Couldn’t find a place on the site where I could lodge a direct complaint to the company, which is why I’m posting in this forum. So, I apologize if this topic is too out of place here. Would like to add that I’ve happily used Avast for many years without needing to contact tech support; probably wouldn’t have stayed if the Avast tech support has always been as awful as what I experienced yesterday.
I use Avast Internet Security with WinXp SP3. Got an ‘unsupported’ error so had tech service do a remote check. Was told that my system was extremely corrupt, which it isn’t true, and was strongly pushed to pay $169 to have an Avast ‘engineer’ clean up my registry. Also was told I had a bad version of XP, which isn’t true, and was encouraged to change to Win7 or Linux because otherwise Avast would never work on my ‘extremely corrupt’ system. Oh and was told if I didn’t have the ‘engineer’ take care of all the ‘terrible problems,’ my hard drive would be crashing at any moment.
Ultimately I received no help with my problem and my questions were never answered. Lastly, was told I couldn’t get a refund because my system is “too corrupt,” so will probably stick with Avast until my license expires. However, I will no longer recommend this company/product and will find a replacement.
By the way, all I needed to do was uninstall and reinstall to take care of the issue I was having.
I took care of the problem myself after hanging up on him, by simply uninstalling Avast and then reinstalling it. And yeah, I was very surprised at how ridiculous the ‘advice’ was that I was being given. I know my computer doesn’t have anything wrong with the registry, nor my OS and told the guy a number of times that if my system was that corrupt, I didn’t need an Avast engineer since I could easily reformat my hard drive myself. His reply to that was to insist that unless an Avast engineer took care of my computer’s ‘problem,’ that I was running a risk of having damage done to my hard drive and it seemed to me he was talking actual physical damage to the hardware. :o
Asyn, thanks for your interest and I’ll take your advice and post on the forum if any other problems crop up. Let’s hope no one goes through the same thing, especially someone that goes along with the spiel and coughs up their hard earned money.
David, thanks for passing on the information. Was hoping someone from Avast would be alerted and I appreciate your assistance.
Unfortunately with 3rd party support, some support staff may be driven to offer other paid services if there are any commission incentives (which I don’t know). What I do know is that avast don’t take this lightly and have terminated a previous 3rd party support contract.
That said I’m a firm believer in using the avast support forums where advice and assistance is given freely.
I’ve utilized a lot of forums, some good and some bad and while I also firmly believe they can be an invaluable asset for any company/game/product, I strongly believe in a company having a solid customer service department.
Forums have one limitation and that is people who aren’t comfortable using them lose out. And, while I find it difficult to believe there is a large base of consumers who aren’t familiar with what forums are and what they have to offer, I do think they would be the people who could be easily manipulated out of their hard earned cash by unscrupulous 3rd party support.
I’m curious to know how many people have already been bilked out of hundreds of dollars because they weren’t computer savvy and believed what they were told, thinking the advice they were getting was coming from a reputable source. I personally thought Avast to be a reputable company, which is why I called tech support and why I was so unpleasantly surprised by the ‘help’ I received.
My faith in Avast is somewhat restored to find out they did terminate another third party support contract, but I believe a reputable company should better monitor something as important as technical support. After all, the whole point of an anti-virus program is to help a person keep their computers safe and I have to say that after talking with that guy, I felt very uncomfortable knowing he had access to my computer, even though it was only for a short time.
Anyway, this was a long-winded post to get across a short point… I wish Avast were able to offer in-house tech support.
Call our 3rd phone support team where you can get limited free support over the phone or in case of more complex issue you will be offered premium support
If you have bad experience with our phone support, please write brief description of the problem to customerservice@avast.com and don´t forget to add
description of the problem
your phone number
time and date when you called
We will escalate the problem to our call center and do necessary steps.
Thank you for the response and I will go ahead and contact customerservice@avast.com. My ‘unpleasant surprise’ experience was enough to sour me on wanting to continue using Avast, but after learning about the third party support and the subsequent responses I’ve received here on the forum, my faith in the company is beginning to be restored.
Having been using Avast for so many years without needing support also says something about how well both the free version and the Internet Security version I’m now using, do work. Once I hear back from customer service, I’ll post their response here, for those that might be interested.
Nothing earth shattering, but received the following information in an email today. I’ll post any further correspondence…
[i]"Thank you for contacting avast! software and letting us know about the event. I would like to express my sincere apologies for that kind of behaviour of our third-party support. We will initiate an investigation about the matter in question and find out who is responsible for that.
Please again my apologies.
Best Regards,
Andrew Sestak
Customer service department"[/i]
This problem could actually have been avoided by simply using this forum for any problem related with avast! AV and many other computer related problems.
Having an encounter with a person who is in a bad mood or being rude is much different than having someone in technical support trying to convince me my hard drive was going to crash unless I shelled out $169.00. The guy wasn’t being rude. He was trying to convince me I needed to cough up money to fix something that wasn’t broken, which IMHO is something much more unpleasant and a good reason to lose confidence in a company.
Of course in retrospect, I probably wouldn’t have been quite so disillusioned with Avast if I’d known I was dealing with someone from third party support help. Also, with the subsequent responses I received from customer service, I will be renewing my Avast license, instead of going with another company.
I agree with the comments made herein concerning poor 3rd party tech support. I have contacted Avast Tech Support twice in the last two days and spoke with two different agents. BOTH times, I received an ‘attitude’ of “I couldn’t care less about helping you with your problem, you are just another thorn in my side that I have to deal with each day - I hate my job” sort of attitude. …"hurry up and get off my line so that I can get on to the next call (that again I don’t care about helping) - so that I can push the ‘number of calls handled (stats)’ up higher, even though I am not ‘handling correctly/fully’ the calls I Am getting. Rude is not a strong enough word for it, and ‘near’ worthless is another good word for it.
Avast really, Really needs to monitor their 3rd party tech support Better than they apparently are - especially since Avast is not offering any other alternative to us - their customers. Avast NEEDS, repeat Needs, to make their own test calls to this ‘service’ (questionable); then IF they find that enough of the calls are being handled ‘ok’ - although probably not to the ‘level of quality’ that they should be, And they choose not to cancel the 3rd party contract - then at the Minimum, and for Avast’s Own benefit of ‘keeping customers’; Avast needs to INSIST that the ‘individual agents’ who are giving this type of poor, unacceptable ‘service’ be fired from providing Avast customer tech support - Because They ARE ruinning it’s reputation.
These test calls should be made immediately, and continue until these problems are Solved; then after that - Continue to do close monitoring!!
Avast has, in my opinion, one of the best software protection programs out there. However your customer support stinks.
…Also, it upsets me that we do not have Any way to directly contact via telephone ‘customer service’ concerning non-technical issues such as billing, account issues, etc. We can only send an PM type message to Avast’s ‘contact’ person, who eventually ‘gets back’ to me.
Please, forward these comments forward to your upper management …Not to ‘just’ your local management - the higher ups Need to know this! You Are losing business, and recommendations to new potential customers because of it. Thank you. …Mike
Before February 19, 2013, I had been using Avast! for many years and had been completely convinced that Avast! was a great company and had recommended Avast! many times to family and friends. NEVER AGAIN! My experience with Avast! tech support was identical to Popcorngal’s description - I am so infuriated that the tech lied to me about my so-called “corrupt hard drive” and that I had been “hacked” so that I could no longer connect to the internet without Avast!'s help to the tune of $169 annual fee. My hard drive is NOT corrupt and I have NEVER been hacked. The reason I contacted tech support was that Avast! was no longer automatically or manually updating the virus definitions. The tech support actually told me that Avast! could NEVER update my definitions again unless I purchased the $169 annual contract IMMEDIATELY! He refused to uninstall and reinstall my Avast! software. He continued to tell me that I could no longer connect to the internet. My anger increased to a level that I was practically threatening him to make sure my computer was EXACTLY the same as before I contacted Avast!, and that I would be able to connect to the internet. At that point, I was becoming convinced that Avast! was actually going to intentionally damage my system in order to force me to purchase their annual contract. I contacted iYogi tech support who assured me that my system was not corrupt and had never been hacked. iYogi fixed my problem without even uninstalling and reinstalling Avast!. I am extremely disappointed because I had felt so great about having Avast! before this terrible experience. It is such a shame that we are subjected to such dishonesty. I don’t know another reputable virus protector at the present time. If anyone can recommend a good reputable trustworthy company, I would greatly appreciate it.
Third party support isn’t handled by Avast.
If you have a problem, visit this forum as you just did when you posted your rightful disappointment with the service
you received from the third party support provider.
If you want good support, get it right here from other avast! users who’s only interest is in helping you get the most
out of avast!.
The protection avast! offers for your computer is second to none. The reason I’m still a very happy user after many many years.
I recently had a very similar experience. I purchased and downloaded Avast internet security software on 1/20/13 from Digital River, Inc., an authorized reseller of Avast (whose website appeared to be the official Avast website.) After three unsuccessful attempts to install the software license, I called the customer support number. After the rep (who said his name was “Garvin Peart”) made numerous unsuccessful attempts to assist, he stated that Avast had a group of Microsoft-certified technicians, any one of whom could definitely resolve the license installation problem. He also stated that my computer was currently at high risk of crashing any moment–especially since I also had Windows Defender installed, which was “causing problems by competing w/ the Avast software”–and that he urgently recommended I purchase one year of full Avast tech support for $169.99. By doing so, he stated that a technician would contact me within 20 minutes. I asked for the names of these technicians and who they were employed with; I was told they were with Avast and that the ones currently on duty were Dan, David, Orlando, and Marcello. I asked for the full name of the technician who would contact me, and was told “Dan Chang”. Based on my research of Avast’s reputation, I had no reason to doubt what Garvin told me. I had him reiterate the tech support terms before agreeing to have my credit card charged in the amount of $169.99.
Sure enough, “Dan Chang” contacted me within 20 minutes. Over the next 3 hours, he attempted over and over–to no avail–to use the exact same approach as did Garvin to resolve the licensing download issue. Mind you, I was on the phone with him the entire time, following his instructions as he attempted to access my computer remotely. This ordeal was made even more challenging due to our different accents, which made our conversation even more tedious as we each kept having to ask the other to repeat himself.
After three hours and no progress, I’d had enough and politely excused myself so I could hang up and confer with my significant other about cancelling the service. Three days later I contacted Avast and requested a refund for both the internet security product and the tech support service. After resisting numerous runarounds, I finally received a refund confirmation email on 2/4/13. I eventually received a refund for the software license; however, I never received a refund for the $169.99 representing one year of tech support. Numerous detailed emails to the company (Digital River, whom I assumed was Avast) to try and resolve the matter only resulted in nebulous replies expressing complete oblivion to the tech support issue, Finally, after persisting in my efforts to obtaino a full refund, the latest email (received today from Leizl C. from Digital River) stated, “Avast contracted a different company who handles their technical department.” Like paychecks in the wake of the fiscal cliff, this pearl of wisdom arrived a day late and a dollar short.
Outsourcing a service does not relieve any business of ultimate accountability for the results produced (or not) by that service. As such, I hold Avast fully accountable for the fact that I’m still out $169.99 plus 3 hours of my valuable time, with absolutely nothing gained from my investment (except a bitter lesson learned).
The Avast tech support phone number I was given is 877-204-9327; however, numerous attempts to reach someone at this number only result in an automated outgoing message (“Thank you for calling Avast Technical Support”), followed by being placed on hold while the same dreary song is played over and over for 30+ minutes. I’m actively pursuing other options in my mission to elicit a full refund. Meanwhile, anyone know the name/contact information of the company Avast had contracted with to provide tech support services as of 1/20/13? Thanks!
