ASC8 problems and premium support -- is there a scammer about?

[dburt]

Hello. This is my first post, arising from a sudden crisis, and I'd appreciate any advice.

 

I renewed my subcription to ASC but the system told me to download again, so I did. I've had terrible problems since -- very slow wifi and now very slow running altogether. As part of the process I turned on the device updater. This led to various changes....

 

To help deal with the wifi issue I eventually undertook a system restore. This made something of a difference. I updated ASC again but avoided some of the other stuff. My laptop is now frighteningly slow.

 

I rang premium support, the number on the website. Now I quickly lost faith in their approach, which seemed indistinguishable from the famed Windows scammers. They wanted to charge $350 to repair my laptop and didn't comment at all on my iobit concerns....he said something about services but it all sounded very amateurish.

 

So I'm left with a barely functioning laptop and am now worried about using iobit support at all. I did fill in the online request and sent off the zip file too.

 

But what can I do?

 

And was that "support" really linked to Iobit? I can't find any other contact details so have turned here in desperation.

 

 

Can anyone advise?

 

Thanks

[Cicely]

Hi dburt,

 

Sorry for the situation you met. We will do our best to solve the issue for you.

 

The tech support you called is IObit computer tech Partner. They can help customer solve computer issues, but please note that they may charge you if you decide to use their fix service. But the consult and diagnosis is free of charge.

 

For the situation you encountered, please uninstall ASC from your computer to see how it works.

 

Please kindly inform us the result so that we can continue to look into the issue.

[Scannan]

Hi Cicely

 

This is a very disturbing situation. An Iobit customer rings Iobit Premium Support for assistance when an Iobit product causes issues with his pc, but rather than receiving support from Iobit, the customer is actually dealing with a third party, who do not address his Iobit issues, but instead use the opportunity to charge the customer for their Tech services.

I think the user is justified in seeing this as a scam. Iobit Premium support should primarily address Iobit issues. If in the course of this it is found that the Iobit product is not responsible for the issue, then and only then should a recommendation/offer be made to the customer to avail of third party assistance to resolve their issues.

I sincerely hope that Iobit will look into this matter and address how Iobit Premium support deals with Iobit customer's issues.

[sauberlime]

Hi, is $350 the standard price for a laptop repair? I think that's already a price for a brand new one?

[dburt]

Hi and thanks for the input. If they weren't scammers I do think that everyone should still be most concerned. Shouldn't premium support actually consider ASC and Iobit products? They saw ASC and told me that "it's useless", which is interesting for a partner!

 

And indeed it would be cheaper to buy a new laptop!

 

Please, Iobit, let me know that you're entirely confident that they weren't scammers. I've already cancelled a few credit cards and was about to report this to the police....but if they're not I'm very worried about the level of support given to customers -- apparently to rip us off!

 

I don't want to be nasty but my life feels a bit on hold while I determine whether my identity has been stolen.

 

How do customers just get Iobit-related support??

 

Thanks.

[Cicely]

Hi Cicely

 

This is a very disturbing situation. An Iobit customer rings Iobit Premium Support for assistance when an Iobit product causes issues with his pc, but rather than receiving support from Iobit, the customer is actually dealing with a third party, who do not address his Iobit issues, but instead use the opportunity to charge the customer for their Tech services.

I think the user is justified in seeing this as a scam. Iobit Premium support should primarily address Iobit issues. If in the course of this it is found that the Iobit product is not responsible for the issue, then and only then should a recommendation/offer be made to the customer to avail of third party assistance to resolve their issues.

I sincerely hope that Iobit will look into this matter and address how Iobit Premium support deals with Iobit customer's issues.

 

Hi Scannan,

 

Of course, IObit Premium Support manages assistance for customers related on IObit products or any other issues we can help. We use the Partner to help customer on some other computer issues which we are not able to help.

We want to choose a Partner who can really helps the customers, so if there is any dissatisfaction from the customers, we will forward the situation to the Partner supervisor to check and improve their tech service.

[Cicely]

Hi and thanks for the input. If they weren't scammers I do think that everyone should still be most concerned. Shouldn't premium support actually consider ASC and Iobit products? They saw ASC and told me that "it's useless", which is interesting for a partner!

 

And indeed it would be cheaper to buy a new laptop!

 

Please, Iobit, let me know that you're entirely confident that they weren't scammers. I've already cancelled a few credit cards and was about to report this to the police....but if they're not I'm very worried about the level of support given to customers -- apparently to rip us off!

 

I don't want to be nasty but my life feels a bit on hold while I determine whether my identity has been stolen.

 

How do customers just get Iobit-related support??

 

Thanks.

 

Hi dburt,

 

Sorry for the situation you encountered, we will contact their supervisor to revaluate and improve their tech support. Absolutely, they should not mention IObit Products as useless.

 

Thanks for your feedback on the tech service.:-)

[dburt]

This just gets more disturbing. I've asked Iobit to check whether their service partners received a call from me, or whether the number was hijacked by scammers. Instead of doing this, Iobit have passed my number to them to get them to contact me to sort out the problem that they may well have caused. I don't want any more contact from an outfit whose first approach convinced me they were scammers.

 

My concern is less about whether Iobit is being referred to as useless and more about identity theft. I've looked up the partners and have seen a lot of bad reviews of this sort.

 

I have cancelled credit cards. I want to tell the police. I don't want Iobit encouraging them to contact me. That's easily as bad as the software not picking up threats.

 

Despite ASC and other products having been useful, I now see no alternative but to get a refund and remove all Iobit products from my laptop. In that spirit I might as well add that through this process, Malwarebytes has identified various threats that ASC hasn't.

 

I regret paying for software whose "support" is indistinguishable from a scam.

[Seyfuddin]

?????? ????! ? ????? ???????? ??? Advanced SystemCare Pro, ?? ??? ???????? ?????????????? ???? ?????????! ??? ???? ????? ? ?????? ????????? ? ?? ??????? ?? ?????? ??????!??? ??????? ?????? ?? ???????

 

Good day! I bought a license for the Advanced SystemCare Pro, but they sent me the activation key used! Three times i wrote in support and received no response! How to return the money to pay for?

[Cicely]

Hi dburt, yes, they are IObit Partner, also we have received email from our Partner mentioned that they have called you earlier. But you still do not believe them.:-(

 

Hope you can trust and let them solve the computer issues for you.:-)

 

[Scannan]

Cicely

 

The OP has made it clear that he has no confidence in Iobit's Partner. It seems that the whole issue revolves around premium support. As the OP's issues are directly associated with

ASC8, I suggest that the issues be dealt with directly by Iobit support, either here in the forum or via email, at which point it can be determined whether Premium is even required to resolve the users issues.

[Cicely]

Cicely

 

The OP has made it clear that he has no confidence in Iobit's Partner. It seems that the whole issue revolves around premium support. As the OP's issues are directly associated with

ASC8, I suggest that the issues be dealt with directly by Iobit support, either here in the forum or via email, at which point it can be determined whether Premium is even required to resolve the users issues.

 

Scannan,

 

Of course. we will help users to solve all issues related to IObit products and any other issues we can help.:-)

 

What we are doing all along is to help and satisfy all users.

[dburt]

Hi again and thanks especially to Scannan for anticipating my thoughts!

 

Someone from Iobit is occasionally helping out, but it seems that we haven't got any further than using a particular restore point to try to solve the problem. I presume then that there's something in those changes that's causing the problem but alas I'm not hearing a lot about that. I fear that I now have no other option other than to re-install Windows.

 

And yes, I find it amazing that anyone thinks that I'd make my laptop available to people who just ring me...the security for a lost password on this site is a lot stronger.

[dburt]

Oh and another thing...I was just doing things like getting screenshots of installed programmes when I saw that Iobit "surfing protection" had mysteriously been re-installed yesterday. I did update ASC8 (you see, I'm trying to maintain faith!) but I CERTAINLY DID NOT ASK FOR THAT TO BE INSTALLED. That same add-on seems to have been implicated in some of my problems. Alas that and the limited information I've been getting from Iobit do make me wonder if those who are now giving me some support are being completely frank about the problems. In any event I uninstalled that, rebooted and the problem vanished again...some of the earlier support had also suggested turning that and turbo boost off.

 

Again, scammer doubles aside, the problems all began when I renewed my subscription, was charged twice (and offered two years rather than a refund) and ended up confused about just which version I'd installed -- turns out I was invited to renew a couple of weeks after I had already done so...

 

I would indeed appreciate a bit more info from Iobit -- and anyone with any views or knowledge of this.

 

I don't want to whinge about this but hope you understand my continuing frustration.

 

Finally, this isn't helped by the knowledge that those of us in the EU pay quite a lot more than people in the US, and "toll-free" support doesn't apply. Just thought I'd add that...

 

I'll let you know if anything further emerges, but even two weeks or more later Iobit haven't categorically said that the first "premium support" people I spoke to were indeed their premium support people. A bit of openness works wonders.

 

Enough of a rant for now...

[Cicely]

Hi dburt,

 

For surfing protection issue, please open IObit Uinstaller under Toolbox in ASC, use it to remove Advanced SystemCare surfing protection from the Toolbar & Plug-ins under each browser.

 

Then please find and uninstall Surfing Protection in the program list of IObit Uninstaller.

 

If you need any assistance on the subscription issue, please send a private message to Cicely account so that we can check for you.

 

[tonyp]

Has anyone had a problem with all of the icons on the Toolbox tab suddenly not displaying? Am using Advanced System Care Ultimate 8 for about 3 months. All has been good to-date. Besides regular 'care' I occasionally go to toolbox and select an item for particular purpose. Suddenly all icons on that page are gone and tabs at top of toolbox page are greyed out. Help? Thanks.. Tony P.

[frankj]

I have, on 5 systems yesterday. 3 xps, win7, and win8. All within hours of each other. Sent email to service which it replied 48 hours for a response so I called the premium support help number in the popup and got the scammer. He said that the reason was that I had services stopped and that for only $350 I could get all my problems fixed. I said I only wanted to get the toolbox fixed and that I didn't know how services not running could affect 4 systems at once that were only displaying a menu. This feels like bait and switch to me. I powered on the 5th system, an xp and quickly turned off the wifi and checked and the toolbox menu worked. After rebooting with wifi on toolbox didn't work. I think that the ASC8 updating is the cause of the problem. IObit wouldn't do that, would they Cicely? Also its too complicated to register for a post, this is not applying for a credit card you know.

[Scannan]

Hi frankj

Welcome to the Forum.

 

I am very sorry to hear such a disturbing event. I am confident that Iobit would have no part in such a thing and I am sure they will correct this.

This is not something the Forum members can resolve, as we do not work for Iobit and are simply volunteer ordinary users.

Cicely, is off for the weekend, so you will probably have to wait for a reply until Monday. So please do not think you are being ignored.

 

[tonyp]

Frank J... thanks for responding. I called premium support and got the same kind of scammer who wanted to diagnose my entire machine and kept ignoring the fundamental question. I finally terminated the conversation. Today I tried simply uninstalling and reinstalling the software using my original product key and by going on the Iobit website and following the instructions on reinstalling. When I reinstalled I went to toolbox and all of the icons were there. I then checked the other tabs and then when I went back to Toolbox, everything disappeared again. I had zero problems for 3 months and suddenly this problem. Very strange. Am going to try uninstall / reinstall one more time. Certainly no confidence in their support group.

 

[frankj]

Tony P... I shutdown all my systems except for win8 which I put in hibernation last night. Still had the problem when I started win8 today. About 1/2 hr ago booted one xp and when I checked the toolbox was full. about 15 mins later I checked email, had this msg...

 

Hi there,

 

This is Cicely from IObit.

 

This bug has been resolved. Please right click Advanced SystemCare Ultimate system tray icon and select Check for updates. Then reboot your computer after the update finished. This update will fix this bug.

 

Have a good day!

 

me again.... I didn't need to reboot just reloaded after updating (even though ASC said "You already have the latest version. No update available." and there it was! Reloaded ASC a couple times from task bar it still worked. Checked the other tabs and it still worked. Just loaded from system tray icon and it still worked. xp system still works. Going to check other systems..... I booted and had to updated 1 xp and win7. Only xp desktop downloaded, Win7 said same as win8. xp laptop didn't have to do download. All 5 now work.

 

Cicely, could you tell us how updating the virus definitions caused the bug and how it fixed the bug even though on 2 systems it was up to date and didn't download? For my two xp laptops I will assume that they must have downloaded automatically on boot. xp desktop downloaded on my command, the only one, win7 and win8 didn't download all 3 worked without reboot! Thanks frankj

[Scannan]

frankj

 

Glad to hear the issue of the toolbox is resolved.

Did you get any reply/assistance/comment from Cicely/Iobit regarding the Premium Support issue and the request for $350. I think that issue is even more important to address.

[jerzyzm]

Wa?ne aby pomoc w naprawie toolbox by? naprawiony szybko.Jurek

[Cicely]

Hi frankj and tonyp,

 

Sorry for the situation.:-(

 

Our product team has fixed this bug immediately after we catch it. Please right click Advanced SystemCare Ultimate system tray icon and select Check for updates. Then reboot your computer after the update finished. This update will fix this bug.

 

The phone number shown on our official website is from our Partner. They do not notice this bug so they may think it as other issues.

 

We appreciate your support and understanding.

 

 

@Scannan, Thanks for your timely and kindly reply.:-)

 

Cheers!

 

[KylieSabra]

I renewed my ASC8 today at 11:30 am $21.99 for 3 licenses. I never received my activation email. I clicked on the phone icon on the right and was directed to what ended up being a nightmare situation. She took control of my computer assuring me that I would be able to take it back any time I was uncomfortable (WRONG). I asked why she needed control of my PC to get my license renewal sent to me. She went to check my email. Then she yelled at me (SERIOUSLY!) "Where's the email. You have no email from us." Duh. That's why I called. I had also put in the old email thinking they had sent the new activation license there. I asked them to resend it. They did, but it was the old, expired code. So she finds this, highlights it and yells at me again. "Well no wonder! It's expired." I reminded her again the reason I called was because I had just paid and not received my new activation code. She just kept highlighting. And saying, "It's expired."

 

THEN she took control and began running diagnostics and telling me how my computer is in horrid condition. Funny. I've been running Iobit on it for the past year. Isn't that what it's for? She tried to sell me "Advanced Technical Support" for $249. To say anything at all, I would have to scream into the phone. She would just talk louder while running amok all over my PC. There was no way to stop her. She fought me for control of my PC as I sought to shut it down. I won. The only way I could end the process was to shut down the computer, with her screaming in my ear the entire time and working more furiously. I have no idea what she may have done to my PC. I do know I am out $21.99 with no product delivery.

 

I've read the forums about similar issues, but they say it resulted from these people contacting us directly, but nooooo. This was a click right on the Iobit website.

 

My questions?

 

Who is this person I ended up talking with after clicking on a telephone link on the Iobit website--if not Iobit?

Why does Iobit not have email or phone support for their products.

Why is there clear way to contact the company to resolve issues.

Where is my product!

I am not happy. fyi Next step is to complain to PC Magazine, C-Net and more if I do not get resolution within the next 48 hours.

[Cicely]

Hi KylieSabra,

 

It is IObit's Partner - Tech Live Connect, who is supposed to help IObit customer on activating the license and other computer issues.

 

We are sorry for the not so comfortable situation you have encountered, and we will surely ask them to improve their service for your better experience.

 

If you need any assistance related to IObit products, please kindly contact us from the support link in the Product or from our support page at http://www.iobit.com/en/onlinefeedback.php

 

Please send a PM with your order information to me so that we can help on this issue.

 

We appreciate your understanding and support.:-)