Ah, what a pleasure it is to renew my Kaspersky license through Best Buy

I’m a clean-living kind of gal, and that goes for my computer hygiene, too. I make it a practice to practice safe computing, and have been doing so for the last couple of years with Kaspersky, which I purchased through Best Buy.

So in early July, when I got a notice from Best Buy inviting me to re-up my subscription, which was set to expire on August 3rd, I readily responded.

After all, when it comes to a clean computing, you don’t have to ask me twice. I am so there.

So I went ahead and renewed for another year, printed out my receipt, and figured that, anti-virus and malware-wise, I would be good to go until August 2013.

A few weeks later, I got another note, warning me that my subscription was going to run out shortly, and that my trusty computer would become – gulp! – vulnerable.

I checked to make sure that I hadn’t hallucinated renewing, and found that I hadn’t.

So I called Best Buy (which, by the way, I’ve always found to have very helpful customer service and support).

The BestBuy person told me that my renewal was on track, but that the way “the system” was set up – not sure if this was on the Kaspersky or the Best Buy end, but I’m thinking it’s Kaspersky – the renewal is not processed until the day of, thus making sure that you get the whole year you paid for.

Now I can’t say that this made a whole hell of a lot of sense to me.

Why wasn’t “the system” set up to just put in the new end date? Why wasn’t “the system” set up to stop sending me warnings.

This second question became even more apparent (and irksome) to me as D-Day approached and I began getting daily dire warnings about not renewing.

Again, I called. Again, I was reassured that my renewal was in order.

And still the stalking continued.

On renewal day, I got a message letting me know that my subscription had lapsed – gee, thanks – and that I’d better renew. (Been there, done that.)

Concerned about my exposure, I called Best Buy once again.

Oh, they told me, the processing’s done at the end of the day, and yours should go through. Meanwhile, just run a scan. Even though it says that you’re not protected, heh, heh, you are, and you’ll be just fine.

As indeed I was.

48 hours later I got this e-mail:

Hello Maureen,
Congrats! Your Kaspersky Anti-Virus has been renewed. These charges will be applied to the credit card provided and will enroll you in yearly automatic renewals to ensure continued protection. Enjoy continuous anti-virus protection for your product.

There has got to be a better way to handle renewals than continuously annoying folks who’ve already renewed. And blaming “the system…” Well, that system is man-made and, thus, can be man-updated. I can’t imagine it would be all that difficult to program in a few lines to turn off the stalking e-mails for those who have already re-upped (even if, behind the scenes, the renewal won’t really be processed until later in the game). Surely, my multiple calls to the customer service line, when multiplied by thousands of others, would cost justify making a fix to “the system.”

Perhaps this an effort to goad people into automatic renewal. Which I actually don’t like all that much: with the shelf life of my average laptop, I’ll always be in mid-cycle somewhere along the way, and since you get 6 months Kaspersky free at Best Buy to begin with…

Well, I suppose that, given the myriad little aggravations that life throws everyone’s way, I shouldn’t allow myself to get so wound up about this little annoy-een. Still….

Grrrr, grrr, grr-dy, grr, grr….