Beware anything by PC Tools (Spyware Doctor)

[quinnox]

Warning, if you pay for any of this shady outfits products they will AUTOMATICALLY sign you up on an "annual renewal" plan. It will be buried in the small print and you will be billed every year for the product, like it or not.

Their most well known and popular product is Spyware Doctor.

This is a scam and there are many complaints on the internet about this company. Oddly, they are given high marks for their products on many tech sites.

I was auto-renewed last week and got hit by a $40 charge, for a product I bought FIVE YEARS AGO.

Thats right, I had bought the product five years ago, and they auto-renewed me all of a sudden out of the blue.

This is standard procedure for this company, I found out after searching for experiences similar to mine. There are numerous complaints against this company on various consumer web sites such as Ripoff Report.com

Check it out if you want - http://www.ripoffreport.com/directory/PC-Tools.aspx

DO NOT GIVE THIS COMPANY ANY VISA OR CREDIT CARD INFORMATION UNLESS YOU WANT TO HAVE TO BE FORCED TO CANCEL THE CARD DUE TO UNEXPECTED CHARGES APPEARING YEARS LATER.

[Zywiec]

1. Wouldn't the card you gave them 5 years ago have expired?

My credit cards usually expire after two or three years.

[quinnox]

2. YES, BUT THEY STILL HAVE AUTHORIZATION CODES

Somehow, they either guess at the new expiration date of your card, or possibly get the info through their products, or the banks accept old authorization codes and process the charges.

[Zywiec]

3. Sounds like fraud then.

Simply call the bank and dispute the charges.

[quinnox]

4. I did, but its a huge hassle and the bank has to investigate

You HAVE TO CONTACT THE MERCHANT, PC TOOLS, FIRST AND TRY TO RESOLVE IT THAT WAY - IT IS REQUIRED BY THE DISPUTE RESOLUTION GIVEN BY THE BANK.

AND GUESS WHAT, AFTER I CONTACTED THEM - THEY SAID THEY WILL GIVE ME A REFUND - HOWEVER, THERE ARE NUMEROUS COMPLAINTS THAT THEY NEVER ISSUE THE REFUNDS EVEN THOUGH THEY SAY THEY WILL GIVE THEM.

[notesdev]

5. Norton/Symantec does the same thing

I had the same thing happen, four years after the fact in my case, but yeah, one day there's a charge on my account and I had zero idea what it was for, the company sent no notice whatsoever that they were planning to bill me. I thought my card numbers had been stolen!

I have a chat transcript with one of their support techs where he openly admits that the company had been stealing from me.