Compensation For False-positive Of Trojan.fakealert.5?

In this Thread, it's all about appropriate compensation from issue of 20 March 2010!

if you have a question to the issue, please post it on http://forum.bitdefender.com/index.php?showtopic=18759 !

I think that BitDefender had to compensate all consumers who bought their product for another year free use of their current license key. In the past, some other reputable manufacture of antimalware was affected by false-positive. Many manufacture has make credits or cache-back offers to get losted trust again.

What do you see as reasonable compensation?

I honestly believe that 100% reimbursement for my five (yes, FIVE! Two are 1-year and Three are 3-year licenses) paid licenses so I can buy a different product. And, since I had to take an unpaid leave day from work because I cannot use my BD disabled laptop to login since it quarantined so many system and app files for the Trojan.Fakealert.5 false positive, some way to request the hourly pay I missed.

(Disclaimer: All opinion based.)

An extended year license does not seem reasonable. People have lost trust in this product and in that should be given the option to choose an alternative product. From that comes the option of a 'full refund'.

In regard to there 'no liability' - the EU overrules this. And says you cannot have a no 'liability clause'. In the terms and conditions themselves they accept that 'a product refund' is the direction.

However due to the nature of this situation - just refunding the product price would not be enough in many cases. Depending on your computer damage and files lost NO court in there right mind would deem this acceptable. And would find it less acceptable to ONLY offer an entension of the license. Just google search 'Product Liability case law'.

Realistically:

- Price of the product returned (At minimum) <<< There best option

- Any costs to getting the computer fixed by a third party returned (With evidence provided - an invoice is fair play) <<<

- If it gets to court - its no telling to what amount the compensation could be paid out. Due to Bitdefenders lack of communication on the matter - this could be quite high. If they email'd all there users when this happened they could potientially avoided a hefty bill.

i want a full refund on my product so i can move to different software. bitedefender crashed my computer which took me 20 mins to get working again lucky i backup my computer a lot.

I'll be happy with a "I survived Trojan.FakeAlert.5" t-shirt. XXL organic cotton, please.

What about compensating BD for each of the other 364 days of each year when ###### does not happen?

Let's count ourselves lucky we didn't get any of the 4 previous internal FakeAlert test releases, if that's what they were.

i want a full refund on my product so i can move to different software. bitedefender crashed my computer which took me 20 mins to get working again lucky i backup my computer a lot.

||

Considering thousand of non-tech savvy consumers are dieing at the moment.

Literally crying in the floor boards... its really not good now is it?

My pc was affected. i am now reformating after backing all my files up.

what a waste of a saturday. I WANT my 3user license key either A) Extended indefinetly, Money back, C) a PC Technician to repair the damage its caused, including any bad sectors this ###### has done while trying to force reset and stuff.

OR! they should invite us all around for dinner. so we can stab the nub who didnt report this fault, or the company for now testing the bloody patch.

WHAT type of RENOWNED company DOESNT test any RELEASES. they should always go through a phase of testing, eg, 100 Xp's 32+64, 100Vista 32+64 & 100Win7 32+64 (50/50 splits) and if ANY fault arises. it should be addressed to immediatly. rather than users having to cry because theyre pc failed due to the laziness of some staff... christ.

I will also be looking into a Case-Sue.

Or even a Lawsuit agaisnt BitDefender for improper software development. they should of tested it. its a written / unwritten law.

You dont create a website and not test it before upload. thats daft.

You dont make a youtube video and dont preview it before its released to the millions of users.

WORLD OF WARCRAFT has weeks, sometimes even months Public Test Realming for all its users to try if they so wish to see the new patches and comment on any bugs or imbalances. and its also Assesed during the beta phases. it can alter to the finish product.

They also have closed Alpha Development Teams.

Nuff' Said.

Fix your Company BitDefender.

I had to install everything from scratch cause BitDefender quarantined more than 10000 files from windows and programs.

Luckily I have all my files in another disk, so I didn't lost them with format, but having to install the OS and every single program is very time consuming.

This isn't the first time BitDefender shows false positives, but this time things went overboard.

What kind of trust can a consumer have on this product if any minute he risk losing everything to a faulty update, isn't there a test team to check for this things before releasing?

I used BitDefender 2008 and 2009 and never had any problems, ever since the release of 2010 version, quality declined to the point of starting to think on quit using this product.

I don't think anything they can do can fix the damage caused.

Most people just got files in the quarantine. On Windows 64-bit. From BD 64-bit. During a few hours of a weekend day. When most of them were not even at work.

BD updates, stops detecting false positives. People restore files from the quarantine - problem solved. I've had it, too. Back to normal, no fuss.

What damage? What compensation? I think people just got really scared and are now blowing off steam. I think many want compensation for emotional trauma, not any real damage.

In my opinion, the problem was handled nicely by the team by removing the false positive, and they are now working on a solution to handle all other situations.

+1 for employer of BitDefender. Oh I mean yeh as a 1 poster person and member of the public your completey right. This is all just steam. People's pc's not working at all - its all in there heads. Guys come on - slap yourself's a few times your pc will work again.

"Emotional trauma isnt any real damage" lol. Have a person run out in the middle of the road, when your not expecting it and say that again.

Handled nicely? Hmmm, 3 hours after people making the team aware of it: turn off your virus scanner. An email? No. In a support forum that most could not get access to due to there computer already been blasted. Would of an email helped in that case either? No - but at least it would of been professional.

9 hours later and still no solution for many people.

So again: +1 for employer of BitDefender.

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A question yet unanswered:

I have had to pay my local IT company to fix this for me.

So where/how do I make a claim for compensation?

I am not a BD employee. Just like many others after this happened, this is my first visit on the BD forum, to check out the situation.

I can agree that an e-mail would have been very nice. Or even a message through BD's news service, which could have splashed a warning message right in the bottom right corner of the screen from the antivirus itself, no e-mail needed.

Some may have been deeply affected indeed.

But many, in my opinion, just had some files transferred to the quarantine, which could have easily been restored. My case, too.

I'm not saying BD is not to be held responsible. I'm just talking about a fair assessment of the actual damage this situation has produced.

Real viruses and trojans steal passwords, CC numbers, bank account info and so on. That's real damage. And that's where BD has been serving all of us for so many years by protecting our PCs from them.

What is your opinion?

I am not a BD employee. Just like many others after this happened, this is my first visit on the BD forum, to check out the situation.

I can agree that an e-mail would have been very nice. Or even a message through BD's news service, which could have splashed a warning message right in the bottom right corner of the screen from the antivirus itself, no e-mail needed.

Some may have been deeply affected indeed.

But many, in my opinion, just had some files transferred to the quarantine, which could have easily been restored. My case, too.

I'm not saying BD is not to be held responsible. I'm just talking about a fair assessment of the actual damage this situation has produced.

Real viruses and trojans steal passwords, CC numbers, bank account info and so on. That's real damage. And that's where BD has been serving all of us for so many years by protecting our PCs from them.

What is your opinion?

I agree that most people who were able to recover were not harmed permanently. However, I did lose about 3 hours of my life, am not 100% sure that my system is stable, and am now pretty wary about the quality of the BD product. As a result, I think that I should be able to ask BD for a full reimbursement of my license.

The bitdefender issue has made it impossible to work from my computer. The only compensation equal to my loss would be a check for around $500. But there are other people who have had dozens to hundreds of networked machines rendered inoperable as a result of the calamity, so I think for those people compensation is not a possibility.

typical society of mindless people, mistakes happen, it was easy to fix, get over it. If you dont like it, dump bitdefender, and go buy Norton and see how many more issues you will have.

If you read the terms of service, you will understand that things like this are covered, as you allready agreed to it, wait you didnt read them did you!!! lol.

Typical

I did read it. I read the fact they have a no liability. Unless you reside in a place this is not possible.

EU is a place with 'no liability' is not possible. So why dont you go and read it and read the law of where you reside.

EU have an 'acceptable liability'. What is deemed acceptable? if things should go wrong. Which comes from - what is lost? Which then comes - How much do I need to pay to get your situation back to where you have not lost?

I doubt your attitude to this situation would be the same if you like me had to pay to get this problem fixed. Which I think many more people may have to do aswell.

It can be seen that they did not test this update. A mandatory stage of ANY release of software fix/patch/update whatever you want to call it.

Is my frustration due to there 'lack of communication' till the news sites started reporting this? No. Its the fact I am out of pocket due to a virus software company that I chose to use did not test, and in result caused me to pay to get it fixed.

You may say that connection is unrelated. Quite possibly is... but the timings of when they started reporting and when BD started commenting co-inside. Not BD first, but the news sites first and then BD.

"Real viruses and trojans steal passwords, CC numbers, bank account info and so on." and then make the pc un-usable. (I thought i'd finish that sentence of). Isn't that what happened here?

Its unrealistic to think that as soon as a virus scanner reports viruses you check out the software vendor's webiste. No - then the forums would then really be flooded. So is it reasonable, that some people took the intiative themselves? And even attempt to restart? Thats very reasonable in my book.

Understandably BD do not want to open the flood gates by saying: "Sign up here for compensation."

But for some people compensation is due.

BD made a mistake? In the business world mistakes mean compensation to some people. Granted not all. And for those who were able to fix it themselves, just took a little time good for them. But what about the people unable to do this? I being one of them.

I'd happily supply the necessary documents that show I have had to pay to get my problems fixed.

I highly doubt you paid for a tech to rush to your house to fix a virus, not hard to make a false receipt either, how long was this problem live for? I dont know that question as this error happened when most people in my country would be asleep, then waking up to a fixed error, that most wouldnt have experienced through the dodgy d/l update.

Go cry in a corner, then come back when all is better for you.

I highly doubt you paid for a tech to rush to your house to fix a virus, not hard to make a false receipt either, how long was this problem live for? I dont know that question as this error happened when most people in my country would be asleep, then waking up to a fixed error, that most wouldnt have experienced through the dodgy d/l update.

Go cry in a corner, then come back when all is better for you.

Wow... could you be any ruder?!

Wow... could you be any ruder?!

So its fine that they all abuse BD staff, but when someone defends BD its classed as rude? so be it then.

Yes I highly doubt he called support at 2am in the morning, that is if his clock is right.

So its fine that they all abuse BD staff, but when someone defends BD its classed as rude? so be it then.

Yes I highly doubt he called support at 2am in the morning, that is if his clock is right.

Yes I called them at 2am. Lets not mention the fact Ive been posting since 8:21pm.

If you want to be rude I can be too. Learn the facts before you start making assumptions. I know of alot of therapy that can he..... you know what Im not going to stoop to your level. Who cares what you say if your not going to helpful. Do us all a favour: Dig a hole - jump in.

These softwares are made in a manner that any user can install it themselves and without having to go to a technician for every little issue. I think whatever we would otherwise earn, the time spent to fix the matter with each of our PCs should be logged and be compensated for. This is no plumbing job that needs an expert plumber for everything.

We should be allowed to submit a bill of resonable damages clearly listing the damages that have resulted from the "False Positive - Trojan.FakeAlert.5". Of course there are some intangible losses due to irreparable damages to personal data that were not backed up, which would happen if a plumber left a leaky faucet that damaged precious and memorable items many of which cannot be replaced. These days we have much much more such precious data that a simple mistake by BD cannot be replaced, but can be made good for with proper compensation for a resonable effort by the consumer to restore them.

As of now I would legally settle for a full refund, in addition incidental expenses at about 25% (which a retailer would charge for returned items), if not a professional restoration a personal allowed time to get the PC back in order along with any other tools that need to be purchased to fix the issue at hand. BitDefender needs to collate all user's damage claims and arrive at a common consensus and provide not just a "fix" but something like a tie up with GeekSquad and one time professional restoration attempt. If not, then an alternate to BD antivirus of comparable repute.

That is what I would call a settlement. I will support any user that has been subjected to this problem, if they wish to go legally. My HDD was wiped out too and it took me a whole day to just get the PC operable, not completely back to original state yet, as I have to reinstall many other softwares. Incidentally I have lost trust in BD so have to go get another AV before attempting to do anything else.

V

Whether you or your local IT guy must have a record of the time spent to fix this and claim damages. These softwares are made in a fashion that not everytime you need to invite the plumber over to your house for a leaky faucet.

+1 for employer of BitDefender. Oh I mean yeh as a 1 poster person and member of the public your completey right. This is all just steam. People's pc's not working at all - its all in there heads. Guys come on - slap yourself's a few times your pc will work again.

"Emotional trauma isnt any real damage" lol. Have a person run out in the middle of the road, when your not expecting it and say that again.

Handled nicely? Hmmm, 3 hours after people making the team aware of it: turn off your virus scanner. An email? No. In a support forum that most could not get access to due to there computer already been blasted. Would of an email helped in that case either? No - but at least it would of been professional.

9 hours later and still no solution for many people.

So again: +1 for employer of BitDefender.

-------------------------------------------------------

A question yet unanswered:

I have had to pay my local IT company to fix this for me.

So where/how do I make a claim for compensation?

I too have been using BitDefender for over 3 years. I have never had an issue with it.

From the posts I have seen some have had some major issues. I am not 100% sure but this glitch only effected Windows 7 & Vista 64 bit machines. Since I have not heard the contrary I dissabled it on my 32 bit Vista too. Can someone verify that 54 bit is the only effected computers.

If so I was able to fix my Sager very quickly. I shut the system down and restarted with my original OS disk and ran the repair. My laptop started back up with no issues. However, when I went to disable my BitDefender it would no longer accept my password. Therefore I had to uninstall.

When BitDefender comes up with a cure I would hope they would notify me by mail so I can download the new fixed version then enter my existing key to have it all up and running again.

I feel for folks who lost time and money and I know the anxed that this type of issue causes, but unfortunately Sh#? Happens and not even the best can protect themselves from the bottom feeders who have nothing better to do than to create this type of mischief. If they are caught they should have their balls cut off, then have them pay for all the damages done.

Cheers,

Beech Hill

I always remember this quote: When you pay for burger, shi3t shouldn't happen.

In the EU law however this goes further to: shi3t shouldn't happen regardless.

http://www.securityfocus.com/print/columnists/387 <<< Read

Key Test in any case:

"The standard of care for the prevention of harm is typically what the law calls the "reasonable man" standard. What would a reasonable person (or company) of ordinary prudence do? In addition, laws or regulations can impose a higher standard of care than ordinary negligence, and failure to adhere to a law or regulation is typically deemed to be negligence per se. " So, what would a "reasonable" person have done if there virus scanner report many uninfected files as infected? First Update? Restart?

The key issue here is: Was the company negligent?

- And the simple answer in my opinion is yes.

There are a handful of windows operating systems: xp 32/64, vista 32/63, windows 7 32/64. But this isnt an issue of the different types. This has affected 64-bit users. Which as can you see from even my short list - that covers half. But even better the software is 64-bit and can only on 64-bit, which concludes: it this was tested at all, This error would have been found and corrected. Which it wasnt at all from the look of it.

Some of you probably have seen this kind of thing before. However, for some this is probably the first time you have experienced something like this. You won't get compensated. I used to see similar situations that people would run into, when I worked at a computer store. A customer would come in with a system that was hosed either from a hardware failure, virus, or other software that had screwed something up. It was sometimes thier work computer. They never backed up thier stuff and all that buisness and or other important stuff was lost.

Why do people never back up stuff so important their very lively hoods depend on it? That makes no sense. Computers are always going to fail at some point. Wither it be from hardware or software issues. They WILL fail its not an if, its a when.

Like I have said, I have seen this kind of thing before. Twice. Both from MMO games. Massively multiplayer online games. These are games that are updated and patched constantly. Expansions / bug fixes and the like.

The first occurrence I saw happened when I played a game called WWIIonline. A great game, I still love it though I don't play it anymore. A patch was released that flat out deleted core windows system files. They were just gone. The computer still ran just fine, until you rebooted. Then it went into an infinite boot loop. This required a reinstall of said files. I caught the error before I rebooted and replaced the files manually.

The second occurrence was pretty recent. This happened in another MMO called Eve Online. A very very fun game which I still play. A patch was again released. This one however had a different issue. This particular patch overwrote the boot.ini file in windows. It mistakenly replaced the window boot.ini with a file similarly named (how I dont know).

In both cases no one got compensated. Both are games that people paid initially for and then on top of that a monthly subscription fee. All software is a risk. Antivirus software is no exception. User beware, user prepare. Back your stuff up. If your life depends on your computer... why risk anything less than a daily backup?

I caught it early enough and only had maybe 100 or so files quarantined. I saw that notification pop up that all the files were being quarantined so I knew something was up.

I wish those of you really affected the best of luck.

Did anyone try though? Many companies play on the idea that no one will try and just ignore any request by there customers for compensation. And people have the notion that only geeks who know how to fix computers - somewhat. So if there system dies they know what to do.

This is a virus scanner a different market of people. (I say with the fear of sounding stereotypically judging)

Some of you probably have seen this kind of thing before. However, for some this is probably the first time you have experienced something like this. You won't get compensated. I used to see similar situations that people would run into, when I worked at a computer store. A customer would come in with a system that was hosed either from a hardware failure, virus, or other software that had screwed something up. It was sometimes thier work computer. They never backed up thier stuff and all that buisness and or other important stuff was lost.

Why do people never back up stuff so important their very lively hoods depend on it? That makes no sense. Computers are always going to fail at some point. Wither it be from hardware or software issues. They WILL fail its not an if, its a when.

Like I have said, I have seen this kind of thing before. Twice. Both from MMO games. Massively multiplayer online games. These are games that are updated and patched constantly. Expansions / bug fixes and the like.

The first occurrence I saw happened when I played a game called WWIIonline. A great game, I still love it though I don't play it anymore. A patch was released that flat out deleted core windows system files. They were just gone. The computer still ran just fine, until you rebooted. Then it went into an infinite boot loop. This required a reinstall of said files. I caught the error before I rebooted and replaced the files manually.

The second occurrence was pretty recent. This happened in another MMO called Eve Online. A very very fun game which I still play. A patch was again released. This one however had a different issue. This particular patch overwrote the boot.ini file in windows. It mistakenly replaced the window boot.ini with a file similarly named (how I dont know).

In both cases no one got compensated. Both are games that people paid initially for and then on top of that a monthly subscription fee. All software is a risk. Antivirus software is no exception. User beware, user prepare. Back your stuff up. If your life depends on your computer... why risk anything less than a daily backup?

I caught it early enough and only had maybe 100 or so files quarantined. I saw that notification pop up that all the files were being quarantined so I knew something was up.

I wish those of you really affected the best of luck.

Easier said that done...though everybody knows to backup and most of us do. Would you live with the fact that you call a trusted plumber over and have him do a job that springs a leak, damages your gypsum wall, finishes and painting and maybe your precious photos from childhood, school that you probably had not backed up...that autographed wall poster of your favorite football player. Would you not go after the plumber and have him pay up for the damages? I am JoeThePlumbing contractor and my plumber left a leaky faucet (job paid me $250), but cost me $10000 in damages...could not replace the photos or the wall poster. Did my plumber or I do this on purpose...no stuff happens but we all have to be compensated for and need to make good for the mistakes we do. Do you have property damage insurance on your car...uninsured motorist coverage?

Well, am I starting a new business proposal/ idea here regarding PC/software insurance? Sorry to future PC users, if this passing thought becomes a legal business model in few years.

Antivirus is a necessary tool, gaming is not...there are different rules for different softwares. Automobiles have recall, so do toy manufacturers, strollers, food packaging etc...you name it...all have to compensate for the damage to the extent that can be legally claimed. So do the customers of BD, have a level of expectation as compensation not limited to extension of license. Based on the extent of damage that arise, people may or may not have lost their lives, but surely this mishap affects the livelyhood of many. Loosing 6 months worth of work is too far fetched and yes I can only pity the loss, but otherwise the hours spent in fixing the damages should be compensated for, including tools necessary to fix.

Some of you are real jokers. You didn't get hurt by this mess so you talk like it's no big deal. I just finished reinstalling Windows 7 64bit on 3 machines. What a royal waste of time. No email from BD? Someone must be getting fired right about now. How can ANYONE release this crap of an update? It hit me harder than most viruses I've had in my entire computer life of decades. I couldn't restore - no safe mode - my password wasn't recognized - it just got worse with each reboot. I'd open firefox to get to the BD forums and it would go crazy rendering my computer unusable to the point it wouldn't start.

If we don't get some type of compensation for this joke of an update, I'll tell everyone I know not to use Bitdefender and explain why! No one deserves this crap. Now I have to go reinstall a gazillion pieces of software. To think how many people I've convinced to use BD - dozens - oh, I'm sure they're real happy with me now.

Where is our apology email???? Nothing?? Seriously? BD has got to have the worse damage control I've seen.

I'm lucky not all my machines are 64bit - I have 9 BD licenses. They had better give something back to people whom their software punished - hard. " />

AN ANTI-VIRUS PROGRAM THAT ATTACKS YOUR SYSTEM LOL - I've seen everything now.

WTF people, how many of you were thinking of suing let's say Nvidia or creative or ATI for releasing updates that ****** up your machines ? IT happened , so what? That's the problem with the world today , ohhh, the food is cold, i'm gonna sue , ohhh it's hot outside , i'm gonna sue . For the people that needed a technician to come and fix there machines, just buy a *****'n MAC , at least you pay triple the price but you won't even know that it's infected and maybe you'll end up with your bank account empty.

I've been using Nvidia and ATI cards for decades, their drivers have NEVER *@*#$ my machine - issues yes but never have I had to reinstall my OS from scratch.

Food is cold, hot outside? wtf are you talking about??? I'm talking all day non-stop computer repair over software that is suppost to protect us - if it failed and some virus hit us it wouldn't hurt so much - that happens but the anti-virus software itself hitting us??

What does MAC have to do with this issue?

at least you pay triple the price but you won't even know that it's infected and maybe you'll end up with your bank account empty

forget suing anyone, BD should compensate it's loyal customers that got @#$@!