I THOUGHT I was working with Norton the whole time. I did a google search for virus support and one of the first things that came up was showing it was for Norton support so I called the number, the website even showed norton logos and the web address in google showed norton. Pccare.com (I only noticed later, after all of this, that once you click on that web address from the google search page, it changes to pccare247.com AFTER you click on the initial link). Copied and pasted from Google Search: Norton Help Desk Norton. PCCare247.com Fix Your Norton Problems, Contact Norton Experts at 1-888-741-7196 He started by telling me that their repair plans start at $299. I asked if they offered something less expensive for a one-time fix, not one with a 3 year plan. He proceeded to say We used to but we dont offer it anymore because everyone prefers the $299 plan we offer. He then suggested I do the 5 year plan for $499. I said I was emailing my husband (from my lap top) to see what he thought we should do and that I was sure he would not like me to do the 5 year plan for sure and probably not even the 3 year ($299) plan. So he said what he would do is start working on my computer and then we could decide at the end of the phone call which service I would pay for. So he passed me on to the computer repair tech who immediately told me my computer was in such bad shape I HAD to do the $499 plan. Here I am, thinking I'm talking to Norton, and I kept telling the guy that I didn't even want to pay the $299 for the lower grade plan and he said, "you have to" and he said can we proceed and we need to hurry because your computer is being compromised even now and he stressed "oh, it's so bad, you need to do the 5 year plan, $499, is that okay? So I said, "I don't want to, but I guess I don't have a choice, do I?" and he said, "That will be no problem." and then I had a charge for $299 and one for $200 in my inbox after the "service". I never got to speak to them at the end about which plan I would be paying for, I found I was charged for the most expensive plan (Small Business Plus plan) before service was even complete (not as he had told me we would do!). The receipt emails I got (side note: Not at all professional, just some notes in an email, not a professional email address and I tried responding to it to get it returned as a bad email address) were at 9:45 am and 9:56 am. He told me he would not charge me until we were done and decided which service Id pay for. I never authorized those payments, I just said, doesnt sound like I have a choice? They did not complete with me until almost noon. So now I don't trust at ALL what they did. I am suspicious that they may have planted stuff in my computer for their own personal hacking. So I called Norton and had them service my computer, for $100, just to make sure that this company has not put anything on my computer that allows them to hack in. I asked the other company (PCCare247) if they had a one time fix and he said NO that they dropped that one because people preferred the $299 plan. But their website said they offer plans ranging from $49. The plan he forced me to sign up for was a business plan! I told him I was a home pc and he assured me there wasn't a plan for less than $299 but I HAD to do the $200 upgrade. I asked to have a call back and to downgrade, I did NOT want to pay that and nobody called me back. So I called him back and he claims he called and I didnt answer and he left a message. My phone never rang and there was NO message from him and no missed call. He was shouting at me when I said he/they had falsely advertised, lied about the plan/paying options and that I did not authorize the charges (we had agreed to discuss that at the end and he charged my card hours before the end). I told him I thought they were Norton until about the last 5 minutes of our previous conversation. I told him that their google search came up showing that they were Norton (even has Norton. Pccare.com as their email in the google search) and he admitted that it is a tactic they use to attract business. Because of that I thought I was speaking with Norton. I told him I would dispute the charges with my credit card company and he started shouting at me again that he has a recording of me (which he never disclosed at any point during the conversations we had that he would be recording our conversation for any use) and that the bank would get to hear it. They are SO hard to understand with their accents, that half the time I couldn't understand what he was saying and I was stressed out because he kept telling me that my computer was in very bad shape and I HAD to do the most expensive plan to get it fixed. That is dishonest business and I plan to refute their charges all the way. But I'm sick to my stomach over it. A few more things to note to the commentary above: 1. When I called PcCare247 to complain about the charges and coercive practices and that it made me question the service that was performed and that I didn't trust what they had done he asked if I was able to see what he was doing the whole time. And I couldn't. The screen was blacked out the whole time but when the Norton tech was working on the computer, I could see what he was doing the whole time, the screen never went into screen saver mode or blacked out.interesting. Makes me wonder why their work was "hidden". 2. After Norton was done, I asked if he found anything in his clean up/scan he said there were corrupted registry entries. There are so many things that don't match up. I researched a bit more and they are based out of India, which makes me even more certain they are not good news. American Express has always been a great advocate for fraudulent charges and I feel fairly confident that they will support us in this, but still, I feel vulnerable to Pccare, they have our address, phone number and email address. Worried they will harass me. If he would have just let me pay the $49 or even $79 or $139 instead of lying to me about it, it could be a different story, but what a RIP OFF! I SERIOUSLY was under the impression that they were Norton, not just SUPPORTING Norton products. Norton had never heard of them.
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