Symantec Corporation Having to pay for several products services to get one ONE promises - RIPOFF Cupertino California

Let me tell you about the latest trick Symantec is playing with Ghost. I AM FURIOUS! After a couple other negative experiences in the past 2 years, I am now telling everyone to NEVER use Symantec products again.

We installed Ghost 2003 on our Windows XP HP laptop, like we had done with our 3 Dells with XP over the years, went to go run a "Clone" operation in the program, it restarts just like it said it would, but then it comes to a blank screen that says "missing operating system".

After hours of effort on our own and on their on-line help where there is an inadequate explanation of the "missing operating system" message, we decide to call tech-support. We are then told that Symatec no longer supports the 2003 version (as of June 1st 2006) and that we need go out and BUY version 10.0. (Even if we had 9.0, they would not support it.) So we go out this morning and buy 10.0 which was $70. Call the help desk back because we now have the product that they WILL support and he tells us to insert the 2003 version disk and procedes to walk us through the unblocking of the partition that 2003 caused - using the 2003 disk. We never even needed or used the 10.0 disk. They fixed our problem and then bent us over and charged us ANOTHER $29.95 for the priviledge of this Tech Support call.

So, in summary, they DO NOT support 2003, but will only help us if we run out and buy the latest version which has the same disk that we already PLUS a 10.0 disk (that they don't even use to fix the issue) AND charge us for the tech call.

I REPEAT FOR EMPHASIS: WE NEVER EVEN CRACKED THE SEAL ON THE 10.0 DISK ENVELOPE

As far as "service calls" go, and given how mission critical this laptop's health is to our work, it may seem like a cheap price to pay. But keep in mind we bought Ghost in the first place to protect our vital data! It says on the box it can be installed on this system, and in effect, we had to buy TWO copies plus pay the cost of a tech call just to get what one package promised.

It's just wrong!

Sonya
Lake Oswego, Oregon
U.S.A.