Autorenewal

Automatically renew and taken 99.00 euro from my pay pal account without my permission I think I need Norton antivirus. I am really disappointed.

Hello @phil9878,

Concerning the automatic renewal feature, please see my comment above.

Bitdefender does not sell the products and services available on the official website directly, but with the help of trusted partners. Depeding on your location, the orders are processed either by 2Checkout or by Digital River.

Regardless of this, the refund requests can be made directly to Bitdefender, using the same contact channel: refunds@bitdefender.com.

The only scenario where you could be redirected from the vendor to us when inquiring a refund, is when there is an open chargeback/block on the order and this can be either a new purchase, or a renewal that took place.

Here's why it isn't a good idea to open a chargeback:

If you contact your bank/credit card issuer or PayPal in order to initiate a chargeback, the process becomes a lengthy one and the final resolution will be received after 90-120 days from the opening date. This is why we recommend reaching us first for a faster resolution.

Chargebacks are shopper requests for funds reversal made directly to the bank/PayPal, possible only if the payment was made using a credit/debit card or PayPal. Such chargebacks can be initiated by the customer in the event an automatic renewal was applied and they disagree with the price. This is when things get complicated.

1. You initiate a dispute – it takes up to 15 days for the request to reach 2Checkout / Digital River (our billing and payment processors).
2. 2Checkout responds by providing the required documents to the bank – the maximum amount of time is 90 days.
3. The bank will send the final decision – based on the details received from both 2Checkout and you, the bank offers a resolution to the dispute – up to 30 days.
4. Our payment processor is notified about the chargeback resolution.

For future reference, my best advice is the following:

1. in the event you do not wish to have your protection renewed automatically, simply disable the feature AFTER the intial purchase. Simple as that.
2. In the event the automatic renewal has taken place already and you are not satisfied with the renewal price, DO NOT open a chargeback/dispute on the order and contact the Support Teams instead. This will ensure a smooth refund process with no hiccups or delays. Otherwise, the dispute must first be canceled for the funds to be released and this may take a while.

I hope I was able to shed some light on this.

Cheers

Hi @phil9878,

You are most welcome and I'm really sorry to hear that you've had this unfortunate experience. Usually, the automatic renewal feature is pretty straightforward and easy to cancel. To enhace transparency, the feature is also mentioned on the product pages and in the shopping cart, prior to the actual purchase. Cancelation steps are available as well.

Each Bitdefender product has a standard price list and depending on the various campaigns or means of sale, discounts may apply, but the initial list price does not change. The vendor does not have a record of ongoing discounts and as such, a discount can be granted at aquisition only. Since subscription management and future renewals are managed entirely by the vendor, the full list price is applied for each renewal event (unless stated otherwise, at some point we had campaigns that ensured the same renewal price for the next billing cycle).

Indeed, PayPal is a very good payment method in my opinion and it's here to stay. Being different vendors, 2Checkout and Digital River have different accounts created for the user whenever a first purchase is made, but their purpose is the same, to provide the user with the necessary tools for easy subscription management.

A subscription does have some advantages, such as continuous protection and peace of mind and you don't have to go through all the steps of manually renewing your subscription, such as entering a new activation code and so on. But it does come at the full price and with a manual renewal, you can take advantage of early renewal offers that are being sent to you, or even check the official website for ongoing campaigns. In some cases, special offers can be found at Trusted Resellers as well and usually these are unique and may be bundled with other useful services.

Cheers

Well... Myself I just had Bitdefenders auto renewal perform 13 transactions. And support has so far been very very quiet about it..

Hello @Erda,

Your inquiry was escalated to the 2nd Tier of Commercial Support on Friday and will be addressed shortly. Surely there has to be a misunderstanding there, as I can see that several renewal attempts were declined or left unfinished and the most recent successful automatic billing took place on September 7.

My colleagues will provide further assistance on the matter.

Thank you @Gjoksi for the heads-up.

Regards

Welcome back @phil9878.

As always, I'll do my best to address your concerns one at the time.

1. During online order on Bitdefender.fr site, you cannot opt-out of autorenew - that's correct, but you can opt-out anytime afterwards.
2. If you click on Autorenew option in ordering process, you get a dialog with one option: Confirm - Precisely, the customer must give their consent to be enrolled in automatic renewal, so this is normal.
3. The dialog informs you can always opt out later in Central if you use same email - That's also correct.
4. However, in Central, as usual, since 4 years, there is no option to disable it on your new license - Here's a screenshot of my Bitdefender Central account. The automatic renewal preferences are displayed under the 'My Payments' tab. If, for some reason this tab is not displayed for you, then this should be further investigated. Normally, after the order is placed, it may take some time for the information to be updated there. Again, if it isn't, you should follow up with the Bitdefender Support teams for further assistance.

Here, I've just canceled this subscription just to show you how it works:

And this is the final confirmation screen:

So, as you can see, it works to cancel the Bitdefender subscription seamlessly from the Central account and I'm not sure exactly why this is unavailable to you. Of course, in the event this cancelation method doesn't work for some reason, you can also manage your automatic renewal feature preferences directly from your 2Checkout/Verifone account.

5. In paypal, I noticed they changed their partner: Verifone Payments B.V. - The name has changed, but it's the same vendor. 2Checkout (formerly Avangate, now Verifone) is the authorized vendor of products and services sold on the official Bitdefender website.

6. So, their unfriendly methods continue and they always argue of technical issues while it is clearly an abuse method - I have to respectfully disagree with you on this one and I think there's an actual issue with your account. The automatic renewal feature is widespread in the antivirus industry and it's absolutely legitimate.

Here are two subscription model examples of some of the antivirus vendors you have mentioned earlier:

Regards,

Alex