Free But Not Free
By Chevee
@Chevee (5905)
United States
May 7, 2009 4:39pm CST
My antivirus subscription expired recently so I purchased a new Norton 2009. In the box was a Card that said free performance checkup on your PC. (Its our way of saying thanks.) See back for details. It gave me a Norton website to go to. I did and it instructed me to call a number. I call the number and talked to a support tech. That went into details about this free service. This service comes with a download.
The click is when this performance finishes, then the technician will tell you what you need to purchase to speed up the performance of your PC.
I politely told him to forget it because I thought it was free, and I have no money to purchase anything else.
What would you have done?
2 people like this
6 responses
@camomom (7535)
• United States
11 May 09
I probably would have rudely said no thanks. That is NOT free.
@sacmom (14192)
• United States
9 May 09
I would have done the same thing. Though I probably would have cussed the tech out first for wasting my time.
I did fall for one of those free gimmicks before, but only because I wanted it. My husband and I had been walking through Sears (at least, I think it was Sears) when someone who worked there offered for us to grab an egg (they were holding some promotional thing at the time). So for the hell of it we grabbed one and opened it up. It was for one free portrait (poster size). But in the fine print it said $10 sitting fee. My husband and I were like WTF?!? Neither of us wanted to pay for something that was supposed to be free, but at the same time I wanted it done as we never had one taken before. I was also pregnant with our first child and didn't know if we'd ever take the opportunity to do this in the future. I convinced my husband that we should get it done, even if it wasn't really free.
I remember when my father saw it for the first time and made a comment on it. I told him thanks, it was free. It only cost us $10! Boy, did I make him laugh! 
LOL
LOL
@ANTIQUELADY (36440)
• United States
8 May 09
i would have done the very same thing that u did , told him to forget it. sounds like a ripoff to me.
@bugsycleave (30)
•
7 May 09
I find norton to be misleading at times and have since turned to the free alternatives such as avg with no problems. We had a similar thing back along but its the exact same as the free healthchecks small local computer shops do, they find out whats slow about the pc, for example a pc thats 2 years old may only have 512kb memory and todays applications such as bbc iplayer and other more interactive sites may start to use more.
They tell you whats slow and could do with an upgrade then sting you on the parts.
Don't feel bad i would have done the same!
