A charge reading CBI*MALWAREBYTES on your credit card or bank statement is a real Malwarebytes antivirus subscription, billed through the company’s payment processor Cleverbridge.1Malwarebytes. Is Malwarebytes Legit In almost every case it’s an annual auto-renewal. The money is not lost to fraud, and if you don’t want the subscription you can cancel future billing and, within the refund window, get the charge reversed.
What the Descriptor Means
Malwarebytes does not run its own card processing. It uses two ecommerce partners: Cleverbridge and 2Checkout, which was formerly Avangate and is now part of Verifone.1Malwarebytes. Is Malwarebytes Legit “CBI” is the Cleverbridge abbreviation. Depending on which partner handled your order, the line on your statement may read any of these:
- CBI*MALWAREBYTES or CBA*MALWAREBYTES (Cleverbridge)
- HSA*MALWAREBYTES or www.cleverbridge.net (Cleverbridge)
- 2CO.com*Malwarebytes or AVNGATE*MALWAREBYTES (2Checkout/Avangate)
All of these are recognized by Malwarebytes as legitimate billing descriptors.1Malwarebytes. Is Malwarebytes Legit
Why the Charge Showed Up Now
Subscriptions bought through the Malwarebytes online store have auto-renewal switched on by default, and the card on file is charged automatically at the end of each term. Free trials that required a card at sign-up also roll into paid subscriptions unless you turn auto-renewal off before the trial ends.2Malwarebytes Help Center. Manage Auto-Renewal for Your Malwarebytes Subscription
Malwarebytes does send a reminder email 30 days before an annual renewal, with the amount it’s about to charge.2Malwarebytes Help Center. Manage Auto-Renewal for Your Malwarebytes Subscription If that email went to spam or to an old address, the renewal feels like it came from nowhere.
Confirm the Charge Is Yours
Before you call it fraud, sign in at my.malwarebytes.com. The account dashboard shows your current subscriptions, billing history, and payment method on file.3Malwarebytes Help Center. Manage Subscriptions in Your Malwarebytes Account If an active subscription matches the charge amount, the billing is legitimate even if you’d forgotten the account existed.
Annual plans run from about $45 to $400 at full price, with lower promotional pricing in the first year.4Malwarebytes. Pricing A charge in that range is consistent with a standard renewal. If you can’t get into the account, or the amount doesn’t match anything you recognize, contact Malwarebytes through help.malwarebytes.com. The company has no inbound phone line; its AI chatbot routes you to a live agent or opens a ticket.5Malwarebytes Help Center. How to Contact Malwarebytes Support
Stop Future Charges
How you cancel depends on where you originally bought the subscription.
If you bought through the Malwarebytes online store on the 2Checkout/Avangate side, you can manage auto-renewal from the account dashboard at my.malwarebytes.com.2Malwarebytes Help Center. Manage Auto-Renewal for Your Malwarebytes Subscription
If the charge reads CBI, it ran through Cleverbridge, and those subscriptions are not always manageable from the Malwarebytes account portal.6Malwarebytes Forums. How to Ask for a Refund and Cancel Subscription Open your original purchase confirmation email from Cleverbridge, scroll to the subscription overview, and use the cancellation link there. If the email is gone, the purchase lookup tool at cleverbridge.com can retrieve your order.7Cleverbridge. How Do I Cancel My Subscription
Subscriptions bought through Google Play or the Apple App Store have to be canceled inside the app store itself. The Malwarebytes account portal cannot touch them.8Malwarebytes Help Center. Manage Payment Information in Your Malwarebytes Account
Canceling stops the next renewal. It does not, on its own, refund a charge that already posted.7Cleverbridge. How Do I Cancel My Subscription
Get Your Money Back
Malwarebytes offers a 60-day money-back guarantee on all annual plans.4Malwarebytes. Pricing If the charge is inside that window, a refund is straightforward.
For a CBI charge, submit the refund request through Cleverbridge’s refund form. You’ll need the Cleverbridge reference number from your order confirmation; the lookup tool on cleverbridge.com can pull it up if you don’t have the email. Processing the refund permanently deactivates the software license tied to that order.9Cleverbridge. Refund If the charge came from 2Checkout, or if the Cleverbridge form doesn’t work, open a support ticket at help.malwarebytes.com.5Malwarebytes Help Center. How to Contact Malwarebytes Support
Refund outcomes vary. The Better Business Bureau profile for Malwarebytes lists 144 complaints over three years, 34 specifically about billing, and the company has cited policy limits on refunds for older charges or purchases through certain vendors.10Better Business Bureau. Malwarebytes Inc Complaints
If the Merchant Won’t Refund
You can dispute the charge with your card issuer under the Fair Credit Billing Act. Send a written dispute within 60 days of the statement date on which the charge first appeared.11FTC. What to Do if You’re Billed for Things You Never Got or You Get Unordered Products The issuer has to acknowledge the dispute within 30 days and resolve it within two billing cycles, up to a maximum of 90 days.12California Office of the Attorney General. Credit Cards – Dispute a Charge You don’t have to pay the disputed amount while the investigation is open.
Card issuers generally expect you to try the merchant first, unless the charge is outright fraud. Save your emails and chat transcripts with Malwarebytes and Cleverbridge; they strengthen the case. One trade-off worth knowing: a chargeback win often leads the merchant to close your account and refuse future service.
Don’t Confuse the Real Charge With Renewal Scams
Separate from legitimate CBI charges, scammers send fake Malwarebytes renewal notices by email, calendar invite, and PayPal-impersonation pages, claiming you’ve been billed several hundred dollars and listing a phone number to “dispute” it.13Malwarebytes. Watch Out for Renewal Scams Pretending to Be Malwarebytes Anyone who calls is pressured to hand over card numbers, bank details, or remote access to their computer.14Malwarebytes. Fake Malwarebytes Renewal Notices in Your Calendar
These notices do not actually charge your card. The money only moves if you call the number and give the scammer information. If a “renewal” reaches you by calendar invite or an oddly worded email with a phone number, delete it and verify your real subscription by typing my.malwarebytes.com into your browser directly. A charge that actually posted to your statement under a CBI, HSA, AVNGATE, or 2CO descriptor is the real billing; a scare email with no matching line on your statement is not.