After three years of using the free product, I finally chose to purchase Avast’s integrated Internet Security suite (AV and firewall).
I will never make that mistake again.
Digital River, your fulfillment company, along with those programming their databases (whether it’s Avast or not), and any hired call center, are showing utter incompetence.
I ordered the one-license / one-PC upgrade on line for $19.99 and paid with PayPal. At the conclusion of the process, the “button” noted for download (I assume for the .avastlic file, as I already had the free AV), did not appear.
About a half-hour later, an e-mail arrived with order confirmation and installation instructions. It referred to “the attached license file,” although none was present, and the end of the e-mail had the text “License file does not exist”.
After waiting for an hour to receive any further e-mails, I pursued this at the 8xx number on the Webpage (apparently another entity). I escalated this to two supervisors, partly due to the first two representatives having only a shaky command of standard English or a too-inflected accent. (They were in the Philippines.)
All said that I’d have to wait at least 48 hours to get any further response. No, I’m sorry, I told them, that is not acceptable! Not with such an online order of a license file!
I then pursued this the next day with the number they gave to me, for Digital River. I escalated this to a third supervisor, as well, for the same authority and language reasons. This man finally had the authority to cancel my order. (That this is not given to first-line personnel is utter absurdity.)
This supervisor hazarded a reason for what went wrong, though he didn’t seem absolutely sure: The physical mailing address (required, but still utterly moot) I provided had a “#” sign in it, and that made the system fail in issuing a license file.
This, too, is unacceptable. Many businesses in the U.S., including mine, use a “private mailbox service” for mail and package receipt and for privacy. The U.S. Postal Service requires that these addresses use “#” or “PMB” for the box number. The “#” is all that many Website forms permit as to space. To have such a character make the order not complete properly is a fundamental failure.
After being told that I would have to wait at least until “the end of the week” (four days or more) to get a license file, due to their database’s shortcomings, I asked him to cancel the order.
Although I promptly received a cancellation e-mail, I had to call back a third time to find out that I’d have to wait five to seven business days for a refund to my PayPal account.
This is not acceptable customer service. Not in any sense whatsoever.
Although the performance of your free product remains more than acceptable, I am neither ordering any of your products ever again, nor will I do so with my consulting customers — in fact, I will actively recommend against purchasing Avast. Certainly until you get a new order-fulfillment partner.