Last year I bought McAfee VirusScan and subsequently uninstalled it after it turned out to be worse than a virus. At no point during the process did I realize that my account was set to automatically renew my subscription. So I was a bit surprised today when I got a text message on my cell phone notifying me that my card had just been charged $39.99 by McAfee.
Auto renewal of subscription services is one of the most annoying things about the internet. It wouldn’t be so bad if it were turned off by default, but every service I’ve ever seen has it turned on by default. Which means, if they don’t prominently let you know that it’s turned on, or you don’t investigate all of the account options available, you’re going to get surprised with a charge somewhere down the road.
I’m usually really good about keeping auto renewing subscriptions under control. I nearly always turn the feature off except for services I use regularly. In this case, I don’t know how I overlooked it. The only thing I can think of is that I was in ‘buying software’ mode as opposed to ’subscribing to antivirus updates’ mode. It just never dawned on me that I should have looked for an auto renewal feature to turn off. Looking around the site today, I noticed that there is no option on the account settings to do so, even had I thought of it. You actually have to request it from customer support. How annoying is that?
Luckily, McAfee has a policy that they will refund auto renewals within 60 days. When I saw that, I fired off a customer support email immediately. I’ve never requested a refund for a digital purchase before. I hope they just cancel the charge. I also hope there’s nothing more to it than just sending the email. If I need to jump through hoops I won’t be a happy camper.
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