For the last four times the Avast Premium has updated I have had to uninstall both Avast Premium and Avast VPN because I have lost internet connection.
So, Oct. 11th - Avast Premium updated and the program wanted to restart my computer. I waited because I knew it would be problems.
I restarted my computer today Oct. 13th at around 10:30AM and at 11:30AM I lost my internet connection. I checked and the adapter was working.
Long story short.
I tried to uninstall Avast Premium and Avast VPN. But some portions of VPN stayed and I still could not get an internet signal.
I called Avast Customer Support at 1-844-285-3661. I finally got to talk to a guy named Paul who hung up on me when I told him the problem.
I called back, and he hung up again. He was very rude. Then I called back and he told me that he was the wrong department and gave me this number: 1-844-340-9051… And told me he was with the sales department. I called that number and it is someone trying to sell me car insurance.
So, I called back to 1-844-340-9051 - and talked to some guy named Peter who told me someone hacked my computer and he could help me.
He remote logged into my computer then went to the .DLL files and opened one file with Notepad and told me that it was in a foreign language. That a hacker put it on my computer and I was going to lose all my files and data if I didn’t buy Avast Premium for $250.00… I told him “No” then found my receipt from when I purchased both Avast Premium and Avast VPN. I uninstalled VPN completely and got back on the internet.
I called back to Customer Support to cancel and get a refund because Peter told me I got hacked and I need to buy Avast Premium or take my computer to IT to get it fixed.
But I was running Avast Premium up until my system lost communication at 11:30AM this morning. So, Avast Premium is not working and I need to spend $250.00 to get my system working with Avast…
So, the Customer Support connected me back to Peter. Peter told me that he would refund for both Avast Premium and Avast VPN. It will take 10 days for the money to show in my account. I hope he was not lying. He was SOOOOOOOOOOOO DISHONEST !!!
I was going to Norton Anti-Virus - but now I read that Norton is going to buy Avast. “NortonLifeLock to Buy Avast for as Much as $8.6 Billion” - So, I am not so sure.
I do not trust Avast anymore after tech support tried to scam me out of $250 and do not want them any where near my system.
It is too bad cause I did like the software and I am cancelling purely because of the scam Peter tried play… NO TRUST !!! >:(
Hello J. Thank you for taking the time to communicate with Avast. My name is Shawn and I am writing to you on behalf of the Avast Customer Care team.
It goes without saying, the experience you shared, is not the experience we intended for you to have had. I understand your concern is two fold, (1) that upon a product update you experienced disruption with your internet connection, and (2) you had a less than pleasant experience contacting Avast support.
With regard to your latter and more pressing concern, because Avast is an internationally known company, there are scammers who illegitimately impersonate our name and trademark, illegally, to trick consumers into thinking they are contacting Avast, when in reality they are contacting a non-affiliated Avast company, who may not have our customer’s best interests in mind.
Regrettably, the two phone numbers you referenced calling are not associated to Avast, and I further suspect your experience is associated to a scam. Given the sensitivity of the subject on hand, I am going to send you a forum personal message, so we may take this conversation out of the public domain. Regards, Shawn
A simple google search reveals the following,
Avast Customer Service Number 844-340-9251
Close but not the same. Which is exactly what these folks expect you not to notice.
We also see lots of support scammers posting S P A M (even in these forums, mega stupid), these too are probably close the the real support numbers.