On Your Side: McAfee, Stop Nagging Me!
Reader bombarded with pop-up messages tries to escape a company's e-mail database.
Grace Aquino
I need your help with my McAfee VirusScan Online subscription. McAfee bombards me with pop-up messages in Windows saying that my account information needs to be updated immediately (even though my subscription doesn't expire until November). I also got an e-mail indicating that the company no longer supports my McAfee antivirus program version 4. I'm unable to get any human response from McAfee and am on the verge of switching my service if this madness doesn't stop.
Daniel Silvers, Pauls Valley, Oklahoma
On Your Side responds: I contacted McAfee.com on Silvers' behalf. Atri Chatterjee, vice president of marketing, says the company conducts programs that ask users--through a few automatic pop-up messages--to update their personal information online. In Silvers' case, McAfee.com asked him to enter his credit card information in his online account so that if he renews his subscription he won't have to enter it. (Silvers paid with an electronic check when he signed up for the service.)
The company also sent Silvers an e-mail letting him know that his version of the program is no longer supported. McAfee.com has removed Silvers from its e-mail database so he will not receive company and product news in the future. Subscribers who wish to be removed from McAfee's database can write to unsubscribe@mcafee.com with the subject line "Unsubscribe."
Grace Aquino is an associate editor for PC World. She can be reached at consumerwatch@pcworld.com
