|
Tile Puzzler Pentominoes, Tetrominos, Triominoes, and other puzzling games to play. |
|
Entrapment Entrap the computer's red dots between your gray dots to win this game. |
|
Biblical Illuminations Sermon illustrations and object lessons help teach God's Word. |
|
Amateur-Hikers.com Find information about mountain trails, or write your own hike reports. |
PC-Cillin Internet Security - Thumbs Down
PC-Cillin Internet Security For Dell came preinstalled on my new Dell laptop. Don't laugh, but I was actually (at first) happy about this. Not because I had heard great things about PC-Cillin Internet Security (truth is, I'd never heard of it), but because I was ready to try something besides Norton and McAfee, and I don't trust the fly-by-night software that everyone recommends to me all the time.So I was (briefly) happy.
My happiness ended the day after I received my new Dell laptop computer. When I booted it up, one of the first things that greeted me was a message from PC-cillin, stating that it needed to check for updates. Not surprising, and not a problem. I told Vista to let PC-cillin access the internet, and it started downloading. When it was done, it informed me that it needed to reboot in order to update the computer. Also not surprising. Also not a problem.
After rebooting, I'd been working on my new computer for about a half an hour when PC-cillin Internet Security once again started downloading updates. Then, once again, it needed to reboot. Still not a problem; I figured it would go through this two or three times before it was fully up-to-date with all the spyware definitions, virus definitions, malware definitions, and program updates.
Since I was in the process of installing software left-and-right on my new computer, I let PC-cillin wait while things finished installing. Then I rebooted.
This happened a couple more times that day.
Things got interesting the next day, when PC-cillin started downloading updates every time I started my computer, and then, when it requested a reboot, it would - as soon as the computer was finished booting - start downloading again.
What went through my mind at this point was: PC-cillin Internet Security FOR DELL was designed for, and PRE-INSTALLED on a Dell computer, and straight out of the box, it doesn't work right.
Seems a little absurd to me. And embarrassing. As a software developer, I understand that sometimes products will misfire on certain computers, but when you brag that your software is specifically for a specific computer, and is pre-installed on that computer, you've got some serious egg on your face when it doesn't work.
So I contacted tech support. It took two emails and three days to resolve the problem.
Not my brightest decision.
I go online and make the purchase. They send me a serial number, with instructions to click "Activate" and enter the serial number.
There is no activate button!!!
Contact PC-cillin support, and they tell me: You may try to go to C/Program Files/TrendMicro/Internet Security 14 and double click trialmsg.exe then enter your serial number there and submit it.
So, apparently, this is a problem that occurs so often they actually have built and distributed a tool to deal with it. Seems like they should have just fixed the problem in the first place. Nevertheless, I follow their instructions, and to my great disgust, read the following message: Invalid registration information has been entered.
I carefully re-enter the registration number THREE TIMES, just to make sure I haven't made a mistake.
No luck. Trend Micro has actually sent me an invalid registration number for a product I just paid $69.00 for.
At this point I've had it with PC-cillin. I'm not interested in dealing with tech support any more, so I send them an email telling them I'm done wasting my time with them, and want a refund. Their reply:
Thank you for contacting Trend Micro Technical Support. I have carefully read
your email and I understand that you have a question regarding the installation
and registration of the product.
Please uninstall/reinstall the program using the latest build installer file:
Please uninstall/reinstall the program using the latest build installer file:
I can't help but think that they haven't carefully read and understood my email, so I respond:
Hi, You obviously have not "carefully read my email and understood", since my
email was a request for your company to refund my money on a product which does
not function properly.
My order number is *******, purchased on ****. Please refund this order, as I have no interest in wasting more time on this product.
My order number is *******, purchased on ****. Please refund this order, as I have no interest in wasting more time on this product.
Now they send me an email saying that I should reply with complete information about my purchase (date, order #, reason for refund, etc). So I do this.
They reply telling me to forward the email to another address in order to process the refund. I do this. I get the following reply:
We have searched our database for your purchase using the email address
provided in your inquiry.
We were unable to locate your purchase using this information. Please provide us with your transaction number, the full name used at the time of purchase, and the billing address you had on file with your credit card company at the time of purchase.
If you used a separate email address for your purchase, please provide that as well.
All of this information will help us locate your original purchase information and allow us to resolve your inquiry as quickly as possible.
We were unable to locate your purchase using this information. Please provide us with your transaction number, the full name used at the time of purchase, and the billing address you had on file with your credit card company at the time of purchase.
If you used a separate email address for your purchase, please provide that as well.
All of this information will help us locate your original purchase information and allow us to resolve your inquiry as quickly as possible.
To this startling response, I sent the following:
Good day,
It has now been one week (and six emails) since I requested a refund on my purchase. In that time, Trend Micro has made no progress in following through on the refund. This runaround and jumping-through-hoops has gone from silly to absurd. If I do not have, within the next 48 hours, notification that this charge has been reversed, I will have no choice to but to contact my credit card company to stop payment on the purchase.
Once again (yes, for the SECOND time) here is the information on my purchase, taken directly from your CONFIRMATION EMAIL. If you cannot find this purchase, you have a serious problem with your database system. One has to wonder: if you don’t have software capable of searching a database, how in the world do you expect to protect people’s computers from viruses and spyware?
It has now been one week (and six emails) since I requested a refund on my purchase. In that time, Trend Micro has made no progress in following through on the refund. This runaround and jumping-through-hoops has gone from silly to absurd. If I do not have, within the next 48 hours, notification that this charge has been reversed, I will have no choice to but to contact my credit card company to stop payment on the purchase.
Once again (yes, for the SECOND time) here is the information on my purchase, taken directly from your CONFIRMATION EMAIL. If you cannot find this purchase, you have a serious problem with your database system. One has to wonder: if you don’t have software capable of searching a database, how in the world do you expect to protect people’s computers from viruses and spyware?
To which they replied (are you ready for this?):
Thank you for the extra information you have provided below. We now see the
reason that we cannot locate your purchase, you did not purchase this from us.
The order number you have listed is not one of ours.
Albert at, Pcc4dell@support.trendmicro.com should not have directed you to us. We have copied that email address on this reply so they can hopefully point you in the right direction.
Albert at, Pcc4dell@support.trendmicro.com should not have directed you to us. We have copied that email address on this reply so they can hopefully point you in the right direction.
So now, I await, with eager anticipation, my refund.
I think, at this point, it's back to McAfee, which has never given me any problems over the years...
More Fun Stuff
