Toolkit

Story: Anti-spyware 'deceiving consumers'

• 
• 

The very same thing happened to me just yesterday. I got my credit card bill and discovered a charge of $29.95 from STOPZilla. I purchased their product a year ago but had not authorized them to bill me for any type of upgrade or renewal. I also had not received any notification via email, mail or telephone offering anything from STOPZilla.

I called STOPZilla and the person who answered the phone immediately knew what I was calling about before I even spoke. They must be getting lots of calls because I had to wait almost an hour before someone picked up the line. I requested that they credit back the charge and pointed out to them that when I purchased the original software product I never authorized them to bill me from then on whenever they felt like it. STOPZilla told me that the credit would show on my account within 3 days.

On a more evil note. STOPZilla immediately disabled the product that I originally purchased. Each time the STOPZilla product starts it remotely connects to their servers before it will start running. The appearance is that it is connecting to download updates to the program but it is also checking to see if they will continue to allow you to use the software. So now the STOPZilla product no longer functions at all. I instead receive a pop-up message:

"STOPZilla has detected that this copy has been suspended"
"STOPZilla will now shut down"
"Please contact STOPZilla at 1-877-877-9944"

I fully understand the companies right to request additional payments for future support or updates to the software. However, I should be entitled to continue to use the product that I originally purchased. The software industry has long considered that the consumer was purchasing the right to use software but did not actually own it. This does not mean that when I purchased STOPZilla I agreed to rent it for a year AND I DO NOT SEE THIS MENTIONED ANYWHERE ON STOPZILLA'S WEBSITE.

My current copy of McAfee virus scanner is telling me that it needs to be renewed and is not currently downloading new signature files. But guess what, it still allows me to continue to use what I purchased from them including the updates and I don't see any charges appearing on my credit card from them.

When I bought my last car I understood that I could not start making and selling copies of it. However, the automobile dealer is not going to come back after a period of time and repossess my car unless I continue to pay up or automatically send me a bill requesting more money or disable the engine in my car remotely unless I pay up.

I have been in the tech. industry for a long time and have been using, building etc. personal computers since even before the IBM/Intel PC's. This is the only software product that I have ever run across that has a built-in vendor kill capability. As far as I am concerned STOPZilla has broken the agreement made to me when I agreed to purchase their software product.

• 
• 

• 
• 
• 

Full Talkback thread