My very last try

[Chiron]

Message to McAfee:

LATELY I TURNED OFF MY AUTOMATIC SUBSCRIPTION RENEWAL. AND OFF IT WILL STAY UNTIL I SUCCEED GETTING IN

TOUCH WITH A HUMAN BEING FROM MCAFEE, OR UNTIL THE SUN RUNS OUT OF HYDROGEN, WHATEVER COMES FIRST.

I might have liked to add some more detail, but after reading the terms of use (in particular the piece about the lawyer's fees) I don't feel like it anymore.

"We never forget you have a choice"

(Motto of Caledonian Airlines)

[exbrit]

Any subscription questions can be answered in person, on the phone, by Customer Service.  Any other language/Country let me know.

Telefonischer Kundendienst

Um mit einem Kundendienstmitarbeiter zu sprechen, rufen Sie  die Nummer 06 966404330 an. Möglicherweise werden Sie nach Ihrer für die  Registrierung verwendeten E-Mail-Adresse und der Bestellnummer gefragt.  Es fallen möglicherweise Telefongebühren an.
Geschätzte Wartezeit:  10-30 Minuten
Betriebszeiten: 09.00-18.00 local, Montag bis Freitag

Message was edited by: Ex_Brit on 19/05/10 8:46:54 EDT AM

[Chiron]

That is, I'm free to call (during my working time, long distance, at my employer's expenses), to wait up to 30 minutes for someone to stop the merry music and say hello, to prove that I am myself rather than someone else impersonating me, to expound my perplexities, and then to repeat the procedure an unspecified number of times until they contrive an answer whatsoever. And - let me guess - if it then doesn't work it's of course because I misheard or misunderstood some detail.

Schön altmodisch, faszinierend, romantisch sogar, aber...

NEIN DANKE !

Ever heard about E-mail?

Message was edited by: Chiron on 5/19/10 9:06:09 AM CDT

[exbrit]

It's my understanding that that is a free phone call.

There is also online chat.   But if you don't want to make the effort then there isn't much point in trying to help you.

http://service.mcafee.com/CustomerService.aspx?lc=1031&sg=CS&pt=1

Message was edited by: Ex_Brit on 19/05/10 10:10:15 EDT AM

[Chiron]

Don't get me wrong, Ex_Brit : until last week I was quite satisfied with McAfee.

Then a few things happened that resulted in some perplexity first, then in an annoying feeling of "but may I really rely on them?", then in a growing irritation at getting only silence in reply, then in a deep frustration at not finding any confounded way to reach them and ask them what the hell.

For the sake of information completeness:

"Es fallen möglicherweise Telefongebühren an" means "telephone fees may be applicable" - (may? Do they or don't they?)

and

"Geschätzte Wartezeit: 10-30 Minuten" means "estimated waiting time: 10-30 minutes"

and

"Betriebszeiten: 09:00-18-00 local, Montag bis Freitag" means more or less "we are available only during your working time"

Weren't it written in German, it would remind me of some mighty discouraging experiences with Italian bureaucracy - all hope abandon ye who enter here.

I shall still give it a try per chat, but certainly not while I'm supposed to be busy about something else : it's not that I don't want to make the effort, I just cannot - unless I accept to steal my salary.

If it doesn't work I fear I'll give up and start looking for an alternative.

Message was edited by: Chiron on 5/19/10 9:59:28 AM CDT

Message was edited by: Chiron on 5/19/10 10:00:21 AM CDT

Message was edited by: Chiron on 5/19/10 10:00:45 AM CDT

[exbrit]

Telephone charges may apply means if you were using a service that charges, such as a hotel phone, mobile etc.  The number is, as far as I know, toll-free.

10-30 minutes, well, these days, that seems to be normal, unfortunately.

Anyway good luck.

[ajacobs]

Hi Chiron,

I understand and sympathize with your complaints. The verbiage you take issue with is standard verbiage as we cannot constantly, manually update the text on the website for each geographical area.

Would you care to elaborate here about your actual issue with your McAfee product or subscription? Do you have a technical issue, or do you have questions or feedback related to your product or subscription?

Please feel free to send me a private message if you like. I will ensure that your issue is routed appropriately internally.

[Chiron]

Hi April, and thank you for being a nice human being rather than a lousy piece of software

OK, let me now try to squeeze my reasons for disappointment in a few rows.

A bug crept into my wife's computer with the blessing of her McAfee AntiVirusPlus - we had assumed the relative license was meant to cover all computers at home, so the two of us had it installed. She forced an updating with the hope to get rid of it, and the software asked her to run the 'virtual tecnician' for it had met some unspecified problem. Final response : we were out of licenses.

It took us a while to realize that where McAfee say "computer" they actually mean "operating system", and our two multi-OS computers must have looked like a bounch of single PC fitted with pirated antivirus, also because some previous OSs had been deleted while the PC was off-line, thus no uninstall notification would have been sent.

Never mind, money's not all, she paid the extra fee - but no, the updating still wouldn't work. We (in the meantime she'd got me involved too) had to remove entirely her other two dormant OSs in order to get the AV properly updated. And after that to our disappointment the bug kept replicating happily under the benevolent smile of the freshly updated AV.

We had to kill it manually, file after file, from an impromptu accessory OS recovered out of a remote AV-free backup.

OK, new bugs happen daily : we uploaded samples of the offending program and sent the links and a brief report to McAfee (don't ask me how we got the E-mail address).

No reply.

Yet since the day after her AV occasionally encourages her to update the signature files and restart ; moreover, since then several pieces of software that my (scrupulously updated) AV finds OK are flagged by hers as infected, and now we don't know anymore which one we should take seriously.

You'll concur that telling that much to an anonimous McServer would feel like scribbling "Help me!" on a piece of paper, putting it in a bottle and throwing it into the ocean.

Thanks for listening to me this far... uh, you still awake?

[ajacobs]

My goodness!! I can't imagine the nightmare you have been through with all this. Yes I'm still awake because I am SHOCKED at your "perfect storm" predicament.

Sorry to hear about all that, I can empathize with frustrating computer problems at home. I have 6 computers (we each have laptops AND desktops) and I am tech support for each machine. I remember trying unsuccessfully to manually clean malware off my daughter's PC many moons ago and it was a harrowing experience that lasted weeks.

I'll respond point by point to make sure I understand, please correct me if I am wrong.

1. Licensing: Sounds like your licensing issues are resolved, so hopefully we are all good on that front. Let me know if not.
2. Malware submission: Last time I talked to my McAfee Labs liason, I was told that they receive approximately 10,000 email submissions a day. They have programs that run to process and analyze these files. I am pretty sure it is rare to receive a response from a warm body unless your submission is 100% unique and critical.
3. Signature File: I'm not a product expert, but I think it's normal to be prompted to update your signature file on a regular basis. My advice would be to run MVT if you have not already. This will make sure that the your product is installed and running correctly. (Maybe a product expert can chime in here?) If you still have problmes, can you give more information as to how often (i.e. daily, hourly, etc.) this happens and when, (i.e. when shutting down, booting up, etc). Include exact error messages and screenshots if you can.
4. False Positive: You refer to your wife's AV versus what your AV is reporting. Which one of you is running McAfee, or are you both? What are the file names / software programs that are being flagged?

Let me know if I've accurately summarized your issues. Also please give as much information as possible, I am confident there are easy solutions to your issues!

[ajacobs]

Just had another thought. If you're wife's installation is continually prompting you to update the signature file it is probably because it's either unable to download it correctly or there may be an issue with a corrupted program file. I realize you ran MVT the first time around, but this warrants running it again since you later removed OS's and malware on that machine. This may ALSO be what's creating the false positives, if her signature file is indeed out of date.

I'm not a product expert or a support engineer but I think I'm on target here.