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Norton Antivirus Sucks

March 27th, 2010 | Personal

I’ve often thought there should be a User-Generated site for sharing terrible experiences with brands. Here’s my tale of why I hate Symantec’s Norton Anti Virus.

In 2006 I was using a Dell P4 computer. I bought a copy of Norton Antivirus for it, and felt good for going beyond the simple open source titles. Later in 2007 I bought a new computer which came packaged with another AV title, and the old P4 fell into disuse.

In 2009 I was shocked and outraged to see that I had been charged somewhere in the area of $50 for a subscription update (and had presumably, but not noticed the years before). I somehow got a hold of Norton and asked them to stop charging me. I wanted a refund, but it was too hard without the serial number I had long since lost, and the spokes person I spoke with had unintelligible English speaking skills. I gave up and took it as an expensive lesson never to use their software again.

Today I discovered that I had been charged AGAIN! I instantly felt about as irate as I get. I went to the Norton site and tried to contact them. What I found was the worst user experience on a site I have ever seen.

After clicking Contact Us in the footer, then Customer Service on the following page, THEN the hidden Contact Us link on the following page, I was directed to a page with a few terrible choices

First I tried the email form. Horrendous. There are so many mandatory fields – including the serial number (which I don’t have) that it’s unusable.

This is how I contacted them last year. I remember going to a torrent site and getting  a keygen to pass this. I shared this with Symantec hoping they’d make their form usable for people in my situation. I guess they didn’t.

Next I tried the chat. Here you the user are invited to input your personal information so you can view your complaint on an uninteractive blue window. Nice touch.

Finally I gave in and tried to phone. I’m not a “phone person”, and last year when I spoke with them I had to struggle to understand the broken English. After jumping through more phone hoops I was shown another screen:

I called, and was greeted with what felt like a 20 minute diatribe about their products or website or something. When I finally entered my so-called Priority ID I the phone went through about 20 rings, and then they told me my ID was wrong.

Goodbye $53.31. Goodbye Symantec. I’m calling my bank and cancelling that credit card.

The really ironic thing is today I’m supposed to buy new Anti Virus software for my desktop. I’m now leaning towards Vipre. Let me plug them.