VERY POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE, VERY POOR BUISNESS ETHICS, HIGHLY RECOMMEND STAYING AWAY FROM THEM AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE
I started out loving this service. I thought the price was high, but I needed the ease of remoting into multiple computers to keep my business afloat. End of the year comes, and I get a bill for $500 USD to renew. Ugh, still expensive, but now I've become dependable. Then low and behold they run a special offering the same service for 299.00 for the new upgrade. Excited to save money, (as most small business is) I jumped on the opportunity. I informed the salesmen that I had a bill to renew for the new year and asked specifically if this bill would be removed. I was told that if I purchased the new update that the $500 bill would be removed from my account and the new bill of $299.00 would be my bill for 2019. Well after 2 hours of trying to figure out how to make the discount code work so that I can pay and download the new version, I was told that they had to figure the glitch out and never got a call back. A couple of weeks later I notice that the service has been disconnected. I figure, fine, if they can't give me what was promised then I don't want it anyway. I move on with my life, leaving the software on my computer for just in case the offer goes through or they offer another discount.
Well much to my surprise I get a very snarky credit collections bill threatening to dispatch legal in America if I don't pay it. Okay, I have a couple of different options here as they never sent a perpetual license agreement directly to me to sign, however I figure I will call the company and try to work something out. After all I haven't used the service since the botched promotion, surely, they would understand and have notes of the entire interaction. We'll both call it an oversight, I will pay a fair amount of the bill and maybe continue service.
The resolution. I had to pay for a full year of service, yup another $500.00, and then had to verbally cancel my service for the end of the year so they didn't charge my card again. After receiving payment, they offered to send my call to a supervisor. I declined. They already had my payment, they obviously did not care about saving the business relationship, and their sales made no notes to insure satisfactory customer service. We are a small business and growing. Maybe they didn't need us as a customer, or at least that's how they made me feel. They did offer a discount for 2020 and 2021 after the debacle, but honestly I have lost trust in the company so I passed.
I've been around computers since I built my first 386 pc from scrap computers.( about 30 years). I've seen about every scam there is and been the victim of several of them myself. I take people at their word and give the benefit of the doubt to most, until they do something dishonest or unethical or downright illegal. Most of the time I can handle problems on my computers myself with the help of my antivirus programs and malware programs but from time to time I get baffled by something or other and I have to look for some assistance. On one such occasion, I asked for assistance from a help desk for a program I couldn't get to work and they referred me to their, " computer repair team". The tech person I contacted asked me some questions and then asked for remote control of my computer. I foolishly complied and allowed them to access my computer through TeamViewer. The tech's next move was to inform me there was a number of things wrong with my computer including several potentially unwanted programs,( PUPs), some malware programs and a trojan. He suggested I pay $345 for immediate removal of the nasties and a further $300 for an annual maintenance program. I was sitting at my desk looking at the computer screen at the time and I noticed while he was talking to me on the chat screen he was also in my system files uninstalling drivers. When I declined to pay the extortion, he actually laughed as he explained that my computer was now unusable and wouldn't be usable again until I paid the price. I kicked him out of my computer and re-installed the drivers he had removed and uninstalled the program that had caused me the problem in the first place. My computer is now perfectly well and I found a new email server program which works just fine. I didn't need to have any trojans, malware, or PUPs removed from the computer and only uninstalled the email program which just refused to run in Windows 10 for some reason. I have no problem with TeamViewer as a program in itself. I do, however, have serious reservations about the way unscrupulous scammers are using such a powerful program to fleece people of their hard earned money. I advise everyone to think very carefully before paying extortionate amounts for the use of a third party service which they could have used themselves for free without the assistance of the scammers. If you must allow someone to remotely access your computer, you MUST sit at your screen and keep an eye on what the tech is doing. Don't allow them to remove system files or drivers without your express permission and don't pay a technician for a service you could have had for free.
