I have to tell you, I have always liked Bitdefender, but I recently had an incident with them that reflects poorly on the company. I always disable autorenewal with any av subscription I buy, yet five days before subscription expiration I got an email from some company, 2checkout, regarding notice that my Bitdefender subscription is set to autorenew. I dug around for instructions on how to disable this autorenew, through the 2checkout website, but it is not straightforward at all. I went back to Bitdefender Central to try to do it there but chat help said it could only be done through 2checkout. Huh? This is bogus. I think this is a bad option for Bitdefender, farming this stuff out to 2checkout. It smacks of the shady sort of stuff less reputable av companies do. Very disappointing. The only positive coming out of this was that an email was sent notifying that an autorenewal was imminent.
I ran into much the same thing a year or two ago, but not with Bitdefender or any other AV. But it was the same deal. A third party vendor was handling the subscriptions. The software company would send me to the third party vendor who would refer me back to the software company. It was frustrating.
Bitdefender's sales agent, Avangate, is notorious for this. Go to the Bitdefender Forum and start complaining/shouting/ask for help. Typically, the forum moderator will help to get auto-renew issues straightened out. https://forum.bitdefender.com/index.php?/forum/132-home-amp-home-office-protection/
I paid for a sub via PayPal and found that 2checkout had set up a recurring annual payment. I cancelled this via PayPal.
I would lock the credit card that they have on record for me just before they try to autorenew so they can't charge my credit card.
same thing happened to me. I did get an email notice about BD renewal that I had not used or uninstalled about 18 months ago, could not get in to website to disable autorenewal despite having needed info. Same day my credit card was debited, I got the credit card bank on the phone, banker called them! The credit came thru shortly thereafter. No way, I'd use them again.
There are a couple authorized BD resellers on eBay. I buy through them. Recently got BDTS 5 device/ 5 yr for $50 USD. No recurring payment. It's legit, I know because I had BD switch some somethings out & about. Switch BD Central email accts & convert a previous subscription.
I find when possible it is best not to buy directly from the vendor. This is how I have avoided this with Norton in the past. If they don't have your payment info they can't do this. I had a similar experience with LastPass. I had no intention of renewing the paid version this year but they got me anyway. Everyone wants to sign you up to use autopay/autorenewal. I avoid it any way I can. I've heard good things about Bitdefender but this will prevent me from looking into using them.
I always use Paypal when subscribing to anything. I *think* that fully protects me from auto-renewals, right?
As mentioned above check PayPal recurring payments. Some merchants hide or don't mention that you're approving recurring payments. So check & if necessary cancel.
