Symantec Corp Adds New Meaning to "Customer Protection"A trip to Symantec Corporation's Web site (http://www.symantec.com/corporate/) provides an opportunity to read a lot of brochure blather about concepts like integrated security solutions, protection, perimeter defenses, and protection against penetration of outer defenses. All of this heroic sounding jabber is in reference to computers and computer systems, of course, but it could also be a reference to Symantec's way of dealing with its customers. Its small ones, anyway.I know, because I'm one of those small customers who has experienced the immense frustration of trying first to get a Symantec product to work, then of trying to get a refund when it doesn't work. So far I have been unsuccessful on both counts. Symantec's Web site is very impressive in the way they have successfully implemented arcane and torturously convoluted Web links to prevent pesky customers from penetrating their defenses with unreasonable demands, like refunds for products that don't work. And you have to hand it to them: Symantec didn't get into the billion-plus dollar revenue category by issuing refunds. First, a little history. I have been using Norton Antivirus since the days when it was actually sold by a company named Norton that was owned by a guy named Norton. At some point the company was bought by Symantec and since then I have had a sense of continual degradation of responsiveness to customers. To this customer, anyway. A little over two years ago I upgraded to the 2001 Antivirus Pro software. It came with one year of virus definition updates, and I subsequently re-subscribed for another year of updates at the end of the first year. A few weeks ago it was time to renew my virus definition subscription again, and that's when the trouble began. I went to the Symantec Web site to renew my subscription and did so without a hitch. Their automated process charged my credit card $14.95USD and I was given a subscription key that enabled me to receive another year of updates. The key worked, but the installation of the definitions didn't. The latest virus definitions would download, and the message on my screen would tell me the new definitions were being installed on my computer, followed by a message that the new definitions had been successfully installed. But they hadn't. Even though I repeated the download and install procedure several times, the virus definitions remained the last ones installed from before the renewal. When I went back to the Symantec Web site for customer service I read that Symantec no longer "supports" the 2001 version of the software. They of course did not mention that when they took my money for the virus definitions renewal (which was specifically for the 2001 version, which I had to indicate, in the process). I sent an email to the Symantec service department telling them about the problem, and they responded by telling me the same thing: they don't support what they sold me. The communication from the service department included some URLs for articles about how to deal with various problems, so I read them. Followed all the instructions. (Scratch two hours of my time just doing that.) Nothing worked, not even re-installing the antivirus software following their instructions. At every point in the communication with Symantec I was urged to upgrade. I resented being forced -- bludgeoned -- into upgrading, but after fuming and fulminating against what I considered on their part to be unethical business behavior, I finally relented and upgraded. Like buying the renewal, buying an upgrade proved to be quite easy. You can easily find contact points and phone numbers on the Symantec Web site to buy something. But for any other reason it is nearly impossible. When I asked the sales rep about getting a refund for the subscription renewal, I was told to contact the service department. Uh huh. Easier said than done. I will spare you all the details about how much time I wasted and still never contacted the service department. About how I was forced to enter information on an intractable form and told that my order number, which Symantec itself had issued, was not a valid order number (and beyond which there were no options - no valid number, no contact). And how it is next to impossible to find a phone number or any way to communicate directly with anyone at Symantec. (I did eventually find an 800 number, but when I called they were closed. Later I tried to find the number again but couldn't.) So I'll just wait until I get my credit card statement and try to get the charge removed. There is of course no way to regain the hours I have lost in all of this. Nor can I undo that unpleasant, and increasingly familiar, feeling of having been violated yet again by a greedy, insensitive, unresponsive corporation whose entire focus is a short sighted concern for the bottom line. Would I buy another Symantec product? Absolutely not. Whether or not you decide to so business with Symantec should be guided by how tolerant you are of dealing with a company that is a master at setting up communication barriers after it has your money. Speaking of executives with outrageous salaries and bonuses (I didn't mention them, but I could), I'm sending a copy of this article to the following at Symantec Corporation, 20330 Stevens Creek Blvd., Cupertino, CA 95014 (in case you're interested in their address):
UPDATE: I get a lot of messages from people who have had problems with Symantec's anti-virus program and virus subscription service. I started out several years ago using McAfee Virus Scan but gave up on them because of their unrelenting push for their own products. Plus, McAfee at that time offered little in the way of options and controls. This can be a good thing for the unsophisticated computer user, but I wanted more control and fewer commercial messages, so I changed to Norton Antivirus. Then came the problems with Symantec (the current owner of Norton) which you read about in my article. I was able to get my problem solved by sending letters to virtually the entire executive staff at Symantec. Since then I have had good service and I did get my update service as they promised. You can do the same thing. The Symantec executives' names and company address, along with the company's (non-toll-free) phone number can be found at www.symantec.com/corporate/bios.html. We have more than one license - one for each computer -- and a few weeks ago every computer, which downloads the virus definitions and updates independently (we do not use a file server), experienced a serious problem with its email program. Our POP server would no longer allow us to retrieve email. When Symantec's anti-virus email scan was turned off, the problem stopped. (Although we had to re-install our operating system and email software on one of the computers after turning off the Symantec email scan.) The sorry reputation American corporations now have vis-à-vis their ethics makes me suspicious of everything they do. What did Symantec change about their subscription or update service that would cause each of our computers to have a problem? Maybe nothing. We'll never know for sure, probably, but the suspicion is there. We are now operating with the Norton anti-virus email scan turned off. We've decided we don't need it because we practice safe computing and do not open unknown attachments. (There are no children or idiots using our computers.) If we want to open something that looks suspicious, we can do a manual virus scan of it first. Auto Protect and Script Blocking are on and this gives us all the protection we need. Virus protection, that is. We also have a tough firewall set up. There are a couple of programs we will take a closer look at when the Symantec subscriptions expire. One is PC-cillin Internet Security. The other is Kaspersky Lab anti-virus software (www.kaspersky.com). Both have more regular updates of their anti-virus definition files than does Symantec/Norton. (Norton's is once a week on Wednesday for the automatic updater). In this day of virus deluges, that can be important. Mary Landesman has a good write-up about this at antivirus.about.com/cs/allabout/a/pccillin2004.htm. |