About a year ago I bought my mother a new computer. It came with McAfee installed and for ease I purchased a year of subscription. (She is very elderly and doesn’t have a credit/ debit card of any sort)
Fast forward to this week. My mother sends me an email saying thanks for paying for another update.
Warning bells. I have not done that. I asked for the email.
She sent it to me and in it, with the details, is this illuminating sentence:
Your McAfee® subscription has been successfully renewed using the payment
information on file.
You can now enjoy another year of protection whenever you use your computer
and go online.
So, without my authority they have accessed my card and taken 40 bucks. Never mind the fact that I might want a different product.
Oh yes- I can request a refund. All I have to do is to make a long distant call to the USA. Or fill out one of their idiot forms.
I wouldn’t argue- but their website does have a FAQ about how to remove yourself from automatic subscription- I would think that shows it happens to a few.
I’ve gotten in the habit of removing McAfee and Norton from any new PC that I set up. Both products have grown so bloated and annoying over the years that I don’t even bother.
AVG Antivirus is free, and if the computer is behind a router it will be sufficiently protected for most threats. (The computer user’s own actions then become the primary threat.)
I firmly believe there should be a law making automatic renewals opt-in, rather than opt-out.
However, what I have begun doing is using Discover’s virtual number. This will tie a virtual number to my account and a specific web site. It then allows me to cancel that virtual number any time I want. I use it for something, then cancel it immediately. This prevents any auto renewal that I am unaware of.