One reader wasn't sure whether he was more upset about an extra charge Symantec added to his Live Update subscription for Norton AntiVirus or his inability to get an explanation from the company. "I renewed my subscription for Norton Antivirus updates last night for $19.95," the reader wrote. "Today, on reviewing my order, I found that a special fee of $10 had been added, a fee I never noticed in ordering the renewal." With some difficulty, he figured out how to e-mail Symantec about the problem and finally got a response. "It looks like it came from an actual service rep, but that the rep's responsibility is so narrowly defined that all she can do with a dissatisfied customer is instruct him to jump through another set of hoops to reach another low-level service drone. It isn't worth any more of my time, so I told them to cancel my order."

Readers keep finding news ways in which Symantec's product activation can bite them. "First they cheat the company of paid-for service if you have to reformat for any reason," wrote another reader. "I had prepaid for two years of updates by mistake, and asked for a refund, which they refused to give me. Two re-formattings later, I lost most of that second year's worth of subscription. I was told I could not recover the lost time already paid for."

And Symantec continues to lead the pack when it comes to gripes about deadbeat rebates. But their fulfillment center's excuses sometimes have their amusing side, as shown by a gripe I just received. "This is all triggered by a recent postcard I received from what must be Symantec's current fulfillment center," wrote one reader. "At Best Buy I had purchased and received authentic receipt duplicates and instructions for submitting my rebate request for Norton Antivirus Professional 2004. The postcard I received claims I did not include the requested information and gives a bogus 800 number for the rebate center. It also states that: '...we could not honor your request due to the following reason(s) : "Norton AntiVirus Pro (NAV Pro) - MissingPurchase Date, Invalid receipt required.' Please note the corrupted syntax in the latter item/reason -- does it mean they require an invalid receipt?"

Well, maybe. With Symantec, you just don't know for sure what the deal is. Speaking of which, in case you missed it, those of you looking for a different deal should check out the final results of what readers had to say when I polled them on which antivirus products they think are the best alternatives to McAfee and Symantec.