Owen S.

GuruAid obviously markets itself as support for many products - I've just called them for an issue with OUTLOOK.
I was given their number by BT in the United Kingdom, as I could access my emails via a browser or on my mobile, but not on my desktop using Outlook 2007. I keep getting IMAP 'issues' which as I suspected, BT said was an issue with Outlook rather than their server/settings etc. I asked them if they could recommend somebody, as I was out of my depth, and they gave me the Guru freephone number. Great. Freephone number - nothing to lose.
When I phoned and explained my problem, there seemed to be a lot of questions, which didn't seem relevant, and a lot of reassurance that they could solve my problem, no need to worry, we will call you back if disconnected, don't call us etc etc. Then after all this reassurance the guy on the end of the phone had to "check with my supervisor that we can fix this problem" - first big Alarm Bell.
When he came back after 30 seconds and said his supervisor had confirmed that "we could solve the problem" - I thought a) he hadn't had enough time to explain and b) if your a support company, surely you will attempt to solve any problem with Outlook, and say it's a fixed fee, or payment on completion or whatever the deal is. But no, he just wanted to log into my PC. Alarm two.
I then asked that before he logged into my computer can we agree a price - how do they charge etc. He kept telling me not to worry, he would have a look first, then tell me how much it would cost to fix, and I could then decide whether to go ahead. Can you give me a rough estimate? Don't worry, their is no charge for looking!
OK, I agreed. Type in "access.guruaib.com" and press enter. Went to a blank page. We tried this many times in IE and then in Chrome. I could sense him getting agitated that it wasn't working. In hindsight, I have Bitdefender and MalwareBites installed - and wonder if they were blocking it? This was very strange - why couldn't I log onto a webpage that he was giving me.
He then told me to go to the search box above the start button, and type in "msconfig" and hit enter. I then said wait, I've got to type in the Administrator password, as I'm just logged in as a user. He wasn't best pleased. "No, I need you to be logged in as an Administrator" - to which I said I was not happy with this as that would leave my computer vulnerable. I said if any changes needed to be made, I would just type in the password. He kept insisting that this would not work - at which point I said I would not go any further until I had done some background on his company. If I was happy I would then call back.
At this point he was really angry, and told me not to ring back. I was quite taken aback, and asked him why he didn't want me to call back - "You've just wasted 18 minutes (very precise) of my time, you are calling in question my company, you want to investigate blah blah blah". I put the phone down.
Half way through the call I had to as him to talk faster, as he spoke veerryy slloowwlly, and kept repeating "a - for - apple --- i - india..." etc even though I told him I was cutting and pasting the web address, as we had check it half a dozen times. Obviously on a clock.

In summary, I don't know if not being logged in as administrator would have stopped him infecting my computer, but I think he couldn't have change major settings or installing stuff without me knowing(?), and his reaction made my mind up. Also, I am sure that you can change account settings in Outlook without being logged in Administrator mode - as I've done it myself. I think I got off lightly.

IMHO - Regards