Yesterday I had a problem with Driver Detective not loading. I phoned their support desk. The technician said they could fix it and asked for remote access to my machine. I granted it and watched as a technician fixed the problem.

During the process the technician asked if she could check my machine for other software issues. I agreed, and she ran a program that looked like a PC Optimize and Registry cleaner. It found more than 19,000 errors!  She said my machine needed a technician and their technicians could fix it online in an hour.

She then went into a sales pitch, trying to sell me the servicing contract so she could begin. She wanted $350, which I was not willing to pay. I told her I had bought the machine only six months ago from Best Buy, who had set it up and transferred my files from my old failed machine. The computer was still under warranty and I would contact Best Buy’s Geek Squad.

The technician replied that her company was better than Geek Squad and that they had experienced many difficulties with Geek Squad-fixed machines. She said all her company’s technicians were certified and her company was registered with the BBB. (She was in Delhi…do Indian companies belong to our BBBs?)

I still wanted a second opinion and she offered a yearly subscription for $190. I wasn’t agreeing to anything more. She said that many Windows programs needed by third-party software were disabled on my machine and that was why Driver Detective stopped working. She also said Geek Squad would only fix hardware and not fix the software problems. I still insisted on a second opinion and she gave up. She said the Driver Detective program was fixed and I could contact them after. We disconnected.

After that exchange I was extremely suspicious, so I tried to run my Norton 360 and found she had disabled it. My Action Centre was also showing problems. I enabled Norton 360 and updated it (she had removed all the updates). I then ran a system restore and did not allow several programs running in the background to finish what they were doing. The restore worked but took a while. I then ran a full Norton 360 scan and it found two programs it thought were suspicious: Optimizer and RegCleaner. I had Norton fix both and remove them.

After the full scan and tune-up my machine is working fine. I think it is back to normal. And I have removed Driver Support/Detective and any programs installed during the period of remote access.