I suspect you probably are.
I purchased your Avast Premiere option in August with mobile add on - about £130. I installed the software on my brand new lap top. Last night - mid way through typing a University assignment my laptop suffered a blue screen error. It would restart so I had no other option than to ‘reset’ it. This was the only way I could access my hard drive to remove all the files I needed and the one I was in the middle of working on during the ‘blue screen’ episode. Because I’d had to reset the laptop it took off all the applications I had added (including Avast and Office 365 which I had purchased at the same time). In order to access my documents first I had to re-install the Windows products. It gave no choice or any options other than to install the latest Windows 10 (Nov 15) version. This I did. Pulled my documents off on to a memory stick then set about re-installing Avast. I don’t know if it is a compatibility issue or something with Avast/Windows 10 but I believe lots of users have experienced issues and problems. No doubt there will be a patch along from Microsoft to fix these in due course.
Attempting to re-install your Avast software caused another blue screen episode and a complete reset of the laptop and reinstallation of Windows 10. I decided to call your technical support team to talk me through reinstalling Avast (as I had paid over a £100 for it just 2 months ago!!!) in case I was doing something wrong. The chap I spoke to sent me an email with a licence key link doc attached which when I tried to download would not open … this is where it gets interesting …
He then declared there was something ‘seriously’ wrong with my computer drivers and hardware. Proceeded to show me ‘error’ screens (indicating I had a possible issue with Outlook Mail/Calendar - who cares! I don’t use it - that’s probably why it wasn’t loaded properly!!) and tried to ‘frighten’ me to pay a further £129 for secondary support!!! I questioned why as I had paid £100 for premiere - the best according to your site - and I wanted him to help me around re-loading it. He continually talked over me quickly flipped the screen over to a ‘order and pay now’ form (!!!) and basically said I had serious issues that needed sorting.
I told him in that case - as the laptop is barely 2 months old - as is my software and security software (ie yours) I would rather take it back to the retailer as I had a three year guarantee. He then, very aggressively and rudely, went on to say that it was ‘my’ fault that I’d broken ‘my’ laptop and that no-one would look at it now. That there was ‘no-one’ that would repair it or touch it because I had ‘installed’ the software that broke it. !!! Now I’ve already explained to him that I was mid typing a sentence when the laptop shut down. I had no option but to reinstate my Microsoft products to retrieve my documents and I had no option with which version of Windows was put on my machine. It was bought and paid for so why shouldn’t I reinstall it?? My issue is with Avast not running with Windows 10 properly and - if as he was trying to later say - I had a virus then clearly Avast wasn’t worth the microchip its written on!!!
This is a very poor way to behave with your ‘paying’ customers. It isn’t a technical support help line - its an upsell rip off customers line. I’ve just run all the updates and checks I need to on my machine and it is not ‘broken’ by me as I was told. Its up to date. I suspect the error messages he was showing me were purely to scare me in to paying £129. This type of business tactic is wrong. There has been a lot of publicity in the UK in the last few weeks about this type of sales technique and you people ought to be ashamed of yourselves. I want to cancel my ‘self renewing’ subscription with you (keep that bit quiet too don’t you?) and I want all my money refunded. I wouldn’t use you people on principle. Not have being spoken to in an aggressive rude manner like that. I am going back to Norton who I was with for 8 years and were nothing but helpful with their live tech chat support.
I am not an idiot. I know when someone is trying to rip me off. I doubt this will make it on the forum but, I will not stop with this until I get a full refund and an apology. Even if the issue was ‘my fault’ (which I highly doubt) your employee had no right to talk to me like that. Ever.