Taking the Pi$$

[gordon861]

So I've had the paid for Malewarebytes since 2018, on 4/5 devices, and paid what I consider a reasonable fee £45-55 per annum.

Today, I just got a renewal notice for £139.98 ... how the hell are you working that one out?  (which got flagged as SPAM anyways)

As far as I can see the cost for up to five devices on your website is £79.99 and that's for the Plus service, I don't even want the VPN bit.  So the Standard option, that I appear to be on right now is listed as £49.99 for three devices.

And if I click on that link from another machine, not logged into my account I even get offered a discount for two years £87.48 for three devices, or £104.98 for four devices.

So I ask again, where the hell did the £139.98 per annum come from?  Do you just pull a number out of your backsides and throw that at the customer to see if they miss the email?

[Porthos]

@gordon861 If the email that went to spam is legit,

This is one issue only the support desk can address. The forum can not deal with license issues.

Please contact our support team at https://support.malwarebytes.com/hc/en-us/requests/new to get help

Please submit only one ticket/request. Additional tickets will increase the delay.

Be advised it can take 3-5 weekdays for a response after the automated reply with your ticket number.

[gordon861]

Hi Porthos

Thanks for the reply, yes I know the email was real, I moved it and hopefully my email suppliers anti-SPAM system will learn for future use (as it is supposed to).  Also thank you for not just locking and deleting the thread as some companies would.

I am aware that I will need to contact support regarding this should I wish to get it fixed and continue.

My posting here was more to express my displeasure with what appears to be dodgy processes of doubling the prices during a direct debit charge.

I did get a notification of a post here (which I cannot see now) that the price appears to be a two year sub for five devices rather than a single year.  Pasted below is a screengrab of part of the email.

So you can see why I thought it was an annual price.

I will be contacting support in the next week or so to clear this up, with a view to continuing, but I think this should be public too in case someone else gets a renewal email and don't realise that there is a pricing problem.

[Porthos]

5 hours ago, gordon861 said:

I did get a notification of a post here (which I cannot see now) that the price appears to be a two year sub for five devices rather than a single year.

I posted that info then changed my mind.

Was the sending address one of the following?

https://support.malwarebytes.com/hc/en-us/articles/360039025053-Verify-subscription-renewal-email-is-legitimate

[gordon861]

1 hour ago, Porthos said:

I posted that info then changed my mind.

Was the sending address one of the following?

https://support.malwarebytes.com/hc/en-us/articles/360039025053-Verify-subscription-renewal-email-is-legitimate

Oddly no ...  support@mail.malwarebytes.com

The ISP filtering software gave the email a score of -8.3, at -5.0 it goes to SPAM folder, at -20 it gets blocked.

Based on the above I would have thought the word 'clever' or 'check' would appear somewhere in the header somewhere, they don't.  The email itself mentions 2CO.com which I can assume is 2Checkout, but why not use this name on the page where you are supposed to be able to verify that it came from Malwarebytes?

The timing of the email does meet the expected timeframe for a renewal though, perhaps the page is out of date?  But no way to tell because the page has no published or last confirmed date on it, really should include that information.

All the links in the email appear to point to Malwarebytes domains, except one which is using an mwb.link to point to a sign in page.  This looks like your own shortURL setup, which while works fine in theory, looks dodgy and there is no reason to use a shortURL when elsewhere in the email full URLs are used.

All of the above are minor points, but they are indicators that something may not be right and for a security company to send out emails that have these indicators is bad form.

Me, I am paranoid about clicking links in emails and instead normally log in via me typing the address into Google or via a previous bookmark, so paid little attention to where the links went to, until now.  And every time I look at it I seem to see another flag, hence this email that was to be simply a response kept getting longer.

[Porthos]

7 hours ago, gordon861 said:

I will be contacting support in the next week or so to clear this up

Get that request in ASAP as responses back and forth can be time-consuming. Want to get the "issue" before the auto-renewal hits.

Be sure to check spam each day as well just in case.

[gordon861]

Will do, did get another email today from the same email address that didn't get caught in the filter, so perhaps the system is learning.

It again says £139.98 yearly (This amount is subject to sales tax at prevailing local rates), which as you pointed out previously is the 2 year cost for five devices for the standard package, except for the tax bit.

[Porthos]

Do you have more than one subscription showing in your my.malwarebytes.com account?

[AdvancedSetup]

I have asked Support to reach out to you @gordon861

Thank you

 

[gordon861]

Hi, support did reach out to me.

They gave me a more reasonable price, which is good.

But then I got an email that appeared to be from the director asking for a Good/Bad rating, which is not so simple.

On the good, I have a better deal, for Premium(?), is that the same as Plus?  I only use Standard, and only want four devices not five (but the price is better).

But their response totally ignored the fact that the renewal email came from an email address that isn't listed on the page that customers are supposed to use to confirm that the email is legitimate, and warns about phishing.

They ignored the fact that their renewal email indicated that the price was annual, and carried on as if it was a price for two years and based all their statements as if it said two years.

They seem to have treated my comments as a price negotiation and ignored the other issues I pointed out.

I have responded back and will see what they say.

[AdvancedSetup]

Thank you for the feedback @gordon861

I've sent a note to Support asking them to follow up