Symantec NIS 2007 Bait & Switch Licensing

I didn't expect that you would have much success. You probably would not have been transferred to a superior officer either, mainly because it was night time in India when you were speaking (judging by your time of post) and that there are 3 people at best in that support center (plus one security guard).

 

Your right not much chance of success with those jokers over there. I don't see why companys that outsource to India just don't save even more money by simply eliminating support altogether. They would have happier customers since they would not bother to spend time chatting with people who can be no help anyway, and would just accept that there is no support without wasting their time on top of it all.

Anyhow, once I receive their email response then I will go from there. If they end up screwing me, which is what it is looking like right now, then I will ensure everyone I know and deal with stays clear of their crooked company. I will also lodge all the forml complaints possible that I can. In addition I will never buy another product from them ever.

 

I was referring to Symantec's support in general rather than for this specific case. I noticed that whenever I sent an email using the support form in Symantec's website, I would not get a reply if I set my country to India.

As for support centres, Indian support centers have been known for the following:

1) Poor understanding on the part of the support center representative, especially on the technical front.
2) The employees of some support centers are specifically trained to fake British and American accents in order to garner some more satisfaction
3) Late replies and lot of tension as well as insults in languages the consumer on the phone is usually not likely to understand (I have personally observed this)
4) Not providing sufficient information and over-dependence on their channel partners to provide information on products and pricing (not very common but not very rare either)
5) Different behaviour and occasionally different treatment to Indian/Asian customers when compared with customers from different parts of the world.
6) Long phone waits (not usual for non-Indian customers I think)
7) There have been reports of employees deliberately changing their names in emails or phone calls to British or American names instead of using the name they were born with. Again, probably to garner more interest.

IMO There is a general inefficiency whenever an Indian tech support center is involved. Whether to blame it on the staff or on the management is not something I want to get into, but suffice to say that Indian call centres, and any Indian support, in general, is not as good as what I've experienced with non-Indian companies.

As for this case, the staff must report the situation to the executive officer and then a solution would be provided (basically the solution for this case would be a password reset). But I noticed that the support employee kept pushing the same solutions to Atomic Ed, meaning that he had not interpreted the issue correctly (he must have thought it to be an activation bug rather than a forced disable of the activation due to exceeding number of installations). Had he checked the activation logs, he'd have known the same PC was used for the activations, and only one PC at a time, and hence it would not be a problem as a solution could have been provided.

 

Based on what your saying here let me also share this small excerpt from my chat session where after repeatedly explaining the situation to this person and telling them that I am an IT Professional and system engineer, he kept typing this until I gave him the info he was asking that had no relevance to my symantec side account being locked out. Notice the canned instruction as if I do not know how to navigate to the add/remove programs area of windows.....

Pradeep Kumar: Please let me know the list of all Symantec programs installed on your computer. This information can be obtained from the Add/Remove Programs applet of Windows Control Panel. To open the Add/Remove Programs applet window, please refer to the following steps:

1. On the Windows desktop taskbar, click on the Start > Settings > Control Panel.
2. In the Control Panel Window, double click on the Add/Remove programs applet icon to open the Add/Remove Programs window.

Note: In Windows XP, location of Control Panel may vary in Start menu according to Windows XP theme.

So you can see here that there was zero comprehension of the support person as to just what I had told him or he would not be sending these canned instructions to me repeatedly.

In the end I agree outsourcing IT support to India is of zero value when there are just to many communication / comprehension issues for them to effectively provide any real support. Again I say people would probably be happier in not wasting their time if companys outsourcing just eliminated support altogether. I know I for one would be.

 

try doing the tech support call, it says that install problems are free of charge

 

Have you SPOKEN with someone at Symantec?
there is no way an automatic mail responder can know that you are moving the software to another system.
Most of the time, they will do the right thing if you call.

For example, I recently purchased a product that was wise enough to include de-activation, so when you remove the product from a system it knows that you have de-activated the product and would allow installation on anoter system.

 

No I have not yet spoken to anyone over the phone as I could not find a number to call them. I have emailed back and forth as well as through their live chat session. I now have a phone number that someone provided me with this afternoon and will try and call monday. Apparently finding thier phone number out is like something from a James Bond movie and they are only available to talk with from 8am-6pm m-f and not on weekends. I will give it a try and see what happens but from what I have been told thus far I am not holding my breath that they will do the right thing. We will see and I will let everyone here know what happens. Symantec is truly a difficult and strange company to deal with if you are a paying customer.

 

I think if you click on the link i sent you earlier, fill out the part where it says phone support, it will dial the number for you and call you on the phone also when it starts ringing

 

When you call, you likely get someone in India.
So far, I've not been able to get an adeqate phone connection and, as needed, call the local number in California and escalate. Of course, I'not called in well over a yesr, so maybe things have improved.

In effect, Symantewc dropped support when they discontinued their support forms several years ago, not that it was any good back then.

The responses I see from email support are at best incompetent.

 

Before I continue, just know that I am a businessman and not a lwayer so my advises will not be professional and right. All I did was one subject of business law which is offered to anybody in the commerce faculty. I took it because this sort of hidden 'meaning' in contracts and clauses always interest me.

Take note that Symantec isn't the only one enforcing such installation rules. Microsoft is also another one. If you modify too many components in your computer within a short period of time, the automated activation will stop you from using Windows untill you call their phone activation because it thinks its being installed on a different system. However its easier for Microsoft to monitor system changes because they have access to such informtion more easily thorugh the OS. Because of this, that is why Microsoft does not enforce a "number of times" installation policy. If Symantec probably wanted something like this, they would probably have to come up with some sort of program that can access this sort of information and install it on your computer. Of course many people would probably object to this kind of thing because they are worried its collecting personal information.

As for your ice cream expamle, technically they cannot take such an action if you are able to supply them proof(e.g. video cameras in store etc). Of course in computer software its going to be a whole lot harder to prove it especially with reinstallation of softwares. Even if you had real solid proof, the cost and time of taking it to the courts just makes it not worth the effort.

 

You have to wonder just how much training these techs in India get.
They can barely converse in english and I have heard that they basically read from a manual,thus the canned reponses.

That's all well and good until the user suffers as in this case here.

 

well i won't fight my case here with you,but lemme tell you that zonealarm has a similar problem..
the only answer they have to most problem is to re-install ZA..

I can only say that you are generalising your views of a few representative of american or europian cos who are of indian origin...

I am pretty sure that neither you or i have seen all the indian/american/europian co's support.

So,i would request not to slam the entire world population of indian's on account of your few un-happy encounters.

Or as i see from "the tester" post,it might just be a bias against 3rd world countries..

 

Whatever has been said about Indian techs has been in Indian newspapers and reported by Indian reporters. I am not saying every tech support center in India is like this, as I have experienced some decent as well as good support (from MicroWorld, for example). But the matter of fact is that a lot of these centers do infact have poor support (In personal experience, at least 50% of these Indian centres have poor support).

Please do remember that I live in India, which is why I would know this stuff at least a bit better than anyone else.

However, I must remark that most Indian techs are able to speak decent English and and write well enough too (at least good enough to get the message across). The biggest problem is that they are lacking in comprehension skills and technical expertise. And no, they don't read out their answers from written sheets, but rather remember those answers by heart and speak.

 

sorry if i hurt anyone here...

@firecat,
any criticism from a fellow countrymen is always good...the only reason why i said "bias against third-world country",is because i have seen in many places in europe that people don't like talking to pakistani or indian techs simply b'coz of bias against their region/color/culture etc etc..

anyhow,i hope this doesn't spoil anything between us...

 

No offense taken. Do not worry. As for what you say about people not liking to talk to Pakistani or Indian techs, I have also heard things like this. Though there have been a few genuine cases of such claims, I think it is caused mainly due to poor experience in the past, which creates a bad impression of the people who are speaking to the customer on the line.

 

It's no harder for Symantec than for MSFT, they just decided to use a different mechanism.

Some companies are ridiculous.
I recently PURCHASED software that allowed only 5 uses without activation.
What can you tell about software in only 5 uses, not very much, n'est-ce pas?

 

On a somewhat related, though off-topic, note regarding communication...., I still recall when I was in graduate school in the upper midwest. Foreign teaching assistants were extremely prevalent in many departments and it created a bit of a stir with many freshmen and their parents owing to "language difficulties". One case however, stuck out. It was an graduate student of Asian descent who a number of freshmen simply could not understand due to his thick foreign accent. The problem was, this gentleman was native born in the US, he just happened to have grown up in the deep south and had a rather pronounced southern US accent. His English was impeccable. The fact of the matter is, communication is a two way street. As anyone who has traveled internationally and encountered situations where nobody spoke a common language would know (I have), either side can make themselves understood if they really choose to. Unfortunately, all too many walk into the situation not wanting to listen at all, and a bad experience follows.

As for support based in India, I've used it numerous times with a number of companies and never had an issue at all. The script they stick to is generally the same one US-based initial support would use as well.

Blue

 

Ok new update but it exemplifies the lack of comprehension on symantec support's part. I received a response email from the same support person I had been previously (trying) to communicate with. Remember that I had told this person as well as the one on the live chat numerous times that I purchased the NIS 2 year license back in January. He now offers me a 60 day refund policy canned answer. Well I don't know how the calendar works over in India but here in the USA I think my 60 days since purchase has long since passed. Take a look at the response:

~Private email removed. - Ron~

Now I have to say they seem to be polite in their answers and I am not trying to knock Indian people of anything but this support mechanism is simply ineffective. To me this is non value added for everyone as even though US companies think they are saving money by utilizing and exploiting cheap labor from poorer countries where wages are sinful for those people, they can not obviously effectively handle to necessary requirements to effectively execute the job and no resolution of any value comes from this arrangement. Additionally even though cheap in comparison to US wages, they are still paying people who are not achieving the desired result and simply wasting the customer's valuable time over and again. For this reason I stand by my earlier statement that companies who outsource like this would save money and have a better overall image to the customer's like myself, if they just said we do not offer support period. At least I wouldn't be wasting my time like this.

Anyhow, I will attempt to get my offered refund anyway and see, but I think we all know what is going to happen when they finally understand that January is more than 60 days past.

I'll post back what happens next........

 

While accent is a big issue, the lack of training and poor knowledge, as well as READING scripts is the biggest problem.

Many years ago, I was driving from Chicago to Atlanta.
Stopped off at a restaurant/diner on an interstate highway in Tennessee.
The woman behind th counter had such a heavy accent, I could not understand a word she said, so I had to point to items on the posted menu.

 

Not to cloudy the subject of my thread here but I was thinking about the whole mess and how darned upsetting it is to me the way that scamantec seems to be operating nowadays. I have been a good customer to them for many years, purchase all my software from them in good faith and now have to go through all of this nonesense anyway. Since I am personally against software piracy I will not let this situation prompt me to just say why not just do as countless others do and p2p whattever I need and not waste my money. I am not that kind of person but I can certainly see how other may just be tempted to do so when treated this way for being honest.

Anyhow, I want to tell everyone here that I appreciate all of the feedback and opinions being posted as there are so many of you here I have a high respect for in your opinions when it comes to security software which leads me to ask this. If scamantec does in fact refund my purchase on my no longer usable 2 year NIS license, I have decided that I will NEVER be purchasing another thing the publish ever. Including if they invent the norton flux capacitor. One thing they have effectively done, is lose me as a long time customer. I despise, to put it nicely, being treated the way they have me and I am sure there are countless others out there having their issues with them as well.

So having said all that, I have already started systematically planning alternatives to every scamantec product I personally own now. What I would like to know from everyone is if in their response they could just add a suggestion or two for security suite alternatives to NIS. As I said I truly do not want to muddy the premise of the thread by turning it into a which av debate, but just a quick suggestion within whatever the response premise is in your replies. I so far have decided to trash my recently purchased scamantec save & restore (which IMO is quite good) and replace that with my Acronis TI9 license., For system utilities I will be looking around yet, AV ? unsure as of yet but it certainly won't be a scamantec product.

Overall this is probably the most disturbing software company experience I have ever had in all my years of being in iT. It is really a shame too because I would have continued to be a good customer to them in the future had they not operated in this manner. Also what makes it even more upsetting is that alot of their recent products are really quite good and I like them.

Oh well, once again thanks to everyone here and keep your ideas coming as I appreciate them all.

 

Wow look at the new pricing on the NIS..

http://www.compusa.com/products/pro..._code=337361&Pn=Norton_Internet_Security_2006

 

must be solid gold cd's

 

Even if they do provide you that refund, they'll probably make you jump through several hoops for the same. As for alternatives to NIS, I recommend

1) BullGuard Internet Security
2) BitDefender Internet Security
3) Kaspersky Internet Security
4) IOLO's System Mechanic Professional (Complete PC maintenance including security suite and registry repair utilities)
5) McAfee Internet Security (However, it seems McAfee has very patchy renewal process)
6) Steganos Internet Security (does not have free upgrades though)

The other security suites out there are pretty obscure and pretty much not so nice as these five, so I would recommend suites from these choices only.

 

I have uninstalled all Norton products, My NIS2005 used to want to re-activate every 30 days for no reason whatsoever, and for a number of times succesfully re-activated.

i did on a few occasions install it on a freshly formattted HD , but always on the same computer, succesfuly activate it only to find that 30 or so days later it wanted re-activation, eventually it told me i had used all my activations up, despite the fact it was their fault not mine, and lets face it Symantec support really sucks.

Eventually i got NIS2006 which gave me problems during shutdown with error messages, and another thing that bugged me about it was the way the control center implied that i needed more of their software (like Norton Systemworks) to make sure that my computer ran smoothly despoite the fact i had very advanced formating and file management software installed.

The thing that really bugged me though was when i choose to have windows 'inform me of critical updates, but not download or install them without my say so, then NIS2006 would glow red telling me my computer wasnt safe, even though it was a choice i had made, perhaps a ''tell me if my choices are changed without my say so setting'' would be better.

I have now moved to NOD32 and comodo firewall and will never use Norton products again.

anyway, thats my penneth worth.

Zoo

 

I see from your post that in the end you decided to switch to another product, but please tell us what was the end result in your case with scamantec, after it eventually it told you that all your activations had been used up? Did they refund you anything or fix your ability to activate that key?