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….
4 comments:
This year its even worse. They charge your card and three days later your subscription still says your existing activation code is expired. Best Buy tries to connect you to geek squad who after 30 minutes on hold does not answer. (they're experiencing very long hold times due to increased call volumes, surprise surprise.) So..am I protected? Who knows. My subscription "expired" three days ago, even though the charges went through on my credit card.
I stumbled upon your blog while looking online for anything relating to the convoluted techno-circus of trying to renew Kaspersky Anti-Virus through Best Buy. I think we talked to the same courteous support person at BB - you know, the one that tells you that everything will be OK. I paid for another year about two weeks ago, an I'm still getting warnings of my imminent lack of protection several times daily. If you lived through it, I guess I will, too. DK
I, too, just went through the same antler dance again this year. At least I know that it does end up working out. My current gripe with Kaspersky is some virus that it's identified, for which the recommendation is do nothing... Yet the warning about it comes up daily.
I was just double charged on a renewal. Once by Kapersky, once by Best Buy. It seems as though somewhere along the line Karpersky entered an auto renewal code into their updates. After about a half hour on the phone with Karpersky they transferred me to Best Buy, (both very hard to understand), Best Buy credited me back, but also stopped my subscription, so I had luckily saved the activation email from Karpersky, and used that code provided to reactivate my subscription. Ii dumped Norton for the some of the same reasons 3 years ago, now Karpersky will be dumped for something else in a year. BTW Best Buy renewal was 41 dollars and change, Karpersky's was 59 and change, a considerable difference for the same thing. Live and learn my friends.
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