Ramblings of a Crowe

It Never Just Works

So I had to renew my Norton Anti-virus the other day. It's a day I dread each year. I put it off until my subscription has expired, because it gives me such a headache.

This year was no different.

Last year, my renewal nearly gave me an aneurysm, with the stupid instructions that contradicted themselves. I believe J might remember that day--he came over and I was about to throw my computer through the window. Of course, we ended up laughing so hard I was crying--too bad I can't remember why. But it was damn funny...

Anyway, this year wasn't much different. The people over at Symantec need to fire their technical writer. Last year, when I renewed, my download was immediate after payment was submitted. Sweet. Sadly, their stupid ass directions might as well have been a map for finding Atlantis. Not cool. This year, my download wasn't immediate. In fact, it took over 12 hours for the 'button' to appear. I checked my bank account earlier in the day and noticed that my funds were being held by Symantec, so there were no problems on that end. I fired off an email to the company, asking them why I still hadn't received my product and if there was a problem, I wanted my money refunded to me. Shortly after, I checked again and I had an email and download button.

So what's the big deal? First, it's just shoddy business to take someone's money and not give them their product. Example, Amazon.com sends me an email notifying me that my product is being shipped. Only then do they ding my bank account. However, with Symantec, there was no notification other than an email confirming my order. That email stated NO WHERE that my download may or may not occur immediately, or that I should expect a second email with another confirmation. Naturally, I assumed since I got an order confirmation, I could get my stuff.

Also, no where did Symantec mention they used an affiliate to do some purchases. The email I got was from Digitalriver. So I started to wonder if I'd been scammed. Only later, after I went through their FAQ steps, did I learn that digitalriver.com was an affiliate of Symantec. So, when I went to Symantec's site and typed in my order number, I was told I don't have any orders. Which is really wierd, because I ordered the product from Symantec's website, but somehow ended up on Digitalriver. I still can't figure that one out. Anyway, luckily I had bookmarked the page where I'd done my business (which is identical to Symantec), so when I entered my order number, my stuff was there (but with no button for over 12 hours). It was like curse of the doppleganger websites or something...

Eventually I got my download button. But my woes didn't end there. I've upgraded Norton before. I don't ever remember having to uninstall everything. This time, however, I did. I had to go through and delete everything single friggen piece of Norton I could find and even then I still had difficulties getting the new one installed. I restarted my computer at least five times, but eventually I got everything up and running. Shortly after that, my computer blue screened on me twice.

What a pain in the ass.

Posted by Zoso at February 28, 2007 06:44 AM