Microsoft Gold Certified

Live Support 365 Fair Diagnosis Policy:Consumer Protection Provisions and $100 Compensation Award.

The Live 365 Support Representative is an inbound sales agent who is trained to give a free Diagnosis according to company compliance standards .The Live 365 Support Representative will review various aspect of the customers computer to identify any where the computer maintenance may be falling short. After performing the diagnostic, Live 365 Support Representative will offer the customer a Live Support 365 package of trained technician services, and upon completion of a sale, transfer the customer to a trained Technician for service fulfillment including computer analysis and problem remediation if needed.

Live Support 365 Representatives are required to adhere to Fair Diagnosis policies to ensure consumer satisfaction and protection. During the Fair Diagnosis the Live 365 Support Representative may review and demonstrate potential problems with a customers computer including processes, CPU usage, and potential viruses without offering a conclusive determination of actual threats present on the customer PC. While this review and demonstration can illustrate potential risks, only a trained technician may make a determination as to the actual problems on a customer’s PC.

How Certain Are Viruses?

For potential viruses, a Live 365 Support Representative cannot for certain claim a virus or infection exists or has a high likelihood of existing on a personal computer during the Fair Diagnosis. However some viruses use the names of common system processes to mask themselves and this potential risk may be explained during the Fair Diagnosis. The agent will review with and educate the customer on the potential security and malware/virus risks of observed activities on the customer’s computers such as downloads, installed applications, junk, clutter, and other signs of Internet activity. Again, the representative will review and educate the customer on potential risks of observed activity without claiming a high likelihood or certainty of a problem existing on their computer. The representative will maintain that a technician must make the final determination regarding the existence of an infection or malware on a customer’s PC.

The Live 365 Support Representative will educate the customer that viruses often display some of the symptoms below. The Live Support 365 Representative must also state that having these signs doesn't necessarily mean you have a virus but these symptoms should not be ignored. A trained technician can analyze the computer and find the cause of these problems.

SIGNS OF POTENTIAL VIRUSES:

  • Sudden onset of symptoms
  • Credit card abuse
  • Lots of pop-ups
  • Programs are automatically starting without you opening them
  • Your computer is running slow
  • Your hard disk is always running
  • Your email account is sending lots of emails you didn’t send

The customer should be made clear that these signs have other causes as well and a technician can assist in evaluating their computer. Many times a benign cause is present, but the consequences of malware can be high and a technician can assist.

Process Review, Maintaining Processes, and CPU Usage.

During the Fair Diagnosis, the Live 365 Support Representative will review and discuss observed processes running on the customer’s computer, and review the processes running on the machine to demonstrate the difficulty in properly analyzing and maintaining observed processes and advantages of technician assistance. The representative will inform the customer that a trained technician will be able to make a determination on safety and usefulness of observed processes, and also illustrate potential risks with observed processes on a customer’s PC. The representative may inform the customer that specific processes observed on customer’s computer may be a masquerading virus or may be benign, and that only a trained technician is authorized to make a determination if a process is a virus, and there is no high likelihood or certainty that any particular process is a virus.

The representative may not state or imply that the quantity of processes determines actual CPU usage, but may convey that all processes may be reviewed by a trained technician for security, performance, and appropriateness for the customer’s needs and usage. When referring to the quantity of processes, a Live 365 Support Representative will review with the customer the potential burden of researching each individual process. When referring to the quantity of processes the representative will review the impact of Active Processes on overall CPU Usage. The representative will also review the extent to which research is required to determine if an active process is useful or misbehaving. The representative may explain that the review and removal of any unnecessary, unwanted, or harmful processes can be a complex or tedious task which technicians can assist with, and it can be unreasonable to expect home users to do so on their own . The Representative may also state that an improperly maintained and configured anti-virus may be insufficient to find malware which may be present in the process list. The Representative may also state that while the risk of having malware may be low, the consequences of an active infection may be high, but a technician can make a determination and provide assistance. The representative may express concern that assessing and managing the security and performance of all the processes present on a customer machine, whether on an older machine or even on a brand new computer likely to be clean of problems, may be more than is convenient or likely for a customer to do on their own going forward.

The representative may suggest that companion software (colloquially referred to as “bloatware”) installed by the manufacturer on a new computer or present on an older one may be impairing performance and that a technician can assist in reviewing and recommending companion software or “bloatware” for removal. The representative may ask the customer if they are prepared to analyze each process for being friendly, useful, malware, or bloatware, and that a technician can make the process review and maintenance more convenient and effective for the customer. The representative may state using an analogy that the lower the CPU usage is and closer to 0%, the more available “horsepower” there is for computer usage, and a technician can assist in analyzing any observed processor load for remediation to bring it as close to 0% as possible and reasonable for a particular PC. The Live 365 Support Representative cannot claim with certainty or high likelihood that a specific number of processes, or any particular process, running on a personal computer is harmful.

During the review Process the Live 365 Support Representative may review some or all of the following PC Care categories:

  • CPU Usage
  • Hard Drive Space
  • Memory
  • Disk Defrag
  • Startup Manager
  • Task Manager
  • AntiVirus Application
  • Backup System
  • Windows Updates
  • Drivers
  • Applications Installed

Stories and Examples.

A Live 365 Support Representative may use real life examples and stories to explain how certain situations could potentially affect a personal computer’s performance and security. These stories are used to illustrate the potential risks. This does not mean that every personal computer including the current customer’s will have the same issues and be resolved in the same manner, or that there is a likelihood that those risks exist on a particular PC. A Live 365 Support Representative may identify potential threats where a technician can determine if there is a computer performance and/or security issue.

365 Live Support Technicians are trained and certified internally by Ascentive on PC maintenance, cleanup and security prior to being allowed to take customer calls. 365 Live Support Representatives cannot imply or state that technicians are certified by any organization other than Ascentive. Ascentive does not currently offer Microsoft certified technicians, although some technicians may have been certified by Microsoft in prior employment. Ascentive is currently reviewing implementation of, but has not implemented, Microsoft MCP certification for all agents.

Please Send Any Complaints To Compliance Officer.

Our goal is to ensure that every potential customer receives a Fair Diagnosis as stated in our compliance guidelines. Upon the discovery of any instance of a Live 365 Support Representative violating any provision of Ascentive’s Fair Diagnosis Policy, including claiming with certainty or high likelihood that a customer has a virus, infection, an unsafe number of processes, or has been certified by a 3rd-party organization, we ask that the customer please contact our Compliance Officer so we can review the details and take corrective action:

Ascentive LLC Compliance Officer
50 S. 16th Street
Suite 3575
Philadelphia, PA 19102 USA

Compliance Officer
compliance@ascentive.com

Please include any details that can be used to look up your account and corresponding call recordings, including the approximate date and time of your call, the name of the Live 365 Support Representative if known, and any information about your account and experience with Ascentive.

Ascentive is committed to providing our customers with a Fair Diagnosis. We invite IT experts and regulators to reach out to our Compliance Officer to make recommendations or address any concerns you may have with our Fair Diagnosis Policy or its enforcement. Site visits to our company management and call center floor are also available upon request and can include a review of our current training scripts, policies and enforcement procedures and interviews with personnel. Please specify when you would like to visit our Philadelphia office or any of our remote locations.

$100 Complaint Award.

If you are a resident of the United States or Canada, and notify us in writing using the above email address or postal address within 30 days of the call date that the Fair Diagnosis Policy was not properly followed, Ascentive, LLC will provide a $100 compensation award payable within 90 days of receipt of the complaint if the Compliance Officer determines that the policy was violated. All appropriate internal corrective action will be taken. Any complaints received later than 30 days after the call date will be investigated and corrective action taken as warranted but be uncompensated. Limit 1 award maximum per household. Residents of other countries are not eligible for award compensation.

In addition, if the complaint is received from a customer who has purchased a product or service from a non-compliant call they will receive a full refund in addition to the $100 complaint award.

LIMITATIONS OF 365 Live Support Service and Diagnosis

Although the Technician is effective at identifying and addressing many of the factors that can negatively affect computer performance and/or security, there are numerous other factors that may not be identified or addressed by the Technician. You acknowledge and agree that the Technician can not identify and address all potential factors that can negatively affect computer performance and/or security, and you further acknowledge and agree that your computer’s performance and/or security may not improve until all such factors are addressed. You acknowledge and agree that during the free diagnosis the Live 365 Support Representative may adequately demonstrate the potential existing shortfalls of your PC maintenance routine without reviewing every possible PC care step or category before offering for sale our technical support services. If you wish to review additional PC care steps or categories you may request the Live 365 Support Representative to do so. In some cases, additional Software or other measures may be necessary for your computer to attain optimal performance and/or security. The technician can inspect the customers computer, run a scan, and remove potential threats based on a database of threat definitions. You acknowledge and agree that any issues outside of this database of definitions or outside the scope of other diagnostic procedures would not be addressed or removed. Currently, Live Support 365 only supports PCs running Windows XP or newer.

Recent Changes and Updates:

    • November 19, 2014 – Updated policy requirements released and agents retrained on script changes. QA confirms agents adhering to new requirements.

    • November 21, 2014 – Minor updates to policy requirements released and agents notified on changes.

    • November 24, 2014 – One agent reprimanded and coached on policy adherence.

    • November 25, 2014 – All agents again found to be compliant. We are reviewing outside vendors to provide an additional 3rd-party review of our call center script and will post an update after that is complete.

    • December 15, 2014 – Updated the Fair Diagnosis regulatory compliant script today. Agents are being notified on changes and trained on updated script this week.

    • January 06, 2015 – Made improvements to the Fair Diagnosis regulatory compliant script. Agents are being notified of changes and trained on updated script this week.