BMW R1200RT/R1250RT Forum

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?


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Did you contact Garmin through their official website? as that sound like a scam if you ask me!

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

Doesn't sound right to me. As above check official site.

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.