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Beware of McAfee antivirus software - they are scamming bastids!

7 replies

MamaHobgoblin · 08/03/2009 22:41

Firstly, I should point out I'm not a geek, so please don't ask me anything techy, this isn't my normal habitat!

I've had McAfee on my laptops for a few years. I've manually renewed the software online (ie I received loads of emails reminding me the account was about to expire, hied me to the site and clicked some buttons, paid with paypal) but after my laptop went down with several viruses, we got it deep-cleaned by a workplace techie, who installed Avast. McAfee was about to expire again in any case.

But no! just a few hours ago, I get an email from them, saying that they've taken £49.99 from my bank account, thank you very much, and now I'm sorted for another year. No warning email, no reminder, nothing. I didn't even know they'd stored my debit details from the last time. After googling, I found a number of angry people who'd been had like this, and while refunds are possible, McAfee seem to make it as hard as possible to get one. I've just initiated this process.

Has anyone else been stung like this? Did anyone else manage to get their money back? Think twice before buying their software online, because this is obviously their scam to continue to get money off you, even after you've changed software providers and think your old agreement has lapsed. Grrrrr.

OP posts:
MamaHobgoblin · 09/03/2009 09:35

bump

OP posts:
GodzillasBumcheek · 09/03/2009 09:40

haven't had quite this problem, but did try about 100 times to uninstall their program when my free software expired only to find that apparently you have to download a whole extra program from another website to shoehorn the thing outta there!

AnAngelWithin · 09/03/2009 09:42

i did this. email and cancel. got my money back. then i used all the codes i could find and got a 3 user licence for £18! for the same thing. if you do renew with them then in your account settings there should be a section where you need to untick the automatic renewal. hope this helps.

SuperSillyus · 09/03/2009 10:04

yes this happened to me too and I left it, being lazy and thinking it would cost me about that whoever I went to...think I'll untick the automatic renewal for next year though and get a cheaper deal. Thanks for this information.

SuperSillyus · 09/03/2009 10:16

oh and mine was £39.99, if they had charged me £49.99 I might not have been so lazy!

MamaHobgoblin · 09/03/2009 21:31

Apparently the small print of whatever agreement I originally made is on an entirely different McAfee website - they're doing their best not to let on! And the whole automatic renewal thing is something they've introduced since the first time I bought from them, and has an automatic 'opt in' for customers, so it probably applies to anyone who's recently given them any money.

Haven't heard back (aside from a standard acknowledgement email) but I'll let you know if it gets hairy!

OP posts:
CherryChoc · 15/03/2009 23:46

If you have internet banking, you can view all your direct debits. I always cancel/delete old ones, even if I'm sure they aren't going to be used - it saves anything like this happening!

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