Rude and unhelpful customer support

[disappointed 0]

My "local authorized distributor" insulted me and accused me of being a "pirate" when I tried to get help from them.

[Marcos 5,074]

1 minute ago, disappointed said:

So why did you tell me to use a VPN then?

It was @itman, not me. He's an active advanced user but not an employee of ESET and has no connection with ESET except that he helps users here.

[disappointed 0]

1 minute ago, Marcos said:

It was @itman, not me. He's an active advanced user but not an employee of ESET and has no connection with ESET except that he helps users here.

How should I know that? Why do you allow random people to reply on your help forum if they provide false information?

[disappointed 0]

So are you not going to help me to solve this? All I want is a key purchased from ESET where I would not be insulted when I try to get customer support. Can you help me achieve that please?

[itman 1,659]

26 minutes ago, disappointed said:

Are you saying that I won't be able to get support from eset.com? Not just regarding this, but in general, if I ever have any issue?

@Marcos already answered this question.

Since you purchased from Eset Romaina, that is the source you will have to contact for any Eset issues; e.g. licensing, tech support, etc.. And I assume all that communication will be in the Romanian language.

This is the primary reason you should have purchased from Eset in Lithuania.

If you don't like any of the above, get a refund from Eset Romania and then purchase from Eset Lithuania.

[TomasP 316]

10 minutes ago, disappointed said:

How should I know that? Why do you allow random people to reply on your help forum if they provide false information?

It is the basic principle of discussion forums all across the internet that anyone has access to them and people can help each other out, share their experiences, ask questions, answer questions, etc.

[Marcos 5,074]

Itman is a knowledgeable member of the forum and he's highly respected by other users.

What you can do is to ask the Romanian sales for a refund and purchase from your local ESET partner then. You wrote that you were accused of piracy, however, reading the chat history that you posted this was not the case:

Consultant: I am not accusing you of piracy, but there are situations when the same foreign key is sold to several customers

[TomasP 316]

5 minutes ago, itman said:

Since you purchased from Eset Romaina, that is the source you will have to contact for any Eset issues; e.g. licensing, tech support, etc.. And I assume all that communication will be in the Romanian language.

This is the primary reason you should have purchased from Eset in Lithuania.

If you don't like any of the above, get a refund from Eset Romania and then purchase from Eset Lithuania.

Just to add to this, I believe that if you contact them in English and explain the situation, they may be able to accommodate you.

[itman 1,659]

11 minutes ago, disappointed said:

How should I know that? Why do you allow random people to reply on your help forum if they provide false information?

Since you personally are "sensitive" to replies, I did not provide you with any "false" information. I simply gave you an alternative to explore. It is your responsibility to determine if this alternative met your needs.

Edited October 22, 2020 by itman

[disappointed 0]

2 minutes ago, itman said:

This is the primary reason you should have purchased from Eset in Lithuania.

If you don't like any of the above, get a refund from Eset Romania and then purchase from Eset Lithuania.

I'm not going to purchase from someone who insulted me when I tried to get customer support. Why do you then allow your local distributors to insult people if you also not allow people to purchase from different distributors?

I am NOT purchasing from someone who accused me of being a "pirate". If there is no possibility for me to legally buy the key from a different distributor, then I would rather buy a different Antivirus, even though I used ESET for years and recommended it to everyone who asked me about antivirus software.

[disappointed 0]

4 minutes ago, Marcos said:

Itman is a knowledgeable member of the forum and he's highly respected by other users.

What you can do is to ask the Romanian sales for a refund and purchase from your local ESET partner then. You wrote that you were accused of piracy, however, reading the chat history that you posted this was not the case:

Consultant: I am not accusing you of piracy, but there are situations when the same foreign key is sold to several customers

They claimed that, but previously they have written:

5:55:18 PM‎ Consultant: that's not your license
5:55:39 PM‎ Consultant: looks like a pirated key

So claiming "I did not accuse you of piracy" was absurd and false.

[itman 1,659]

1 minute ago, disappointed said:

Why do you then allow your local distributors to insult people if you also not allow people to purchase from different distributors?

Again and previously noted, I am not an Eset employee.

2 minutes ago, disappointed said:

If there is no possibility for me to legally buy the key from a different distributor, then I would rather buy a different Antivirus, even though I used ESET for years and recommended it to everyone who asked me about antivirus software.

Unless Eset makes an exception which is highly doubtful, there is no other purchase alternative.

Note that there are reasons for this. One is Lithuania imposes a V.A.T. on purchases. Eset sales organizations in other countries only comply with in-country purchase requirements and are not trained to do otherwise.

[Marcos 5,074]

When I go to the purchase page on www.eset.com, I too am redirected to the local estore at www.eset.sk and cannot avoid it.

[disappointed 0]

2 minutes ago, itman said:

Again and previously noted, I am not an Eset employee.

I was not talking about you, I was talking about ESET Lithuania consultant.

[Marcos 5,074]

9 minutes ago, disappointed said:

5:55:39 PM‎ Consultant: looks like a pirated key

So claiming "I did not accuse you of piracy" was absurd and false.

This was not accusation. I too told users here in the forum that their license was misused or leaked if they complained the license didn't work and nobody perceived it as a personal attack or accusation of piracy. There were cases when they bought the license on ebay and they simply fell a victim to fraud.

[disappointed 0]

8 minutes ago, itman said:

Again and previously noted, I am not an Eset employee.

Unless Eset makes an exception which is highly doubtful, there is no other purchase alternative.

Note that there are reasons for this. One is Lithuania imposes a V.A.T. on purchases. Eset sales organizations in other countries only comply with in-country purchase requirements and are not trained to do otherwise.

The price on eset.com and eset.lt is almost identical, so I don't think VAT has anything do to with this.

On eset.com (Internet Security, 3 years): $109.98 = 93.04 EUR

On eset.lt (Internet Security, 3 years):  92.37 EUR

Therefore on eset.com it's even slightly more expensive, so I don't see the issue for ESET if I pay more, not less.

Edited October 22, 2020 by disappointed

[itman 1,659]

Getting back to Eset Lithuania tech support response is this previous reply by @Marcos:

Quote

The license was initially sold to a person from Afghanistan. A renewal was then sold to a person from the US. You seem to be from Lithuania. The license has been used on almost 130 machines while it was issued only for 1 machine.

Whereas the tech support person could have been a bit more "tactful" in his reply language, it was not unreasonable for him to assume a cracked license situation.

[disappointed 0]

1 minute ago, itman said:

Whereas the tech support person could have been a bit more "tactful" in his reply language, it was not unreasonable for him to assume a cracked license situation.

I disagree, I would say it was unreasonable and inappropriate, but I don't think that by continuing to chat here anyone will help me, so I will be leaving. Everyone else can read this thread and decide for themselves whether such behavior was reasonable or not.

[itman 1,659]

Also since this invalid license issue keeps arising in the forum, I will say this.

Eset and every other company I know of will not assist in any way for a misappropriated product. For what it is worth, I believe Eset "goes out of its way" in these situations.

It is repeatedly stressed in this forum to only purchase a license directly from Eset or one of its in country authorized distributors.

Edited October 22, 2020 by itman

[disappointed 0]

2 minutes ago, itman said:

Also since this invalid license issue keeps arising in the forum, I will say this.

The license is valid, it's literally still active on the computer I am typing from. It should not be customers responsibility to figure out whether reseller is legit or not. If I bought a key, entered it into software downloaded from eset.com, and the software accepted the key as legit (without me using any cracks or additional software or modifications), then, as far as I'm concerned, the key is legit, because there's literally no way for me to know that it's supposedly reused.

ESET should focus on closing down these illegitimate key resellers and/or disallowing such keys to be registered using ESET software in the first place, instead of blaming the customers.

If that helps, I found the store I purchased the key from by going to google and searching for something like "buy ESET internet security" (don't remember exact phrasing). Then I clicked one of the first links in the results (might have been a link from the google ads). Since it was 2 years ago, I doubt that will help, but I don't have more information than that.

[disappointed 0]

21 minutes ago, itman said:

It is repeatedly stressed in this forum to only purchase a license directly from Eset or one of its in country authorized distributors.

I tried to purchase a key today from eset.lt. They refused to help me and accused me of being a pirate (this is how this thread started). Don't be surprised that people seek other distributors to purchase keys from (and in the process purchase keys from illegitimate distributors), if you insult and turn away customers who literally came to you with the intent of making an immediate purchase.

[itman 1,659]

18 minutes ago, disappointed said:

It should not be customers responsibility to figure out whether reseller is legit or not.

In reality this is very much the case. Try arguing a cracked/misappropriated software license case with Microsoft and see where you will get.

All retail and commercially sold software licenses are subject to the EULA associated with license. Here's a few excerpts from the Eset U.S. license EULA:

Quote

(c) You may not sell, sub-license, lease or rent or borrow the Software or use the Software for the provision of commercial services.

16. Transfer of the License.

The Software can be transferred from one computer system to another, unless contrary to the terms of the Agreement.  If not contrary to the terms of the Agreement, the End User shall only be entitled to permanently transfer the License and all rights ensuing from this Agreement to another End User with the Provider's consent, subject to the condition that (i) the original End User does not retain any copies of the Software; (ii) the transfer of rights must be direct, i.e. from the original End User to the new End User; (iii) the new End User must assume all the rights and obligations incumbent on the original End User under the terms of this Agreement; (iv) the original End User has to provide the new End User with documentation enabling verification of the genuineness of the Software as specified under Article 17.

https://www.eset.com/us/software-eula/

Note the portions I highlighted. Whomever you acquired your current license from was in violation of these provisions.

Edited October 22, 2020 by itman

[TomasP 316]

50 minutes ago, disappointed said:

I'm not going to purchase from someone who insulted me when I tried to get customer support.

...

I am NOT purchasing from someone who accused me of being a "pirate".

From what I can see, they wrote "looks like a pirated key". There is no accusation there, just an assessment of the situation the license is in.

Indeed, individual resellers only see the licenses they sold, so when they saw your license, they could not see it in the system, so they assumed it was bought off an unauthorized resale channel, which in most cases sell pirated licenses - even your license was used on 130 computers, so it indeed is pirated. The license itself. Nowhere it says that you pirated it, just that the license has been sold to many more people. There is no accusation of you as an individual, the comment was made in regards to the license - because it indeed was pirated (again, not by you).

I hope this explanation makes it clearer that nobody tried to accuse you, they just commented a fact on the license's state. A pirated license means it was pirated by the reseller who sold it to you - if somebody though you used cracks to get a license without paying (which, of course, we know you didn't), they wouldn't call it a "pirated license", they would use a different terminology.

We provided you with all the assistance, checked the license, explained how ESET licensing and sales works, explained your options, so I hope you see the situation in this light.

[disappointed 0]

This is how it SHOULD have went:

Consultant: Hello, how can I help you?
5:52:56 PM‎ Me: Hello, I wanted to renew my ESET internet security license. On the website it's written that when renewing a license, the new license should be cheaper, but on the last step the price remains the same as when buying a new license, e.g. 92.37€ for three years.
5:53:55 PM‎ Consultant: Can you please let me know your current key?
5:54:10 PM‎ Me: EAV-********** [edited]
5:54:32 PM‎ Me: License ID: ***-***-*** [edited]
5:55:18 PM‎ Consultant: Oh no, it looks like this key was activated several times, while only being valid for one computer. This sometimes happens when key resellers sell the same key to several people.  I'm sorry this happened to you, but I'm afraid that because of that, we won't be able to apply a discount for renewal. Of course, you're still very welcome to purchase a new key from us. If you don't mind me asking, maybe you remember where you purchased the current key from?

5:52:56 PM‎ Me: Sorry, I don't remember as it happened a long time ago. That's ok, I will buy the new key now, thanks for your help.
5:53:55 PM‎ Consultant: No problem, have a great day!

[peteyt 393]

15 minutes ago, disappointed said:

The license is valid, it's literally still active on the computer I am typing from. It should not be customers responsibility to figure out whether reseller is legit or not. If I bought a key, entered it into software downloaded from eset.com, and the software accepted the key as legit (without me using any cracks or additional software or modifications), then, as far as I'm concerned, the key is legit, because there's literally no way for me to know that it's supposedly reused.

ESET should focus on closing down these illegitimate key resellers and/or disallowing such keys to be registered using ESET software in the first place, instead of blaming the customers.

If that helps, I found the store I purchased the key from by going to google and searching for something like "buy ESET internet security" (don't remember exact phrasing). Then I clicked one of the first links in the results (might have been a link from the google ads). Since it was 2 years ago, I doubt that will help, but I don't have more information than that.

I agree that maybe the language used in the chat was not right. The eset rep should have explained that the license could be a one that was illegal but not in a way that was the users fault e.g. the sellers fault instead.

However eset and every other company is limited to what they can do in regards to license scams. If I was a scammer for example I could try to resell my license (which I wouldn't do, just to make clear). Eset could try to stop the license somehow after realising I had been running a scam e.g. overuse but I or someone else could then do the same thing.

This is the reason Eset has always recommended buying directly from the site. I know you didn't buy from ebay but you get people complaining because they thought they got a good deal and realise they paid the price. If the seller is still active Eset could contact ebay but they can't chase everyone, only recommend people buy directly from them to avoid scams in the first place