My Experience with Grimefighter (Wall of text, sorry)

Andrew124 · 2015-04-24T04:36:50.000Z

EDIT
– So after reading the 2 replies to this, it turns out the only time I actually talked to Avast support was when I requested the refund. I’ve adjusted my rating to reflect this.

MORAL OF THE STORY – Use the online ticket system, don’t call 3rd party support.

END EDIT

If you don’t want to read all about me and JUST want to hear about Grimefighter, skip the stuff in blue.

If you can’t bother with that – TL;DR: Didn’t work on 2/3 computers, customer support stunk, so I got a refund.
Avast Antivirus - 10/10 (Does the job, is super simple for end users. Is easy to configure, works hard)
Avast Grimefighter - 5/10 (when it works, it doesn’t do a bad job. Good luck getting it to work.)
‘Avast’ 3rd party paid Support - 2/10 (Doesn’t do the job, super complex to end users. Hard to get anywhere without paying money, didn’t work hard)

Just some background first – I’ve been using Avast since September of '08, I know because I told EVERYONE I could about it, because it just blew the competition away (Still does).
In 2012 I completed my Certification course and was immediately hired by a company that handles IT for several small-medium size businesses. In my role, I manage everything from servers to workstations, modems, routers, and managed switches.
Since the official referral system has come out, I’ve referred 50+ home users, and 2 small businesses to Avast Endpoint Protection, and 1 in the cloud.

According to the Avast Recommendation system, I’m ranked as #387 WORLDWIDE. I have moved a TON of people to Avast, many of them now paying customers.

Suffice it to say, I’ve seen a TON of problems over the past 3 years, and I have dealt with Customer Support for applications countless times.

I fell like I’m qualified to say: I know my stuff, and Avast should care about my business with them.

So I’ve been with Avast for a while, and I decide ‘What the heck, my computer is running somewhat slow. Let’s give Avast Grimefighter a shot.’
I buy a 3 computer license from within the UI because I have a Desktop, a Laptop, and an All-In-One that is for work only.

I download it and it asks me to login to verify the license, and then asks me to restart (because Grimefighter runs a special operating system to perform the cleanup)
So I restart, and see some progress bars, then a flashing cursor. By this time it’s 11:30pm and I’m tired, so I figure I’ll just check it in the morning. Still a flashing cursor (like at a blank terminal / command prompt)

I try it on my Laptop, and it works just fine, so I go to the All In One, but can’t find the Grimefigher tab anywhere in Avast. I try to login to the Account area, and it crashes – I assume Avast has gotten corrupted so I uninstall it, then use the cleanup tool from Avast to make sure it’s clean. I reinstall, making sure Grimefighter is checked. Still nothing. I go to the Grimefigher page online, and this is the FIRST place I see that it’s not yet Windows 8 ready. My fault for not researching enough, so I shrug it off.

I call Avast support for the Grimefigher issue, and they claim it’s due to an issue with my system being messed up in one form or another. They say this because I was testing an application for work 8 months ago and so it caused a few bluescreens while we were troubleshooting the issue, but that program had since been removed and Windows had been checked (via SFC) for damage (there wasn’t any).

They tell me that I have to pay them $100 if I want additional support fixing my computer because it works on all other machines, so it’s got to be an end user problem.

I’d like to say here that I built my own computer, making sure that all of the hardware was compatible to the best of my knowledge and research. I feel like a program that attempts to run an OS other than the one the rig was built for could have issues. I say as much, but there is no budging.

Thankfully this has a less than terrible ending – I request a refund - The system says something to the effect of ‘This is a high priority ticket, you’ll hear back from us within a day’
I waited 9 days for my refund to be approved.

I got my money back, but I WILL be telling my clients about this incident.

In my personal experience, a product is generally measured in two aspects by the public – Its quality and support.

Avast – I give you a 10/10 for your Antivirus, a 5/10 for your Grimefigher, but a 2/10 for your support.

Telling me it’s my fault your product doesn’t after trying several times to find ANY possible issue and asking me to pay to let you fix your product is sickening.
Worse yet, the tech wouldn’t go beyond basic in-windows troubleshooting, and didn’t access a single Grimefighter log from what I can tell.

I’ll stay with your Antivirus, but I will avoid your other products like the plague until I see better support in place.

Asyn · 2015-04-24T04:57:02.000Z

Andrew124 post:1:

I call Avast support for the Grimefigher issue, and they claim it’s due to an issue with my system being messed up in one form or another. They say this because I was testing an application for work 8 months ago and so it caused a few bluescreens while we were troubleshooting the issue, but that program had since been removed and Windows had been checked (via SFC) for damage (there wasn’t any).

They tell me that I have to pay them $100 if I want additional support fixing my computer because it works on all other machines, so it’s got to be an end user problem.

[…]

Telling me it’s my fault your product doesn’t after trying several times to find ANY possible issue and asking me to pay to let you fix your product is sickening.
Worse yet, the tech wouldn’t go beyond basic in-windows troubleshooting, and didn’t access a single Grimefighter log from what I can tell.

Report your experience to Vojta Nekvapil: nekvapil[at]avast.com (3rd Party Support Manager)

Eddy · 2015-04-25T12:41:59.000Z

avast is not charging you anything for support.
It is completely free.
You can use the ticket system or post here.

What you have done (as has been explained many times) was calling a third party.

system · 2015-04-25T13:15:00.000Z

Grimefighter had put my computer in a loop and I could not access my computer. After sending numerous emails and messages to their website, I phoned them, the man who I spoke to was extremely rude and said it was my fault as my computer was not configured correctly and I had to pay £125 pounds for the technician’s to uninstall it. As I am a pensioner I told him that I cannot afford to waste money especially after paying for Grimefighter, he said that wasn’t his problem, and said the only way to uninstall it was to pay for it.

Instead I took it to my local Currys branch, they are one of the UK’s largest electrical retailer and where I bought my computer six months ago. They kept it in overnight and uninstalled the program. The technician said that Avast was a well-known company but that Grimefighter was possibly outsourced or somebody was pretending to be Avast, so what does this tell you.

These Avast evangelists by the way they answer some of these message make themselves out to be very ignorant, and arrogant. Also why do they call themselves Evangelists, I thought that was someone who wishes to convert others to the Christian faith.

Eddy · 2015-04-25T13:24:28.000Z

1]
avast products are not outsourced in any way.

2]
As has been explained, sending multiple tickets put you back to the bottom of the stack each time you submit a new one.

3]
You did not phone avast, but a third party as has been explained many times.

4]
We don’t call our-selfs evangelists.
That is just a setting on this webboard.
It gives a user a “title” depending on the amount of posts.

5]
A evangelist can be someone who is promoting the Christian believe, but it has more meanings:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evangelist

Andrew124 · 2015-04-27T18:10:05.000Z

Asyn post:2:

Andrew124 post:1:

I call Avast support for the Grimefigher issue, and they claim it’s due to an issue with my system being messed up in one form or another. They say this because I was testing an application for work 8 months ago and so it caused a few bluescreens while we were troubleshooting the issue, but that program had since been removed and Windows had been checked (via SFC) for damage (there wasn’t any).

They tell me that I have to pay them $100 if I want additional support fixing my computer because it works on all other machines, so it’s got to be an end user problem.

[…]

Telling me it’s my fault your product doesn’t after trying several times to find ANY possible issue and asking me to pay to let you fix your product is sickening.
Worse yet, the tech wouldn’t go beyond basic in-windows troubleshooting, and didn’t access a single Grimefighter log from what I can tell.

Report your experience to Vojta Nekvapil: nekvapil[at]avast.com (3rd Party Support Manager)

Eddy post:3:

avast is not charging you anything for support.
It is completely free.
You can use the ticket system or post here.

What you have done (as has been explained many times) was calling a third party.

Thank you both, I must admit I’m ashamed at my lack of research.
Honestly, they should drop the 3rd party support. Especially since it costs more than the scam-artists claiming to be from Windows support.

Eddy · 2015-04-27T18:18:49.000Z

I (and many others) fully agree with you on dropping that third party.
Only thing we as users can do is keep asking avast to do so.

At least you now know where you can get free support.

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