Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Symantec / Norton Antivirus Sucks
New Year's is a time of renewal, so over the holidays I figured it was a good time to renew my subscription to Symantec's Norton Antivirus system. What followed was a Kafkaesque journey into unbelievably bad customer service.
First, I tried renewing over the internet. No dice. On the particular day I tried, their ecommerce server was down.
Fine, I'll just phone it in, I said to myself. The program provides a handy pop-up list of phone numbers for renewal centres around the world.
I started off with the Canadian renewal centre number. Phone number not in service. OK, that's odd. I moved on and tried the US number provided by the program. Still no luck.
So then I went onto the website. The "Contact Us" section made me slog through several screens of describing my problem, allegedly so they could provide me with the right phone number. Finally it provided me with a hopeful looking 1-800 number. Which turned out to be not in service.
Hunting further on the website, I found the new phone number for Symantec's Toronto office. I gave that a try. However, the voice menu provided no options for contacting sales or technical support, only a look-up-by-name company directory which would only be useful if you actually knew the name of someone who worked there. The only other option provided another toll-free number for the company's California office.
This number worked and a real live person actually asked what she could do to help. I described my desire to give them my money by renewing my subscription. She then connected me with the appropriate menu system.
After wading through several menus, the robot finally asked me to enter my priority ID number and warned that, if I didn't have one, my wait time would be extended. I figured I had hung in this long I might as well keep going. Half an hour later I hung up and went in search of a priority ID number.
This turned out to be a relatively simple process of registering a problem online, presumably so the customer service rep could save time by having basic information in hand at the start of the phone call.
So I called back to the California number, got connected to the menu and this time dutifully entered my priority ID number. This did in fact speed things up and in about 10-15 minutes I was, hallelujah, connected to a real live person ... in India. Apparently Symantec has outsourced customer support.
The service rep asked me to describe my problem. I thought that was what the priority ID process was for, but I went ahead and repeated it for him. He then suggested that I try renewing my subscription online. I pointed out to him that, as per the information provided in the priority ID file he had open in front of him, the online service wasn't working.
Well, then we were in business. He took my credit card number and processed the order. I asked him for my subscription key code. "Oh, we don't do that anymore. Just hit the synchronize button on your program," he said. "I have the 2005 version of the program. It doesn't have a synchronize button," I said. "OK, well, just run Live Update instead," he said.
So I did that and then all hell broke loose. The program went all wonky. Options and buttons simply disappeared from the program menus. Fonts went all screwy. It was bad news.
"I'll connect you with Technical Support," the service rep said.
The phone menu at Tech Support began with a warning message that, due to technical problems, "you may be disconnected or experience poor sound quality."
Twenty minutes later, I was connected to a static-ridden, vaguely human sounding voice. Did you ever see that Dennis Quaid movie Frequency where the guy thinks he's connected across time with his dead father on a ham radio? It was kinda like that, only less clear. I couldn't understand a thing the tech support person was saying, so I hung up and called back.
Twice.
Same result each time, including the lengthy wait times.
At this point, I was feeling pretty grouchy, so I called back the main number and freaked out on the receptionist, demanding satisfaction from someone higher up the corporate food chain. She promised to connect me directly to a customer service manager.
...Who ended up just being another customer service rep over in India who was in no better position to resolve the problem than his colleague who had created it. In an effort to satisfy me, he promised to connect me to a tech support manager.
This time, I didn't have to go through a long wait...because as soon as the tech support warning message was complete, the system promptly hung up on me.
A sucker for punishment, I called back to customer service again.
"Look," I said. "The technical support lines aren't working but yours are. Where is technical support? Could you grab a techie and bring him over to your line? I'm sure my problem won't take long to solve."
"No, I can't do that," said the rep. "Tech support is all the way over on the other side."
"The other side of what? The room."
"Yes, but you don't understand. They won't come if I ask them. They will only deal with you if your call comes in on a tech support phone line."
"But their phone lines aren't working."
"I'm sorry sir, there's nothing I can do about that."
This went back and forth for awhile, but you get the picture.
In frustration, after (I swear to god) four hours of effort, I finally gave up on Symantec's phone support. Instead, I turned to their online email-based technical support. In my message, I referenced my priority ID and all the other case file numbers I'd been given along the way so that whoever got the email would have all the background information.
Two days later, I got a reply email from tech support suggesting that I try renewing my subscription online.
I sent, shall we say, a rather sharp reply to that message.
Ten minutes later, tech support emailed back a simple three-point set of instructions which cleared up all my problems immediately.
All my Norton Antivirus problems, that is. My blood pressure problems are another matter.
posted by Mentok @ 10:21 p.m.,
14 Comments:
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At 3:49 a.m.,
Bathroom Hippo said...
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In my IS&T beginner class last year the professor called any Norton Software "malware". He was right. I go around fixing peoples computers for fun...and I hate when they have Norton System Works/ Anti-virus / Anything. It's incredibly annoying. -
At 6:38 a.m.,
Suzan Abrams, email: suzanabrams@live.co.uk said...
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I bought mine in London in 2005. Paid over £40 for it, I think and remember having more than my share of problems with it but differently from yours.
Happy New Year, Mentok -
At 8:02 a.m.,
said...
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I use free programs. If they become annoying I just switch. Life is so easy..
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At 10:47 a.m.,
Grumps said...
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Mentok - I've always just bought the new software on CD and reinstalled it that way so have never had a problem. I do find, though, that Norton keeps getting bigger and slowing down my system overall. Are there other programs that might be better?
When we first got our current computer, we went through a similar situation with a retailer and Sony. No one believe me when I told them it wouldn't turn on. After weeks of haggling, Sony sent a box out for me to return the computer in. Just the box. No packing slip, no weigh bill, nothing. I called Sony and they told me I'd have to wait 48 hours for a reply.
That was the final straw. I phoned the retailer and informed them I was bringing the computer back and would wait in the store until they gave me a new one.
Fortunately, they did. It's worked fine ever since. But it was three weeks of hassle I didn't need. BTW, the retailed did call me later to say I was right, the first computer was broken. -
At 12:13 a.m.,
Mentok said...
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Susan - Happy New Year to you too, babe.
happy and blue - that is a good plan. Why didn't I think of that!
Hippo - for the benefit of both me and Grumps, what is your professional recommendation for antivirus / system tools instead of Norton? -
At 6:09 a.m.,
Bathroom Hippo said...
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AVG is a nice free Antivirus.
It is easy to install and easy to uninstall. I recommend it over anything. -
At 11:10 a.m.,
Grumps said...
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Thanks for the tip, Hip. Mentok - if you do decide to abandon Norton, do some research. I've heard that it's a huge hassle to uninstall.
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At 11:19 a.m.,
Mentok said...
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grumps - I expect you are right that it's one of those programs that really gets into the bowels of computer ..."malware" as hippo described it.
In any case, I'm getting to the point (which I get to about once a year around this time) where I'm think of just doing a total rewrite on my drive. Back up all the data, format the drive and then reinstall everything from scratch. You'll kill a whole weekend doing that but it's tremendously satisfying, like a computer enema. The main trick to doing it successfully is to make sure to make a physical backup of all your emails, passwords and such. -
At 9:07 p.m.,
Library Mama said...
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I'm actually very impressed that you've managed to weave this story into a humorous comedy of errors, because at the time, I was afraid you might have an aneurism with how frustrated you were getting.
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At 5:24 a.m.,
Rachel said...
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Oh my god...I don't even know where to begin!
I pointed out to him that, as per the information provided in the priority ID file he had open in front of him, the online service wasn't working.
This is f'ing classic.
And although this is all quite comical now, as Mrs. Mentok mentioned it is a nightmare going through it.
All I know is I am currently not using any anti-virus program: 1st I tried the oh so holier than thou symantec route and although maybe at one point long, long ago Norton was the greatest thing ever it quickly made it's way to the top of my shit list.
2nd I got a McAfee subscription with an MSN service awhile back...Ask me if I use either one? Ask me if either one of these programs is still on my PC? McAfee was not too bad for awhile but then suddenly there was an update and well we know what that means...They totally re-worked everything, making it a enormous program that doesn't even let you turn it off!!!!!! So then after that I thought to myself..."Self, do I even need this?" I mean yeah I am on the Internet pretty much 20 hours out of my day but I really think all of the pop-up blockers, anti-virus, anti-spam and anti-everything programs are such a joke...I mean if you open an e-mail from some ridiculous unknown address and then download some unknown file attachment within the e-mail then I mean even the greatest Anti-Everything program wouldn't even save your ass.
Man I feel your pain though, I will have to post the conclusion to my Media Player fiasco...Cheers! -
At 12:13 p.m.,
Ian said...
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Hi Mentok!
I'm bloghopping today and jumped over here from Susan Abraham's blog. As a big fan of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, is it any wonder I clicked on your link?
Funny tale you shared with us here. I've never worked in technical support, but I'm certain that several people you talked to referred to your problem privately as a "bioware" malfunction.
Ian
Stop by and say hello -
At 3:37 a.m.,
Suzan Abrams, email: suzanabrams@live.co.uk said...
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Where are you, Mentok?
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At 9:33 p.m.,
mkecurler said...
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I belong to the club of haters. Norton is the spawn of satan. Gee I had a fst pc until I installed Norton! ughhhhhh!
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At 2:19 p.m.,
said...
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symantic custumer service really sucks
