ESET licenses on eBay, YouTube, etc.

[mrvivona 0]

I needed to renew my ESET Antivirus and found a great price on eBay. The emailed key I received activated and had a 10-year expiration date. That seemed odd, but since the ESET server authenticated the key, I figured it must be some kind of multi-device license. However, a few weeks later my ESET Antivirus reported that its license was invalid. I contacted the eBay seller and he sent me another license key. This one also validated but was for 3 years, not 10, but I only had paid $9.99 so I was okay with that.

I talked with ESET USA Support (email and phone) about unofficial licenses and they weren't sure, but it seems that anyone can buy licenses in other countries and resell them, even to users in the USA. What you lose is support from ESET. The resold license can work for the stated time, or become invalid should the reseller oversell the key or others share it online. An online search for "free ESET license key" gives you scores of keys, including valid ones, trial ones and key gen ones. So buying ESET licenses from eBay may work... or not.

I decided to avoid the possibility of another unexpected license invalidation and went ahead and purchased the retail renewal license from the ESET website.

I am curious why I could not find any discussion about these resold licenses on the ESET forum. If I had known the issues, I wouldn't have bought the eBay version in the first place. If anyone wants to add more information about how these licenses come about, and the risks they bring, it would not only be interesting to me it would provide a forum topic for others to find and learn more about this issue.

 

 

 

Edited December 19, 2018 by mrvivona

[Super_Spartan 56]

I'd never buy a license from eBay no matter what. They are sold to multiple people and sooner or later will be flagged by the ESET Licensing Server and de-activated. You get what you pay for. Only buy from the Official ESET Resellers or website directly or from newegg which sells boxed versions of older years at a very cheap price but they still work and can be activated on the latest version of NOD32