Norton Goes Back on Documented Features

Here's an interesting twist on the old bait-and-switch. Carefully describe some nice features in the product's documentation, but then require the customer to buy a more expensive version of the product to get them. That's what one reader is left to understand Symantec did to him. "I purchased and installed Norton Internet Security 2006," the reader wrote. "On pages 20-22 of the User Guide, it says the system co

Here's an interesting twist on the old bait-and-switch. Carefully describe some nice features in the product's documentation, but then require the customer to buy a more expensive version of the product to get them. That's what one reader is left to understand Symantec did to him.

"I purchased and installed Norton Internet Security 2006," the reader wrote. "On pages 20-22 of the User Guide, it says the system comes with Data Recovery and Performance features. Based upon that guide, I tried to find out why those features weren't working. Specifically it states: 'Limited or no protection in a category may often be resolved by adjusting a category setting.' I couldn't figure out how to adjust the setting because I kept getting 'not available.' So I contacted Symantec."

First the reader tried online customer service, but they couldn't help him. "I then sent three - yes, three - e-mails to technical support," the reader wrote. "What a joke! They kept sending me a canned response saying that if I want the data recovery feature I have to spend $50 more for additional software. All I wanted to know is whether NIS 2006 actually has the features which I was unable to uninstall, but I couldn't get anyone to answer that simple question. And then they talk at you like you're an idiot when you ask why the features are not included when the User Guide clearly says they are."

Eventually the reader received a slightly more comprehensible e-mail saying that the missing features are in Norton GoBack, which is included in the Norton SystemWorks suite for $50 more than Norton Internet Security. While it's still not completely, the reader guesses he just has to accept the fact the two features described in the NIS manual just aren't in the product. "A person pays $73.00 expecting to get certain features according to the User Guide and it turns out they have to pay an additional minimum of at least $50 to get just a portion of those features. It would appear that Symantec decided it could make more money by selling those two features as a separate package after the User Guide had already been printed, which is nothing short of false advertising, intentionally misleading the consumer and essentially pulling a fast one."

The reader says he would have been far less upset if he had just been able to get a straight answer from Symantec support. "Instead of treating people like they are baffoons, they could have just said the the User Guide is wrong for whatever reason," the reader wrote. "It became apparent to me that people at Symantec either do not read e-mail for content or they simply don't care. Perhaps a course in reading comprehension might resolve consumer issues more quickly and certainly giving straight-forward, accurate answers would definitely be an improvement! I like Norton products. I think they are the best on the market. But I have a terrible problem with their support people. I'd rather be shot than have to deal with them."

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