Auto Renewal Unsatisfied Customer

transcend2030

Last month I was getting bombarded with pop-ups on my desktop to renew my licence (which is bloody annoying by the way). I thought I better get in and take an offer on a new licence before I lose out. I paid AUD$39.95 for a new licence and thought that was a pretty good price. I wasn't prepared to pay for the full price of $119.95.

I initially paid $69.94 for BitDefender in 2012.

This past week my credit card was billed for $119.95 without any warning what so ever. I complained to support that I've already purchased a licence and that I would have liked some warning to at least decide to go ahead or not. The fact they were targeting me to renew my licence even though it would be auto renewed is false advertising and it gave me the false impression I actually needed to renew before the expiry date. All I got from support was an offer to combine the licences into one with an extended period. I do not remember opting for auto-renew, and even if I did remember, I would have expected to have been notified at least a week before my credit card was to be charged (what if my credit card had expired, or I no longer wanted to use BitDefender or any number of other reasons). Sure this offers convenience to the consumer, but like many consumers we also like a good deal, and I'm sure many would more than likely be willing to take 5 min to pay almost 75% less on the cost. Seriously, how much time are we saving by manually renewing a licence? Is 5 min of my time really worth something like $80?

I offered BitDefender a counter offer to combine my licences, but to reimburse me the difference between the cost of the licence I purchased last month and the full price, or at least their nearest offer. I would be more than willing to accept this instead of a full refund. They make a sale, I get an extra year licence. Win - win, no replies from support as yet.

I've also tried creating an account with Avangate to deactivate the auto renew feature, which others on this forum have mentioned (with varied success to deactivate auto renew). I tried searching for my order number but it comes up blank. I resorted to using my email address with some success. No emails yet though to activate my Avangate account.

This practice of charging a persons credit card without any confirmation from the customer is criminal and if I'm not satisfied with the outcome, I promise I'll start to make a lot more noise to public forums and magazines.

Support, if you're reading this, my assigned reference number for this case is 2013121605090001.

Please be prompt with your response.

Brett

transcend2030

Update:

I got into Avangate but unfortunately it looks it only manages my latest purchase from a month ago for a new license for $39.95. I disabled auto renew with that purchase which is great. Plus it says I'll get emailed when its due (which is how things should be, nice and simple)

It looks like the original purchase a year ago is managed by Digitalriver.com and when I lookup my order and click manage subscription it takes me no where. I can't cancel the auto renew. So what? They're going to charge my credit card every year forever? If it happens again I'll ring my bank and cancel the transaction.

From this I realize 2 things:

1. Digitalriver.com is useless for managing subscriptions.

2. BitDefender do nothing to rectify this (at least it appears they've moved to using Avangate...happy with them so far). I know its the Christmas period now, but if I don't see something corrected by the first week of next year I'm going to go ballistic.

Last month I was getting bombarded with pop-ups on my desktop to renew my licence (which is bloody annoying by the way). I thought I better get in and take an offer on a new licence before I lose out. I paid AUD$39.95 for a new licence and thought that was a pretty good price. I wasn't prepared to pay for the full price of $119.95.

I initially paid $69.94 for BitDefender in 2012.

This past week my credit card was billed for $119.95 without any warning what so ever. I complained to support that I've already purchased a licence and that I would have liked some warning to at least decide to go ahead or not. The fact they were targeting me to renew my licence even though it would be auto renewed is false advertising and it gave me the false impression I actually needed to renew before the expiry date. All I got from support was an offer to combine the licences into one with an extended period. I do not remember opting for auto-renew, and even if I did remember, I would have expected to have been notified at least a week before my credit card was to be charged (what if my credit card had expired, or I no longer wanted to use BitDefender or any number of other reasons). Sure this offers convenience to the consumer, but like many consumers we also like a good deal, and I'm sure many would more than likely be willing to take 5 min to pay almost 75% less on the cost. Seriously, how much time are we saving by manually renewing a licence? Is 5 min of my time really worth something like $80?

I offered BitDefender a counter offer to combine my licences, but to reimburse me the difference between the cost of the licence I purchased last month and the full price, or at least their nearest offer. I would be more than willing to accept this instead of a full refund. They make a sale, I get an extra year licence. Win - win, no replies from support as yet.

I've also tried creating an account with Avangate to deactivate the auto renew feature, which others on this forum have mentioned (with varied success to deactivate auto renew). I tried searching for my order number but it comes up blank. I resorted to using my email address with some success. No emails yet though to activate my Avangate account.

This practice of charging a persons credit card without any confirmation from the customer is criminal and if I'm not satisfied with the outcome, I promise I'll start to make a lot more noise to public forums and magazines.

Support, if you're reading this, my assigned reference number for this case is 2013121605090001.

Please be prompt with your response.

Brett

transcend2030

Latest update just in then:

I was contacted by support and they've accepted my counter offer.

Looks all good. One license now for 2 years. Fingers crossed I get my $80 in the next 7 days.

I will keep an eye on Avangate and hope they don't auto renew even though I disabled it.

I will keep you all posted.

Last month I was getting bombarded with pop-ups on my desktop to renew my licence (which is bloody annoying by the way). I thought I better get in and take an offer on a new licence before I lose out. I paid AUD$39.95 for a new licence and thought that was a pretty good price. I wasn't prepared to pay for the full price of $119.95.

I initially paid $69.94 for BitDefender in 2012.

This past week my credit card was billed for $119.95 without any warning what so ever. I complained to support that I've already purchased a licence and that I would have liked some warning to at least decide to go ahead or not. The fact they were targeting me to renew my licence even though it would be auto renewed is false advertising and it gave me the false impression I actually needed to renew before the expiry date. All I got from support was an offer to combine the licences into one with an extended period. I do not remember opting for auto-renew, and even if I did remember, I would have expected to have been notified at least a week before my credit card was to be charged (what if my credit card had expired, or I no longer wanted to use BitDefender or any number of other reasons). Sure this offers convenience to the consumer, but like many consumers we also like a good deal, and I'm sure many would more than likely be willing to take 5 min to pay almost 75% less on the cost. Seriously, how much time are we saving by manually renewing a licence? Is 5 min of my time really worth something like $80?

I offered BitDefender a counter offer to combine my licences, but to reimburse me the difference between the cost of the licence I purchased last month and the full price, or at least their nearest offer. I would be more than willing to accept this instead of a full refund. They make a sale, I get an extra year licence. Win - win, no replies from support as yet.

I've also tried creating an account with Avangate to deactivate the auto renew feature, which others on this forum have mentioned (with varied success to deactivate auto renew). I tried searching for my order number but it comes up blank. I resorted to using my email address with some success. No emails yet though to activate my Avangate account.

This practice of charging a persons credit card without any confirmation from the customer is criminal and if I'm not satisfied with the outcome, I promise I'll start to make a lot more noise to public forums and magazines.

Support, if you're reading this, my assigned reference number for this case is 2013121605090001.

Please be prompt with your response.

Brett