Scene and heard

Throughout February and March of this year, McAfee bombarded me with renewal notices. I relented when I got what I thought to be a decent offer, although I knew I had some months to run on my coverage. I immediately started receiving offers for a further 2 years of protection.

Fast forward to September. Susan, who similarly renewed some months earlier, started receiving emails that her coverage was expiring. The warning emails were for Security Center, which includes VirusScan, Personal Firewall Plus, Spam Killer and Privacy Service. She ignored the emails until after the expiry date she believed to be false. After that, when powering on her computer, she couldn’t get into anything without first having to ‘x’ out of several warning pop-ups. Alarmed and annoyed, she checked her computer and found that 3 of the 4 programs mentioned had indeed expired. But the emails made it seem that the package could not be unbundled. I advised her to ignore the Spam Killer – all email programs have their own. I would now advise anyone to consider whether the Microsoft Firewall that came with their PC or laptop meets their needs - it probably does. Privacy Service? They go into no details about how this software will protect your identity, just that it will. Only giving your details on secure sites is about as much protection as the Internet offers you as far as I know, although I am not an expert on this.

So anyway, Susan relented and decided to buy the Firewall. She was going to further renew her VirusScan, as McAfee want you to believe that you cannot renew Firewall without doing so. But she did find a way to get it as a stand-alone. And still, the pop-ups kept popping up, until she disabled the other programs.

This month, I started getting the same emails. Cheating fucking bastards!

So the scam? They pound you into renewing VirusScan early, fully knowing that you are unlikely to realise that you are only buying one of the Security Center package. Then they try to scare and mislead you into buying it again, along with 3 other programs that you probably don’t need. And they invade your computer in the manner of a virus, until you take some action. I think that when my subscription really runs out, I will be looking to Symantec. I really don’t like the McAfee tactics. They are shameful and should be illegal. They are not the only solution and may not even be the best.