from feeling "safe" with the product or the company.

I'm not saying that BD is "bad" - it's an excellent security software product in and of itself. But the "business practice" of allowing a double-charge to go through and then having to deal with salesperson trying to convince you to not ask for a refund for the double-charge is just downright discomforting.

I feel qualified to make this response because I've dealt with it directly - I recommended BD to a family member back in November and she was double-charged and I spent days going through the process of helping her get the double-charge refunded. That's the kind of thing we're looking for protection against to begin with!

rwilsond

While it is true that you can disable auto-renewal, it's kind of sad that anyone would have to resort to "research" in order to make sure of this.

We purchase this product because we want security and protection against being taken advantage of and to avoid shady things happening to us.

The product is promoted as a "for your protection" and "user friendliness" product scenario.

And yet, if you have a problem such as a "double charged" transaction, BD's credit card processor (Avangate) will refuse to cooperate with you and will not provide you with your deserved refund for the improper transaction. Instead, Avangate will tell you that you must contact BitDefender to sort it out, at which point your request will be delayed and they will assign it to a BD salesperson who will email you 4 to 7 business days later offering to extend your license. And then you have to ask *yet again* for the double-charged transaction to be credited to you, and then wait another up to 10 business days to watch for your refund for the double-charge.

Hardly encouraging, and far from feeling "safe" with the product or the company.

I'm not saying that BD is "bad" - it's an excellent security software product in and of itself. But the "business practice" of allowing a double-charge to go through and then having to deal with salesperson trying to convince you to not ask for a refund for the double-charge is just downright discomforting.

I feel qualified to make this response because I've dealt with it directly - I recommended BD to a family member back in November and she was double-charged and I spent days going through the process of helping her get the double-charge refunded. That's the kind of thing we're looking for protection against to begin with!

Dave - I did same as you. After using it for about a year, I was impressed enough to recommended this product to several individuals, and a couple of businesses. I manage it on several PCs myself. But, I do NOT 'knowingly' elect auto-pay/auto-renew for things such as this. Local utilities, and credit cards, yes; but NOT software. After all the time and frustration of dealing with this chea.p TRICK, I'm going to start the switchover to something else soon. Have you seen the cute little Smileys they eventually get around to posting on the posts of ticked-off customers? Yeah, that'll do it - give me some smileys! The folks that run this outfit must be of a different sort - the kind I don't choose to keep doing business with.

AnotherDave

It really is a shame man. BD is an awesome security product, probably in the top 3 I've ever used. But what good is an "Identity Protection" icon when you can't even trust the company who provides it to respect your own transactions with them and handle them professionally? Let's see... five different contacts and ten business days to resolve an incorrect charge, only to be forced to bargain with a sales agent to get the bogus transaction refunded? That is NOT a way to build trust. It's a way to scare me back into using a different product from a company who doesn't feel "shady" over a purchase.

I continue to use BitDefender software because it is excellent (and because I paid for it). However, I have stopped referring friends / family / clients because it's not worth the hassle of trying to explain to them why they are being handled in a manner identical to desperate software developers who don't have any concern for the elderly and novice end-user in regard to these financial transactions. I'm tired of making excuses for them, and have resorted to telling my curious customers / family to download a competing product. Over-charging "accidentally" and then making it a hassle to set everything straight is not in alignment with the solution I'm looking for to present / refer my customers and family to. Last thing I want to worry about is my elderly friends / families cards being charged inadvertently and then having to explain to them why they have to hassle with a bunch of email correspondence to get their money back on a double-charge, especially when that charge is hitting an account for a person who is already financially challenged.

In my experience, there was no concern or consideration shown for the victim of the incident. Just a "confusing" email correspondence that left them wondering what was going on and why it was so hard to get their money back to their account even after it was proven a paid license and a clear mistake by Avangate/Bitdefender.

I'm sorry to be the provider of negative input, but this software is clearly NOT for people who don't keep close track of their credit card transactions.

What a shame.

AnotherDave

PS - I welcome BitDefender to engage me openly about this right here in public. I have every receipt, every correspondence, every document, all in screenshot format to prove every word of what I'm saying. Don't get me wrong - I want to have an alliance with BD, and a healthy happy B2B relationship. But if BD wants to argue the point, I can guarantee that they will find themselves facing irrefutable proof that they make it difficult for a consumer to recoup bogus charges, and that a call to their support line simply ends up in a delayed intervention of "sales" emails that attempt to appease the over-charged customer. Again, this is not a good business model or solution for the consumers who need our protection the most.

somu

Instead of separate account at advantage or Digital River customer should have a link in their bit defender account itself to cancel auto Renewal. Hope this will help many customer who don't want forced auto renewal. A link like PURCHASE INFO>>> AUTO RENEWAL> MANAGE AUTO RENEWAL

columbo

The solution of correcting an after the purchase auto pay, by rwilsond (see his post above in link provided), seemed to have helped this member: http://forum.bitdefender.com/index.php?s=&...st&p=173381

Georgia

Hello all,

Please see my post here: http://forum.bitdefender.com/index.php?sho...st&p=177727

Let me know if you have any other questions regarding Bitdefender products and services.