They won't let me purchase avast! Professional!

I've been running avast! Home Edition (free) since Sept 2008. No problems and I've been very satisfied.

Since they were offering a 25% discount to upgrade to avast! Professional recently, I decided to take advantage of the offer and placed my order. My order was placed on Feb 28 2009.

Unfortunately, their payment processor - element5 - won't let me purchase the upgrade! Why? Read the story on the avast! web forum at this link -
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=43098.0

Unbelievable! I'm a happy user and want to be a paying customer - but I can't! They (element5) won't let me!

Anyone here ever heard of such an incident before? Or is it just me?

 

Its normal to protect fraud when i travel i cant buy things (ip out of US) unless i call element 5 they will help you to process the order quick or i connect with gotomypc to my house pc (ip from US) and buy from there

 

Paypal me the funds and I'll buy it for you.

 

I know an avast! Pro user who successfully purchased online in Australia using a credit card issued by a bank in a SE Asian country at their address in a third country, but I don't know if they bought from the Australian reseller or Digital River / Element 5.

I've never been a great fan of DR due to their general "value-adding" technique of trying to pursuade the customer to pay extra for a CD copy of an installation file they can download anytime! - but that's another story.

I guess youve already thought of uninstalling Home and installing Pro with 60-day trial.

 

Well, it doesn't have to be an international mega incident because something went wrong. ALWIL is not saying "it's not our problem". It's just out of their control. All they can do is to also contact element5 and notify them of the issue.
If element5 fails to act, well thats another thing. And it seems this is more of an isolated incident, not something thats happening daily. Otherwise forums would be flooded by complaints.

You can use avast! Professional for 60 days free of charge. In the mean time i'm sure the problem will be resolved.

 

Why even bother migrating to Professional in first place?
The free edition is perfectly good enough to start with.

Do you use IE to browse?
If 'yes' then why?

If answer is 'no' then Professional is pretty much a waste of money.
Unless they have recently added some new features to the Pro version then the only thing you'd be getting would be a script blocker for IE.

Use FireFox and the add-on 'noscript', same thing, for free!
Or even better use the free SandBoxIE to isolate your browsing.

 

Configuration is limited in Home Edition, no PUSH updates, no scheduler...

 

unBob

Talking 'home' users here.............

http://www.avast.com/eng/avast-compare-home-professional.html

It's probably the best all round AV package, tried and tested and certified, going that's available for free.

To me, as an experienced user, I wouldn't even bother paying for the Pro version.
The Pro version is what I would probably use in a work environment for the features listed that Home doesn't possess, they know that hence the Pro tag.

Push updates, c'mon really
Lack of scheduled scans, you really gonna pay for the automation when you can simply open Avast say once a week and press 'scan'?

At the end of the day it boils down to 'end user' opinion.
You wanna buy it, buy it, but as a Home user you'd be pretty much wasting your money.

 

I agree, this must be an isolated incident. The only possible explanation I can conjure up is that element5's system is identifying my IP address as being in Mexico (which it is) and my credit card billing address is in the USA. So that raised a red flag and they simply cancel the order.

Yes, that should raise a red flag - however, they are not following up and checking with my credit card and PayPal people to verify all is A-OK (which it is). Instead, they just drop the entire transaction! Not a good way to run a business. I wonder how many other legitimate paying customers they have turned away?

Finally, element5 has failed to act. It has now been 6 days since I first attempted to place my order! They're basically saying "get lost" - we don't want your business!

 

Agreed! I reviewed the comparison of Home vs Pro and came to the same conclusion. The only reason I was ordering the Pro upgrade was to take advantage of the 25% discount offer.

I'm much more pissed off that a I'm being turned away as a customer than I am being forced to remain a free Home user.

But, hey! I just saved some $$$! These days that's a very good thing! element5 can go to #^$&%#@!!!

 

Unbob, check your PM.

Thanks.

 

Following is copy/paste of my latest post over on the avast! web forum regarding this matter ...

Finally received a response from element5 this morning. In part, here's what they said:

"We apologised for all inconveniences caused.

The order you attempted to place is incomplete, and your PayPal account
has not been charged. A new order will need to be placed ..."

also ...

"We recommend when placing an order that you enter the email address
associated with your PayPal account. If the email address entered on the
Billing Information page does not match the email address associated
with your PayPal account, your order may not process completely."

"The order you attempted to place is incomplete" Huh? What does that mean? I entered all required information and entry of the completed input fields was accepted. So why is my order "incomplete"?

And their requirement that the e-mail address I entered be the same e-mail address used on my PayPal account!? What's up with that?

I use a service called spamgourmet.com that allows me to use disposable e-mail addresses when ordering from merchants or registering for message boards, etc. It's basically a way to manage and prevent my "real" personal e-mail address from being scattered all over the internet and used by scammers and spammers. Works very well and I highly recommend! (Am I the only spamgourmet user on the planet?) And there are many other such disposable e-mail address services available on the 'net.

So, I always use a different disposable e-mail address for each account I set up on the 'net. That's for my protection. But that obviously does not meet element5's "requirements". Again, I've been using the spamgourmet service and disposable e-mail addresses for years and never, ever encountered this problem!

Bottom line: element5 has a bogus customer purchase verification process and is refusing legitimate business of their clients.

I surely hope this incident is made known to the management of ALWIL Software and they take action to force element5 to modify their payment verification process or sack element5 and find another payment processor!

Meantime, I have been kindly contacted by other ALWIL Software resellers & distributors offering to accept my order and gladly take my $$$.

I will henceforth never, ever do business with element5 and I will make sure they are informed. I recommend all other customers of ALWIL Software do the same.

Let's make sure element5 either changes their business practices or ceases to exist!

 

I agree to an extent.I have no use for the push updater or the script blocker ,however i would gladly donate to alwil for the use of their home version,however for some obscure reason this is not possible.I really think alwil ought to have some sort of donation link in their free version .Im sure they'd be suprised at how many people actually appreciate their home version
ellison