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TD and Free McAfee

So I kept noticing on the On Line TD Banking home page a mention of protecting your computer with McAfee, and on Saturday I investigated further. The short answer is: yes, it does seem that they are giving away McAfee Anti-Virus if you are a TD client. I haven’t actually installed the “Free” software, but I have registered for it, and it does seem to be a real copy of the software (if anyone has done this, please leave me a comment on your experience).

At first blush this is a bit annoying (for me) if it is a real copy of the software, as I have already updated my software (now I got it very cheap on sale, but I still paid money, for something I could have received for free which always annoys me). No Alanis that is not Ironic, just really annoying.

The second thing that I noticed was that after I registered the software with my existing McAfee account, this “Free” software asked me to update my credit card information (since I let it lapse), and the “Free” subscription would not allow me to continue until I gave a valid credit card number with a valid expiration date. This seems odd to me since I am not paying for this “Free” software, so why do they need a credit card?

Why you may ask indeed, and after I finished the registration process the system noted (in a side column, where I might not have looked) that the “Free” software had Auto-Renewal set to ON, so that I wouldn’t lose my “security experience”. To quote George Costanza, “A HA!!!!!!!“, now I get why they wanted an up to date credit card, so they could auto-renew it some time in the future and charge me $75 for the year (also remember George’s comments about “… sticking it to me!”).

To stop the auto-renewal is a simple matter of finding the auto-renewal page, and turning auto-renewal to OFF, however, I would guess many folks who would not go looking for that (or even notice that auto-renewal was on).

Why does computer security software marketing tricks seem solely based on Used Car Sales and Carnival Games of “Skill” trickery?

Feel Free to Comment

  1. Promod – Canada – An actuary who became an insurance advisor. Based in Toronto.

    Free from a bank?

    Your Internet provider may give you free basic antvirus software. Bell and Rogers do. I prefer the paid versions with more options.

  2. schultzter – Headed for the second star to the right and straight on 'til morning...

    McAfee?!?!?! You’d be better off posting your passwords on-line and dealing with the viruses and phishing and spam yourself than use McAfee!!! It’s the most anti-productive piece of software I’ve ever had the misfortune of using.

    Especially when there are really free alternatives – including the Microsoft’s own Security Essentials.

  3. We switched to McAfee about 8 months ago, and I would strongly recommend you do not try it! It’s full of annoying features many of which I can’t get successfully turned off even after clicking the supposed properties. Things pop up, find bars litter the bottom of the screen, it’s a mess. Just my opinion, of course.

    The credit card number trick is really annoying to me too. Family Tree Maker had a similar feature a few years ago. I hope they’ve since got rid of it.

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