Thanks to the fact we now all have google I was quick to learn that I was just one of many Bitdefender customers to have been scammed into a forced renewal of service. I complained to the agency that they use to collect the money, I complained to PayPal who allowed them to scam me, all a waste of time and effort.

 

I guess the only way Bitdefender will become an honest business is when people find out the truth and discontinue using their service.

 

The good news is I am not alone, other victims are speaking out. Here is what he had to say, it pretty well matches my own experience.

 

I also used the Better Business Bureau’s Online Complaint System, if that works I will add the update at a later date.

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I am a Customer of Bitdefender since 5 years. I heard in the last months on many medias reviews about their aggressive and unfair way to auto-renew and the difficulty to get rid of these subscriptions.

 

I renewed today my Bitdefender subscription, and it could be the last time. Hopefully, I got a bit paranoid after reading the very bad press reviews and I used my paypal account dedicated to potential scammers instead of giving them my credit card info:

 

• Autorenew is not an option, it is an obligation, you cannot opt out during subscription
• Once I completed the subscription using my Bitdefender Central email address, unlike all the previous times, I did not receive a confirmation email !
• So, no proof of purchase. Happily, I have the Paypal invoice, but from a third party company (Digital River Ireland Ltd) and no mention about Bitdefender (I need to use it as proof for my taxes refunds, so it is unacceptable not to have the provided product mentioned on the paypal invoice transaction details…)
• Worst, for the first time, my Bitdefender Central account shows subscription active but under Payments, there is no entry for this new subscription: no way to cancel auto-renew in Central
• Support redirects to 2Checkout, but I need to login using the order number received by email: you get the scam ? since I never received an email and the subscription is not appearing in Bit Central despite using same email, I cannot get an order number

 

Hopefully, I went to Paypal and removed the Auto Renew from Digital River Ireland Ltd that forced it + removed the credit card from Paypal account, like I do for all my purchases from potential scam sources

 

Sadly, I never imagined that Bitdefender is now really in this category and the press medias were not wrong. It even seems that their selling aggressive modes are increasing.

 

I guess the usual answers are coming like “we’re sorry for the inconvenience…, please contact the support…”, but aren’t these answers the same that scammers use ?

 

Hope you listen to your customers and you do change your selling modes before it is too late. This starts by giving the subscription service to reputable companies with a more user-freedom choice on how they sign-up for contracts.

 

All in all, really disappointing and a miserable level of aggressiveness in their selling service. Hopefully my subscription effectively activated the product despite no traces except Paypal