AVG problems

[Fingers52]

My parents signed up for this a few years ago, but recent advice from friends in the know suggested it wasn't worth it.

We cancelled the contract, but AVG keep re-signing them up every year.

They get an email asking if they want to sign up, followed by another thanking them for signing up (which they didn't), and stating which card they will take the payment from.

As they did not sign up, they binned the emails, and have now lost £54 from the credit card. Payment went through before I could stop it, and the bank could only put a 13 month stop on this happening again.

This is the second year in a row it has happened!!

The bank have stated that the contract needs to be cancelled through AVG, but I have failed to do this, mainly because my parents have no idea what their password is.

I lodged a complaint with AVG 2 years ago, but it still keeps happening.

Any ideas?

[xeny]

There's a reset password page at https://id.avg.com/sso#/recover-password linked from https://support.avg.com/SupportArticleView?l=en&am... so a good first step would be to attempting to reset the password.

[chris1roll]

A surefire way to stop these recurring payments is to 'lose' the card, and get a new one issued.

The new one will have different details so they wont be able to charge to it.

Alternatively, when is the expiry on the card - if it will have expired by the next time this rolls around, problem solved.

[Callerton]

I had the same problem with a Russian-sounding A/V.

I found it impossible to deal with them & just to make it more difficult, they were seemingly based offshore.

In the event, the only way I could shake them off was to close the credit card account.

(All the A/V companies seem to be operating this way - automatic recurring payments, 80% or so introductory offers. In any other scenario, I'd be walking a mile as the behaviour just seems scammy to me.)

[tim0409]

chris1roll said:

A surefire way to stop these recurring payments is to 'lose' the card, and get a new one issued.

It isn t unfortunately. Cancelling your card and having a new card issued with a different number won t automatically stop a recurring payment. In fact, some credit card companies will update the merchant with your new number.

ETA. OP, have you suggested to your parents to dispute the latest payment with the CC company on the basis you have cancelled the contract? The CC company will contact the AVG on your behalf as apart of the dispute procedure and ask for evidence the payment was legitimate.

Edited by tim0409 on Monday 27th October 17:50

Edited by tim0409 on Monday 27th October 19:42

[xeny]

Callerton said:

(All the A/V companies seem to be operating this way - automatic recurring payments, 80% or so introductory offers. In any other scenario, I'd be walking a mile as the behaviour just seems scammy to me.)

Why don't you think it is scammy in this scenario?

[FiF]

tim0409 said:

chris1roll said:

A surefire way to stop these recurring payments is to 'lose' the card, and get a new one issued.

It isn t unfortunately. Cancelling your card and having a new card issued with a different number won t automatically stop a recurring payment. In fact, some credit card companies will update the merchant with your new number.

ETA. OP, have you suggested to your payments to dispute the latest payment with the CC company on the basis you have cancelled the contract? The CC company will contact the AVG on your behalf as apart of the dispute procedure and ask for evidence the payment was legitimate.

Edited by tim0409 on Monday 27th October 17:50

It's true about recurring payments with credit cards. Years back we'd moved from Yorkshire bank, had also closed the credit card account. Was very surprised some considerable time later to get a bill for that card including a penalty for not paying the minimum payment towards the account balance which would have been difficult as YB had not actually sent us that first bill.

The problem from our perspective was that the debit had occurred a long time after we had closed the card account and paid the final balance, it was long after we had changed the method of paying the service provider to a completely different account, but they had screwed up and used the old mandate.

It all got sorted but YB were adamant that recurring mandates on credit cards didn't operate the same way as direct debit mandates.

[Callerton]

Callerton said:
(All the A/V companies seem to be operating this way - automatic recurring payments, 80% or so introductory offers. In any other scenario, I'd be walking a mile as the behaviour just seems scammy to me.)
Why don't you think it is scammy in this scenario?

Oops - not scammy, I meant "scummy".

[snuffy]

tim0409 said:

It isn t unfortunately. Cancelling your card and having a new card issued with a different number won t automatically stop a recurring payment. In fact, some credit card companies will update the merchant with your new number.

Yep, I found that out a couple of years ago. I had a subscription due that I did not want, but the card had expired. And as I had to ring them to cancel it, I assumed they would simply not be able to take the money from my expired card. Wrong - they took it from my new card without me telling them the new card's details.

So then I had to ring and cancel and have the payment refunded.

[mikef]

Also found this recently - Amex making payments for five years on a previous card number (yes, I should read my statements) to Norton for antivirus when I had started a new subscription on a different card (Norton had been emailing a no-longer accessible email address so I wasn t aware)

[xeny]

Paid for AV is like dating apps. Their interests don’t match yours. In the case of AV, they inflate everything to make it sound as scary as possible to maximise the odds of you not cancelling, as well as making it hard to cancel.

[tim0409]

Just as a side note, I always use Paypal for subscriptions that I may wish to cancel and that might not be straightforward. It’s really easy to log in and cancel a recurring payment.

[Fingers52]

Many thanks for all of the replies.

The card was renewed last November due to a different scam, so yes it appears that AVG can still get paid through the new card. Obviously all regular payments are better coming through a debit account.

I will attempt to cancel the contract again tomorrow by re-setting the password and going from there. My parent's laptop is SO slow I may be there a couple of days!