T’was no crash, but a clever criminal act. I was suspicious from the beginning, as I’ve been trained to be, but what I was seeing looked like a legitimate attempt by Windows to diagnose and repair a hard drive malfunction. But it was not Windows nor my Webroot product doing the detective work – where was the bought-and-paid-for protection?

My machine, or whatever had possessed it, was demanding a scan, now! Um, no. It proceeded to scan anyway. Once the list of maladies was presented, the same entity highly commended that I opt to repair the detected issues and wouldn’t I like to upgrade to the full version of protection software I’d never heard of before? Thanks, no, I’ll have none of your devious plot. Now off to sleep you go, the geeks will take care of you.

Having determined that something was woefully wrong with the machine and after declining its request for my credit card, I carried it to the big box Geeks secure in the knowledge that it was still covered under a 2 year plan. What’s that you say? The plan doesn’t cover software or virus attacks? You want my credit card? What about Webroot – don’t they have a dog in this hunt?

I’m getting a bundled discount on the very same product that failed to protect my machine (it really is the best out there) and I’m supposed to feel better now.

Geek: “You’d be surprised how many people fall for that one and pay the fee to the virus. It fixes the problem for a while but it always comes back for more.”

Me: “So I either pay the hacker or I pay you – how do I tell the difference?”

Crickets…

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