manipulative marketing

Message 717 of 4194

My phone company provides my internet service. Several times when dealing withtech support the techciian has told me they provvide McAffee antivirus protection at no charge. Yesterday, I decided to take advantage of it. I could not access the web site so I called technical support. The technician spent a lot ot time with me and helped me remove my current antivrus program. When it came time to install the new program he told me he just got a message that I either had to upgrade my service or pay $5.00 a month. I ha just upgraded my service a month ago. I might have agreed to pay if I was told about the charge up front but I absolutely hate it when the charge is not mentioned until the deal is almost completed. I let him know how I felt and then had to go through the process of putting anothe antivirus program on my laptop.
THe airlines tend to use similar marketing when I purchase tickets online. Thats why I am only going to Florida once this winter.

posted by kamsgram

Yeah. The marketing seems to get sleezier and sleezier. I hate being considered an idiot. If more people would back out like you did, we would have less unscrupulous advertising.

posted by JFKRJK
over 2 years ago

You didn't really want to install McAfee anyway. Why pay when you can get AVG free, and it'll do a better job than either McAfee, Norton, or any of the other expensive anti-virus programs.

We use Verizon for DSL. They have a "security suite" that comes with the service. I was able to install it on my wife's desktop without a problem. I tried installing it on my old laptop -- without success. When I got my new laptop, I tried installing it, but it won't work with 64-bit machines. Just as well; my wife got a trojan that the the Verizon program didn't catch. It didn't get past AVG on my laptop. Needless to say, I uninstalled the Verizon program on the desktop, and put AVG on that one too.

posted by xradioguyfrank
over 2 years ago

I have AVG too, and it's good enough for me. I had Norton, as it came pre-loaded on my laptop for 'my' convenience. I had to call Norton twice to get rid of it. I disabled every single thing it did, and when I tried to delete it, it kept telling me it couldn't do it because something was still running. What a crock. I would not buy that product ever after that fiasco.

The other scams that get me are the 'Free credit report' sites. You have to provide a credit card number to get your free report, and the last time I tried it said that you got your report for FREE, but NOT your credit score. You had to enroll in the service to get the magic number, and after thinking it over for a while I found that if you really want it, you can get it from the bank for free....if you know somebody.

posted by Michibilly
over 2 years ago

Let me guess....AT&T?

posted by eagles02
over 2 years ago

good guess.

posted by kamsgram
over 2 years ago

"Security" on computers is like those burglar alarms for your house. They try to scare you into thinking that at any minute, someone is going to steal your muffin recipe right off your computer.

Have you ever noticed how all that software is more interested in you than the other person?
Microsoft's "Net Framework" etc. . . . . They're not concerned with who's getting the viruses, they want to know who's sending it. So they want all the information they can get on all their users.

Before your information or mail gets to you, it goes on a server. Every Internet Provider has lots of servers. Now wouldn't you think that with all that expensive equipment, they would have security on their servers?
You bet they do.