My experience with working with Cyberdefender was pleasant only in the sense of the technical support, in fact the techs there are awesome and many are skilled at what they do. I just can’t say the same for all departments. Trust me; I’m far for being a bitter terminated employee. I wouldn’t want to be part of a company that conducts their business in this manner in the first place.

What I found disappointing was the tactics they instruct their salesmen/saleswomen to take when pitching. I say this because I find it unusual that a new sales person will come up with some of the unrealistic things I came across, and if a company knows they will be servicing computer illiterate people they can use it to their advantage. Their tools included a “scorecard” that rates the customer system on a scale. They exaggerate infections in order to hammer the customer into thinking their identity, credit card; bank information is compromised or will be. Using the event viewer that has errors that are over nine months old and telling the customer their system is going to crash any minute. I have gotten many systems that were labeled, “malware infection, severely infected” followed by the sale details when in fact, after the work I have done is complete, not one infection was found on their system. When calling to customer to follow up, they become puzzled when I tell them, “I’m calling to let you know I have completed my work, your system was free from infections.” Then they question me and ask me if I’m sure I cleaned the system properly because they were told it was infected with rogues, rogues and more rogues. Then ask why they have just spent $140-$500 on something they did not need. I know the answer to that but I refer them to call the customer service and ask for billing to further assist them. You are a gold mine if you have a home business and you’re calling in about your computer that you do business on. Not to make this longer than what it needs to be, ill elaborate and make this next example short.
A customer called in one day saying he had system issues; He was eventually transferred to sales. The free diagnostics and score card was ran on his system, the typical “possible malware” (the possible malware” indicator is a joke.) popped on the screen. This sent the salesmen into frenzy, the sales then pitched that his system was in grave danger, his system was compromised, his information was compromised and it needed to be worked on immediately. By then the customer was in a panic and did not want his system to be compromised, after all, he ran his business from that very same system. He agreed to pay the service fee. The sale was made and the system was transferred to a que for the next available technician to be work on. Due to the incompetence of management and sales, they forget that people like to watch most work being done. Needless to say this was one of those cases. A tech worked on the system, the customer was watching from his end of the system and seeing that all the scans was coming up clean. Eventually the technician was finish working on the system. Just then the customer spoke to the tech telling him he did not remove any infections, and he wondered why. The tech told him there was nothing to remove. The Customer got angry because he just paid a large sum of money due to the doomsday picture painted by the sales. The tech, put in a situation that he has no business being put in had nothing to say. Needless to say, the guy closed his account with the company and got a refund…rip off? Yes it is. This happens ALL the time, it just so happens the customer was lucky enough to catch this. The techs have no idea what goes on, they are not aware of some things. They simply get the tickets assigned to them and do what the tickets say

The promises
Selling their software as a miracle product is unrealistic, which is why the names were changed…along with the cheesy commercials with the cheap actors…The promises the sales make is completely unreal, and will tell customers anything they want to hear to make the sale.
I’ve gotten computers with 250 Mb of RAM a slow processor and the customer is promised that the techs will make it VERY fast like new. Now, let’s take a look at how impossible this is, the customer wants the software to run (the software at least takes 300 MB to run) on top of the system needing to run XP?? The customer is expecting this. So after they wait on their system they see that after installing the software their system is even slower…They call back and tell the customer service its slow, we get the system and tell them, “You need more RAM’ they then get angry and say, “Well I just paid $140-$350 because I was told you could make my computer faster. To satisfy this we must turn off Another Early Detection Center for the sake of performance is to be turned OFF and disabled from start up….yes, now the customer computer is completely unsecure (not that it offers protection in the first place) on the internet. The customer is sometimes told that they must manually start their software.My other favorite is when I got the usual “major infections” and were working on the system, the customer is watching me work and watching all my scans come up clean…then the questions or statements begin, “the customer service tech said I had some infections, why aren’t you removing them?” It’s because he was lied to. A tech cannot remove something that does not exist…No matter how rigged the score card or “free diagnostics” is.

If the software is so good, why doesn’t the company employees use it on their own systems?
You would think a company’s employee would use their own software, especially if they can get it for free. I never worked for Norton but I’m sure they have great confidence with their product and I’m sure their own (most) employees use their products. This is not the case for Cyberdefender you will NOT find any employee with this software or any other software this company creates on their system, even if they may get the software for free, simply because they KNOW it does not work. Techs are not to down talk the software when the customer ask which is better, for example, if a customer ask, “Well, should I leave Norton installed or have your software put installed? I want the best security.” As a tech or a Cyberdefender employee or ex-employee we already know the customer is WAY better off with Norton; simply because, Early Detection Center detects almost nothing. I tested this out on my virtual pc, out of seventy-five infections Early Detection Center only detected four... In fact it’s tested on other system by other people and the results are the same, feel free to visit Youtube and type in Cyberdefender. One of the hardest things to do was removing a VERY good antivirus or any antivirus program that worked that had months to years of subscription time left to install Early Detection Center. EDC also blocks programs from functioning properly (such as Outlook). There were times when Early Detection Center detects itself as a virus/Trojan. It fails to run properly sixty five percent of the time (maybe a bit more), we cross our fingers when installing hoping it does not crash because that will lead to more work. Their registry cleaner detects errors on clean installation, damages other programs, removes files essential to the operating system (this is the case when customers call in and their problem is, “After I ran your registry cleaner my computer does not start anymore.”)

You may tell yourself “oh he’s just a bitter ex employee.” I promise you I’m not, I couldn’t be with a company that:
1. Lies to their customers in order to get them to shove up hundreds of dollars.
2. Brush off employee concerns. “Your email was too long, I did not read it.”
3. Consist of arrogant sale managers/supervisors that belittle employees. “Do you know who I am?”
4. Tells their techs in so many words to ‘play along’.
5. Sells software products to customers that they know does not work.

Sorry, I need just a little bit more honesty, competence and integrity in my work environment. Maybe Cyberdefender should call up Jiffy and Easy Lube and ask how their business is; after all they have many things in common…

-Anonymous ex-employee