Spyware, viruses, & security : My (horrible) experience with AVG Internet Security

My (horrible) experience with AVG Internet Security

My experience with AVG Internet Security, Grisoft (Grisoft.com) and Digital River (to whom I paid)

1. They do not honour their refund policy (see below). I applied for a refund and in the same message I wrote the reasons why I don't want AVG IS (Internet Security) anymore. The support or billing person wrote me to apply again and to write reasons. I already wrote the reasons. They are just winning time to avoid the refund. Today is the last day of the month since I purchased the AVG I/S and I'm afraid I lost my right to a chargeback. Grisoft / Digital River / AVG / Element5 has been ignoring my refund requests since then. I mean, no response, even if I reapplied for a refund two more times.

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550:
What is your refund policy?
Generally a 30 days refund policy applies to the purchase of AVG software. If you are not satisfied with your AVG product, kindly contact us. We would appreciate if you could inform us about the reason.

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2. The following are the problems with AVG Internet Security:

a) Scanning my PC, suddenly window pop-up saying scan completed, so many spyware found, I click OK, but it keeps on scanning..... so is the scan over (as pop-up showed) or is it not?

b) I disabled the email scanner, but it scans my email (occasionally, quite often, every day) anyway. I unchecked "scan incoming and outgoing email" boxes and since that did NOT stop the email scanner (??) as per suggestion of the support I also clicked on "Disable Plugin" button which by the way keeps on enabling itself every time I reload my PC. Also, the AVG logo now is grey-black instead of colourful and it keeps on popping the abnnoying notice about email scanner not fully functional (bottom bar). I thought I disabled it....(?)

c) AVG IS found a "Framer" virus, but left it unremoved. I had to remove it by other methods. Here's the result of the scan: 6 files healed successfully
1 file error while healing The error is the virus that it found,but did not heal.

d) user-unfriendly confusing interface;

e) slows computer down, and itself as well, it takes at least 10 seconds for any interface of AVG to open. AVG is extremely slow to open. Every page I open takes several seconds of "thinking". For example: I clicked on "Test Center" button, it took 11 seconds to open.

f) conflicting results and statistics;

g) support takes over a day to respond; they don't respond all questions or inquiries;

h) asking to enter a LICENSE NUMBER inthe payment returns (refund) area, but I was NOT provide a LICENSE NUMBER; I can not see anything with "Licwense Number" on their emails, or purchase receipt or invoice or even their CD.

i) Window states that XX number of files healed, but when I go to a statistics area it says that "0 files healed" "X moved to vault".

j) After AVG was done with it's full scan, I let AdAware scan my PC and it found many tracking cookies (no browsing was done in between the two scans).

k) No License Number was found inthe software nor on the CD. The support wrote: "you can check your currently active license number in
the following way: - Open the AVG Control Center. => - Select the "License" component. => - Select the "Re-activate" button.
I did all that, but there is NO license number! And AVG support ignores me now. I get tickets assigned to me, but no response for the last week or more.

l) Their forum.grisoft.cz forum is confusing. Registration and login is confusing. Not sure what to entrer under "username" since their instructions say something about sales/license number which was not provided to me, etc. It's probably done to intentionally confuse you, so you don't get to post on their forum.

P.S. I just was refused a claim by Paypal (automatically by their website) but after I spoke with Paypal rep. and explained the situation and presented the proof and the facts to them, they told me they will credit my account for the money and will put a record on Digital River / Grisoft (whatever their main name is) in Paypal system.

UPDATE: just received an email from Grisoft / Digital River / AVG:

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Thank you for your email.

We have received a refund request from you.

If you have a specific reason why you have decided to ask for a refund
we would appreciate if you could inform us about it.

Please confirm your refund request at paymentreturns@avg.com.

AVG Technologies will then refund your purchase price.

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As you can see they keep on sending the same emails asking for reasons and details, but never issue a refund after one responds to their email. I applied at least 4 times and sent them numerous emails with all their questions answered and NO REFUND. They just keep on sending the same email again and again asking for reasons and details......

So I think it is a MYTH that AVG is good or best. I suspect Digital River / Grisoft / AVG spam forums with positive feedback themselves to boost sales. I was one of the "catch" of their as I was hooked on the suspectedly fake positive feedback.