Garmin “Lifetime Warranty”

General discussion of the BMW R1200RT/R1250RT
Post Reply
B787MECH
Posts: 241
Joined: Fri Aug 19, 2016 1:39 pm
Bike Model and Year: 2016 LC
Been liked: 1 time
Great Britain

Garmin “Lifetime Warranty”

Post by B787MECH »

I have a Garmin Nav V which is now almost five years old and has always worked perfectly and I’ve updated it regularly, albeit on my old and slow laptop.
I recently went to check for updates and found that Garmin Express needed updating which I started. Half way through it failed saying my laptop was incapable of taking the download and was prompted to contact Garmin via online chat.
I was told that this is a common issue and if I let them access my laptop via Ultraview they could repair the problem. I reluctantly allowed them access and they almost immediately said my laptop and Nav V were infected but they could fix both making them “as good as new”.
I then asked if there was a charge for this and they quoted approx £150 min. I said it wasn’t worth it and I’d get a new laptop and start again. They then got increasingly agitated and said I couldn’t do this as “all my hardware is infected and is being spread by my WiFi “. I’m not particularly IT literate but that sounded like scaremongering to me.
The end result is I now can’t check for updates, and that they have made my satnav redundant, and I’m left with very little faith in them. I see the whole episode as their way of extracting more money out of a customer that paid for a product with “Lifetime Updates”. Or the whole thing was a massive scam by an outside body.
Am I reading this right, have Garmin used this to try and extract money for a “free” service? Or have I been the victim of a scam? Or both?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
User avatar
sakm
Administrator
Posts: 1301
Joined: Wed Jun 02, 2021 9:13 pm
Location: Hull, UK
Bike Model and Year: 2016 R1200RT
Has liked: 436 times
Been liked: 388 times
Great Britain

Re: Garmin “Lifetime Warranty”

Post by sakm »

Did you contact Garmin through their official website? as that sound like a scam if you ask me!
beemerboy9
Posts: 582
Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2016 9:44 am
Location: North London
Bike Model and Year: 1250RT 2019
Been liked: 16 times
Great Britain

Re: Garmin “Lifetime Warranty”

Post by beemerboy9 »

Sounds like a scam.


As mentioned try to download Express from the official Garmin website.  You could also uninstall and reinstall Express.


Normally Express will tell you that it needs updating - you don't need to search for updates. Likewise for the City Navigator maps.


Hope this helps.....


John
John Bentall
BoB21
Posts: 754
Joined: Fri Apr 21, 2017 11:38 am
Has liked: 32 times
Been liked: 34 times
Great Britain

Re: Garmin “Lifetime Warranty”

Post by BoB21 »

Doesn't sound right to me. As above check official site.
PeteM
Posts: 285
Joined: Sun Mar 03, 2019 9:28 am

Re: Garmin “Lifetime Warranty”

Post by PeteM »

This is definitely a scam, it is quite common one although they normally randomly contact you rather than you contacting them. The fact they say it is being spread by your WiFi is a dead give away as that is almost impossible as WiFi routers have very limited applications capability.


Just done a quick search and there are a lot of pretend Garmin sites out there, I don't want them to be URLs so hence the way I am writing them but the first few I found are
  • garminstore dot co dot uk
  • garmin-express dot en dot uptodown dot com
  • my-garminexpress dot com
All of these appear to be trying to be Garmin but are unrelated (whois search done).


My suspicion is you went to one of the dodgy sites rather than the real one (https://www.garmin.com/).


What I would suggest is do a full virus and malware scan on your PC using software from a a known good source, then download the latest version of Express from Garmin and proceed from there.


For Antivirus/Anti Malware I would suggest either https://www.avast.com/ or https://www.avg.com/


But until you have done the complete scan assume that the PC is infected with Malware and avoid using it for anything that requires a secure connection such as online banking, email, shopping etc.
Post Reply