Kaspersky 6 month auto-renew license from BestBuy

My sister just bought a new PC at her local BestBuy and they sold her an auto-renewing license for Kaspersky AV. She claims she was told that her CC would be charged automatically every 6 months for the renewal and she would never have to worry about any pop-ups from the software regarding license expirations. Has anyone ever heard of such a thing? It sounds a little fishy to me.

 

Sounds like typical Best Buy employees that know jack about what they are selling. But maybe they are just this way in my nek of the woods.

 

Never heard of such a thing and most of those goofs that they have working there,I wouldnt trust them,especially if your sister has given them her credit card info.

If it was me,I'd be telling my sister to cancel that credit card ASAP.

 

My guess is that the six months auto-renewal license is expensive.
More expensive than a 1 year auto-renewal.

You always pay more for the 'convienience' of auto-renewal.

 

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I have to wonder how this works? Did Best Buy give your sister's credit card number to Kaspersky? Is Best Buy actually re-selling Kaspersky licenses? Assuming she has the six month license she could contact Kasperksy directly.

 

This is called taking advantage of the unwary consumer

I wouldn't blame straight to KL though, unfortunately this appears to be a growing trend among sellers from all electronic stores, and yeah, same if it was my case, I would advice her to terminate this theft "agreement" and buy directly from Kaspersky.

 

Thanks for the replies!

I'm not sure exactly how this works. I'm hoping BestBuy is acting legitimately and reselling the Kaspersky license. I'll have to try to get some more details from her and her boyfriend. I was hoping someone here would have at least heard of such a thing to put my mind at ease.

BestBuy definitely took advantage of two unwary customers. They live on the other side of the country, so it's hard to advise them when they do stuff like this without a phone call, but that's a whole other story.

 

BestBuy is as crooked as they come, especially when it comes to add-ons. Be careful

 

Ok... I hope to GOD that all of you are reading this.
I work for Best Buy. I am a geek squad "agent" and I sell these on a daily basis.

I don't know where to begin... I'm so mad at you all...

I'll try to make this simple:
When you buy a new computer with us we offer FREE 6-MONTH subscriptions.
All you have to do to be eligible is to sign up WITH THE SOFTWARE MANUFACTURER to auto-renew.
There are Three (3) different software manufacturers: Kaspersky, Trend Micro, Webroot ("KAV/TM/WR"). All 3 are Anti-Virus &
Anti-Spyware (NOT internet security - i.e. no firewall).
The auto-renew is VERY straight forward:
-The first 6-months are FREE (If you want you can opt for 12-months for $19.99 or multiple years for $39.99/yr minus $19.99
for the first 6-months and a $10 discount per additional year)
-You are given a small folder with the disc and the key. To be fair: WE DO NOT INSTALL IT FOR FREE. In order for it to be
TRUELY free you have to install it yourself. However, in MOST cases the software will ask you to download newer versions of
the installer for better compatability. We pre-install a certain amount (40% in my store) and we typically download current
versions of the installer frequently and use a generic installer disk (which we create with the newest versions of all
programs) and sell them as "Pre-Setup" units with additional costs for our labor (minimum $29.99 for a single program install
- Maximum $129.99 including Recovery disk creation, Anti-Virus install, Windows optimizing and "Vi-Spy" which is our virus
insurance ONLY AVAILABLE when we do the install of your antivirus).
-At the end of the subscription you will be notified BY THE MANUFACTURER that your subscription is running out and that you
WILL BE CHARGED AUTOMATICALLY for the next YEAR of service (ALL AV/AS OPTIONS ARE $39.99 PER YEAR AFTER THE INITIAL
SUBSCRIPTION). They DO NOT ask your permission.
-The permission is given in writing at the time of purchase (which is PREceeded by swiping your card for KAS/TM/WR and
entering all your personal information including email address (usually looked up from BBYs database if there is any info on
you).

-In order to unenroll from this "Auto-Renew Program" we ask that you call subscription hotline 1-888-Best-Buy. At ANY point

during your subscription you want to unenroll from the auto-renew - AND STILL GET YOUR FREE/PAID LICENSE TERM (ie you still

get 6months for free, 1yr-$20...etc.) call us and just ask. There are NO TRICKS. This hotline is on the folder that contains

your disk and license (the same folder that is made by KAV/TM/WR).
-The reason you call us instead of them is because this is a promotion given through Best Buy. We are partned with KAV/TM/WR

as well as Five (5) other anti-virus companies. They allow us discounted rates to promote their software (obviously) and we -

in turn - make profit off services. The Subscriptions are guarenteed by us, thus we ask you call us for any issues you have

with these manufacturers.

Personal Gripe:
I work hard at making our presetups units in my store the best take-home-turn-on-and-use computers that you can buy from us.
I don't know what's so damn suspicious about this. $40/yr is competitively priced for any anti-virus
program. Why would you be suspicious of us for offering discounted programs? I guess the short answer is that we make our
money from the labor we charge to install these things. And I know some salespeople are ~ Snipped as per TOS ~ and only looking out for
their numbers but we don't work on commission. These services are ONLY to save our customers time and energy. Time and energy
that Mary-Ann-Mother-of-5 or Great-Gramma-Can't-work-a-mouse either don't need or don't know how to spend.

My personal email is Yhufir (at) hotmail.com ~ Email Link Removed ~
Obviously, please don't email unecessarily but I'm more than happy to answer questions like this in the future.
I stumbled on to this page looking up MY free Kaspersky license for working at BestBuy.

 

Maybe some people will make use of your promo but $39.99 per year is not competitively priced. It's just not a very good deal.

 

On the positive side, Kaspersky is one of or if not the best AV to have running on your sister's PC. The internet security edition might have too many features she will not use, while AV only will be sufficient.

Now, if you were to install your own AV, add sandboxie etc, explain how sandboxie works and so on, she might not like those simple steps. I've tried with people, and they don't want to 'recover', they just want to browse.

AgentPinto, no need to be mad at anyone as no-one here knows the details, that's why we're asking questions. 6 months free aint bad at all. And your store might have some 'clued-in' employees, while another store might have employees that don't explain things as clearly.

Derelict, I suggest your sister pays the $20 for the full year, and then re-assess from then on how Kaspersky performed. You'll find she probably will have zero malicious files.

Sure 39.99 isn't the best price around, but it's not the worst around either. AgentPinto mentioned a '$10 discount per additional year', he might want to shed some more light on it.

Worst case scenario, some will sell you the boxed edition off the shelves for a lot more. So to be fair, sure you can get it slightly cheaper on the net through Kaspersky direct (few dollars less), or even less if you know the ins and outs of software websites or free websites, but I'd say BestBuy is more along the lines of an 'average price' to pay staff costs and hotline (and for convenience sake) etc.

And as AgentPinto said, hotline allows you to opt out anytime. If your sister is a novice, I'd suggest continual protection, as I've had some 'novices' sign for a year, and use their AV (kaspersky it was) for months past the subscription end-date, only to download some problem files in that period. This user thought nothing of letting the protection lapse. Some food for thought.

 

i hate to say bad things but i have had customers come in to my shop asking me to remove kaspersky due to them being billed wrong. one person even showed me their credit card statement. and they TRIED TO CANCEL and were still billed. in fact she had ME call the number she was given by best buy. i simply said i was her son (maybe not honest but i was trying to help) and they assured me it would be taken care of.. she just came in and showed me she was charged AGAIN!!!! she has now taken this up and disputed it with her credit card company just fyi and even cancelled that card number to prevent further charges, she runs norton now and she said she could not be happier. now please know im not saying every best but is this way but we called the number given to cancel and were told it would be and it was not in fact she was billed a SECOND time. maybe you are a honest employee but trust me i know people who work there and there are many who are not and will take advantage of people like happens anywhere

 

@AgentPinto: First off, I don't believe in GOD but you can hope to whatever mythological deity you wish for us all to read what you've posted. It is a reassurance to know that Best Buy sold my sister a legitimate software package. This is what I suspected, but based on what she was charged and the way she described the program to me, I had my suspicions as to it's legitimacy. I have no experience with Best Buy's practices which is why I made my post here hoping someone else would know.

The thing is that this is not a good deal however you slice it. She was charged $60.00 for the software install which is way too much. And now she is hooked into a perpetual contract much like those the major alarm companies in the USA dupe people into. I won't say that what your company does is deceptive, but it definitely preys on the fact that the people purchasing these "deals" in your store are extremely uninformed consumers. I agree with your point that these packages are great for "Mary-Ann-Mother-of-5 or Great-Gramma-Can't-work-a-mouse" who would rather waste their money on an over-priced convenience than take the time to become better informed.

Thanks for your very informative reply and I'm sorry that these posts made you so mad. I'm sure that you work very hard and my post was not meant to be an affront to you or how hard you work.

@Saraceno: Thanks for the advice and what you've said is exactly what I've done so far. She'll most likely be on the KAV auto-renew until my next trip back home to NY when I'll set her up with a good backup solution (which is where I wish she had put the money) and avast! 5 Free.

 

~ Snipped as per TOS ~

While I don't know what other options there may be in NY, $60 will typically buy you a set of recovery disks or and optimization and AV install.

This may be harsh; most of our customers are "extremely uninformed." That's kind of the point of these packages. It's our job to inform people as best we can about these issues. But truth be told most people either don't give a crap or want to give a crap but don't have enough room left in their brains. I'm not saying that as an insult: Sure I'd like to understand what my mechanic is doing, but when it comes down to it I trust that they know what they're doing and my understanding the problem and resolution will not help (unless it's a completely preventable problem). "Waste" & "over-priced" are excessive. If everyone had a techy friend who can do all these services for them in no-time, of course these services would be useless (and in the case of completely pre-setup units customers don't have to wait any longer than the checkout process). That's simply not the case, as I'm sure you can concede, and these services, like I said repeatedly, are convenience based. We don't "prey" on anyone. I don't remember seeing your store trying to bridge the gap between tech-retarded joe-shmoe and an awesome new computer with tons of cool crap that he can just turn on and play with without having to worry about learning to install a program, get his updates, create a hard-copy of his OS, and a phone number he can call if he can't remember where the power button is (this happens often - even to people who have been using computers since "computer bugs" = "moths in the wiring").
On another note, it is competitively priced. Consider: $20/yr = good.
Most free AV is crap. I see more people with fake versions of AVG, BitDefender, ESET and Avast than I care to remember. Sure, if you have any idea what you're doing - AND care to know more - antivirus has a learning curve that you can get into fairly easily. If you're not sure how to open up your User Interface and make it update and scan, and you have more important things to do, being taught how to do that probably won't stick long enough to be useful.

Saraceno-
(thanks and...) The multi-year platform is a little complex, but here's the jist (my memory is **** so I maybe be off by $5 here and there):
1yr-1user = $20 (40*1-20)
2yr-1user = $50 (40*2-(20+10))
3yr-1user = $80 (40*3-(20+20))
1yr-3user = $35 (55*1-20)
2yr-3user = $80 (55*2-(20+10*1))
3yr-3user = $145 (55*3-(20+10*2))
The 3users are littler trickier because I think they vary in small amounts by company, but not enough to remember.

I bear witness to MANAGERS not caring about selling things that are unecessary: I bought a GPS unit for my girlfriend in a bundle with a case and a 2gb memory card. The unit came with a 2gb memory card. I told my manager and he jokingly said "well, we can let the customers figure that out for themselves." Of course he was having a laugh, but he wasn't entirely joking. The moral of all this is the customers should inform themselves. If they make a stupid purchase it's not anyone elses fault. If someone misrepresents their products, take them to court if you like. MOST people would rather pay for convenience (ever seen a snuggie? It's a backwards robe designed to keep you stationary - I OWN 2).

But my real point with my first post - why I was mad to begin with - is because we agree that people should inform themselves, and you didn't. And a lot of you are ridiculous enough to open your mouth anyway.

 

Feel free to spend more time on this forum as it's good to know someone who is currently in the retail environment.

I actually take more offense to the retailer selling young 'miss sarah' the two grand laptop, and selling her microsoft office, but not selling her an AV. This person usually has to bring their system back to someone, or eventually buy a new system earlier than expected.

I'm no cheapskate, but I know money is tough for many. However, if you're spending money on a PC/laptop, spending a few dollars more on protection makes sense. That's resumes, photos, bank details, all protected without it going down the drain. I've had my uni documents, resume, applications etc disappear on me in the past, when I was your average joe, and the stress of losing that information wasn't worth not spending $50 a year. About $4 a month.

There are better solutions, matching up a free AV, with a program such as sandboxie where no viruses can bust out and harm the user's system, but it's a catch 22, if that's the saying. That's another thing for people to learn, to remember, and some people don't have the patience in learning a new program, or showing others such as their brother, sister, or father how to use the same program (backup software, sandboxie, shadow defender), even though learning these programs pays itself off in the long run.

Overall, if you look at it as $4 a month, to increase an average user's protection in surfing the web, protect their 'property' and their personal belongings (photos, documents), I actually think it's a wise decision considering the investment at risk ($1500 for laptop, infinite amounts of $ for possible personal data lost).

 

I'm sorry but I must turn this around also.. Most employees at Best Buy including the Geek squad Fall into this category as well. I have received so many new leads from customers that have used this service and got screwed more then helped. The hiring requirements to get into selling computers at Best buy or even Geek Squad for that matter are lower then going to work for McDe's. This remains and probably always will be Best Buys biggest flaw.

And just a FYI.. I'm not saying you fall into this category. I'm stating in general, you cant get mad at people that have had a overwhelming one way experienced even if there is a occasional person that actually knows a thing or 2.

 

I'm curious what you're basing this on? Avast!/Rising/COMODO etc. are all purported to be the EXACT same software as the paid version just without the same level of support/customer service. Maybe you don't care for the AV companies who offer free versions but I think it's misinformation to say that "all free AV is crap". Of course being in the retail side of this market I can see where it would be in your best interest to hold and spread this viewpoint. THIS IMO is why there is so much misinformation in the computer world, especially among novice users. You keep paying for yours, I'll keep getting mine for free, and I'll continue to have zero infections....just for less money.

 

@AgentPinto- a question: when you (or other Geek Squad agents) install KAV or one of the other antivirus programs is it policy to leave the antivirus in its default settings? Or do you inform the customer of the ability to enhance the antivirus with some of the advanced settings?

Also, your statement of "Most free AV is crap", is this some of the information you give potential customers of your paid antivirus promo? And what information do you have to say MSE, Avira free, Avast and Rising free edition, even Panda Cloud, are crap compared to Kaspersky, TrendMicro and Webroot? Maybe the findings of others are different than mine- but I think the free av's I mentioned are less resource intensive, allow faster system response and provide a comparable or higher level of protection to either TM or Webroot- and even KAV in its default settings.

 

Fajo makes a good point, some stores might have staff who have other interests in mind rather that helping the customer.

Compared to the latest Symantec or Kaspersky, some free AVs would have been difficult to setup and use (avast in the past, setting up with email, activating, and inserting the licence, also asking a user what to do when an infection was found - me personally, I loved it, but can see the limits it had) for the novice user while paid AVs would take care of a problem/virus no questions asked.

New Avast is an improvement when activating the product, providing a clear user interface, and alerts. Given that it hasn't been out long, many people would be unaware that it's been released. Microsoft security essentials is a strong program, and is easier with removing a threat automatically. Probably the easiest to setup as well. But that is relatively new. Avira is an exceptional program, light, but if I recall, it provides options when a virus was found (yes?) and needs minor tweaking to utilise its detection rates. Otherwise great program.

Based on user feedback, I'd say free AVs have pleased technical users and novice users who had the benefit of a technical user setting up the product/PC correctly, but in the past free AVs haven't been the easiest to install, activate and use for a novice user who has no other assistance.

 

Just wanted to end this retardation once and for all (I hope):

In order to ease customer concern, it is not longer necessary to user customer credit card data to activate the 6-month trial of AV/AS.

BAM! How's that for practical customer awareness.

Got any more complaints about getting free stuff?


OH! I almost forgot:
Now new PC purchasers ALSO get a (what I call) "VIP" card, AKA "Ask an Agent," for tech-related questions. It's only a FAQ-type hotline but it's available online-instore-overthephone for 6months FREE ($40/yr otherwise) for registered card-holders. I can't begin to explain how awesome this is for us agents who are hurried to get off the phone with customers who's only question is "how can I get my old home-screen on my new computer?... Ok how to I type in the address?... Ok which button do I press- oh nevermind I see it.... haha... ya "Enter"! it says it right there! ... ... ok... can we start at the beginning? I lost track."

*nagging suspicion that there's a few gift-horses getting examined*

 

Ok. I got to ask wtf was the point of this post ? You just showed why people should not buy from best buy and about how incompetent there employees really are. Then again what can I expect from Greed squad.


To the Mod's
This topic is going no ware please just close it.

 

agreed time to say good night to this thread imo. i also agree on the name "greed squad" lol some of the prices they get are insane

 

Agreed.

 

@Agentpino,



How does bestbuy get away with charing 300 for computer repairs? i mean they charge by the component i mean come on.

they are the most rip off people i know.

so dont give us any crap about pricing. now tell us how charing by the component for install on hardware at 300 i mean you can get to that price very quick.


its just a rip off all of best buy is.

 

I like the name you gave them "greed squad".