(UPDATED: DEC. 11, 2011. Click here to read lastest news on this software scam.)
Whenever you see a commercial on TV claiming unbelievable things, it is unbelievable. Yet, in the interests of helping people, I decided to go online and try out MaxMySpeed.com, the CyberDefender software that sells for $19 and change.
The commercial says you can get a free scan, and it is free, of course. But like all sleazy sales people, there is always a catch. I like companies that are honest and direct and don't have those false loss leaders and misleading promises that are incomplete. The MaxMySpeed.com CyberDefender promise is misleading.
When you go to their web site, right away they throw the sleazy sales pitch at you. An audio program automatically runs with a video of a salesman on the bottom right side of the screen.
That should have been a sign right away. You put audio that starts automatically on the site, that means there is trouble a brewing. You have to put your mouse over the video image to display the controls to "pause" it. You can't turn it off.
When you run their "free" scan of your system, it takes a long time. And it will come back and report hundreds of registry errors that they claim are slowing your system down. Registry errors do not necessarily slow your system down. Most major ones can be fixed using your virus software. I use Norton and run a registry fix often. But Norton identified 42 major problems. MaxMySpeed.com identified 942, alleged registry errors. And that sounded like a lot.
Once they identify the errors, you can click "Fix" and the software then takes you to a credit card page where you have to purchase the software upfront.
A good software company would let you runt he scan for free and not pay to prove that they do what they promise. Not MaxMySpeed.com CyberDefender. You have to trust them and buy their software.
So I decided to try it. After all, that's what I do. Buy and sample software and give you a review based on my experience to help you decide if it is worth doing yourself. In this case, you have to pay the $19 to buy the license and then download and then install the software.
When I ordered the software, I discovered that they automatically pad their billing charge. So, when I ordered the $19 software license, it automatically added three more programs to the bill bringing it to nearly $80. I was shocked. I had to delete the choices they made for me. They want to sell you their own virus scan and they want to sell something else.
That something else wouldn't delete from my order and I ended up paying more than $44, including $9 for the CD -- downloading software without buying the CD is a mistake. When your computer crashes, you can't reinstall the software on a new computer and they make you purchase a new license.
I called the company and they promised to credit me something like $19 more. But why did I have to go through that?
In the end, my laptop ran just as fast and slow as it always does. The registry scan didn't do anything. All those testimonials from the happy girl and happy guy voices on the commercials are paid, and don't represent real consumers.
My advice, don't buy it. My advice to the company, stopping scamming people. Be honest. If you promise a free scan give people the free service. Don't play games with people. That's not a good way to do business and be successful. It is a way to make more money. But not a way to build confidence and trust.
-- Ray Hanania
www.RadioChicagoland.com
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This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteCyberDefender posted a comment and then removed it. I am going to post the message they claim was not approved. Here is the email they sent me in full. I totally disagree with their claims. If you imply it is free, it should be FREE. Don't mislead people with semantics, as they have done in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteTo clarify, I have NOT continually deleted their response. Blogger.com shows the author deleted the message!
There message exceeds the Blogger.com character limit. So it follows in two parts
Ray Hanania
==== =====
Part I below followed by Part II
[PART I of Several parts -- had to be divided because Blogger.com has limits on length in characters]
ReplyDeleteDear Customer, You recently requested assistance from our Support Center. Below is a summary of your original request, as well as our response.
If this resolution is not to your satisfaction, you may reply to this email within the next 7 days to reopen the case.
Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you. Regards, CyberDefender Support
Dear Mr. Hanania, we attempted to post this message as a reply to your recent blog, however it would appear our responses continue to be deleted. We are therefore opting to reply via email until a public response is posted.
On behalf of CyberDefender Corporation, we’d like to thank you for your personal appraisal of our company and brands. We always appreciate hearing feedback from real individuals like you, and not necessarily from those who might have a degree in a computer technology-related field, or something of the like. It is a refreshing change of pace to engage in discourse with an experienced professional like yourself, and a comedian and satirist no less.
However, we can see from what you posted that you have either been misinformed, or are simply confused as to the nature of our company, products, and services, and perhaps the industry altogether as a whole. It’s our sincere hope that we might enlighten you with facts, if only to prevent similar occurrences from arising in the future. Unfortunately, several of your points must be contested, as they have basis neither in truth nor reality, and the content ultimately demonstrates an article of guesswork and hypothesis.
You begin by stating that “like all sleazy sales people,” CyberDefender has employed a “catch” to our Registry Cleaner’s free scan. This leads us to believe that you are under the impression that our offering a free, limited trial version of the software is deceptive, or “sleazy” in some fashion. Never in our advertisements do we state that the service is free. We establish quite clearly that the initial diagnoses are free. That is why we state therein “…get your free diagnosis,” and not “…get your free software.” This is the nature of the majority of free, limited trial versions of computer software. One need only browse a website like Cnet’s Download.com to understand that an overwhelming amount of the products they offer consumers for download are only “free to try,” yet ultimately cost money to unlock the full capabilities of a given program. A popularized term for such software is “demo,” meaning the software is only a demonstrative version, and not a fully operational version.
You also state that visiting MaxMySpeed.com prompts a “sleazy sales pitch” at potential customers, and declare that a site which utilizes automatically playing media such as audio and video “means there is trouble a brewing.” This statement struck us as most bizarre, not due to the increasing presence of “sleaze” in your article, but since it is not at all peculiar for websites in this day and age to feature media which plays automatically, especially when it comes to advertising. Several extremely popular, high-traffic websites such as Youtube.com and MySpace.com have each likewise employed the same method, but the list of entities which feature automatically-playing media numbers in the thousands to tens-of-thousands, and perhaps even beyond.
(continued in next comment)
[PART I of Several parts -- had to be divided because Blogger.com has limits on length in characters]
ReplyDeleteDear Customer, You recently requested assistance from our Support Center. Below is a summary of your original request, as well as our response.
If this resolution is not to your satisfaction, you may reply to this email within the next 7 days to reopen the case.
Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you. Regards, CyberDefender Support
Dear Mr. Hanania, we attempted to post this message as a reply to your recent blog, however it would appear our responses continue to be deleted. We are therefore opting to reply via email until a public response is posted.
On behalf of CyberDefender Corporation, we’d like to thank you for your personal appraisal of our company and brands. We always appreciate hearing feedback from real individuals like you, and not necessarily from those who might have a degree in a computer technology-related field, or something of the like. It is a refreshing change of pace to engage in discourse with an experienced professional like yourself, and a comedian and satirist no less.
However, we can see from what you posted that you have either been misinformed, or are simply confused as to the nature of our company, products, and services, and perhaps the industry altogether as a whole. It’s our sincere hope that we might enlighten you with facts, if only to prevent similar occurrences from arising in the future. Unfortunately, several of your points must be contested, as they have basis neither in truth nor reality, and the content ultimately demonstrates an article of guesswork and hypothesis.
You begin by stating that “like all sleazy sales people,” CyberDefender has employed a “catch” to our Registry Cleaner’s free scan. This leads us to believe that you are under the impression that our offering a free, limited trial version of the software is deceptive, or “sleazy” in some fashion. Never in our advertisements do we state that the service is free. We establish quite clearly that the initial diagnoses are free. That is why we state therein “…get your free diagnosis,” and not “…get your free software.” This is the nature of the majority of free, limited trial versions of computer software. One need only browse a website like Cnet’s Download.com to understand that an overwhelming amount of the products they offer consumers for download are only “free to try,” yet ultimately cost money to unlock the full capabilities of a given program. A popularized term for such software is “demo,” meaning the software is only a demonstrative version, and not a fully operational version.
You also state that visiting MaxMySpeed.com prompts a “sleazy sales pitch” at potential customers, and declare that a site which utilizes automatically playing media such as audio and video “means there is trouble a brewing.” This statement struck us as most bizarre, not due to the increasing presence of “sleaze” in your article, but since it is not at all peculiar for websites in this day and age to feature media which plays automatically, especially when it comes to advertising. Several extremely popular, high-traffic websites such as Youtube.com and MySpace.com have each likewise employed the same method, but the list of entities which feature automatically-playing media numbers in the thousands to tens-of-thousands, and perhaps even beyond.
[Continued in next message]