PC help needed, please !

[kinuta]

My wife has been ordering vitamin supplements on line for quite a long time. Recently she tried to place an order, the site opens but the pages within the site will not open, nor will the shopping basket basket etc.. The site is a big , well known company ' Puritan's Pride'.

I've tried to solve the problem by repeated virus scans using Avast! and Norton and resetting the pc to an earlier date which repeatedly failed. I'm using Window XP & Firefox. I also tried using Explorer but without success. Short of resetting the pc completely I've run of , my limited, ideas.

Can any kind soul help me out ?

BTW I'm using Japanese software so some of the English terminology takes a little time to figure out.

[Big Wheel]

Are you absolutely sure that you are on the correct site? Check it very carefully. Did you access the site by typing it in directly, or did you click the link in an email you received about a sale or promotion on this site?

The reason I am asking is that many evildoers try engage in phishing - stealing your personal information - by creating sites that look and feel like well-known sites that people use (especially your bank, for example), but actually are just fronts for people to log into their account and unwittingly input their payment information.

Sites that look familiar, but actually are non-functional except for the sections where you log in and submit your CC info, are a hallmark of this kind of phishing attack.

[kinuta]

Are you absolutely sure that you are on the correct site? Check it very carefully. Did you access the site by typing it in directly, or did you click the link in an email you received about a sale or promotion on this site?

The reason I am asking is that many evildoers try engage in phishing - stealing your personal information - by creating sites that look and feel like well-known sites that people use (especially your bank, for example), but actually are just fronts for people to log into their account and unwittingly input their payment information.

Sites that look familiar, but actually are non-functional except for the sections where you log in and submit your CC info, are a hallmark of this kind of phishing attack.

Thanks for taking the trouble to reply. Yes, I'm 100% certain that I've accessed the correct site. I've tried three ways, the short cut menu, manually typing in the url and opening an email in received confirming the last order. All of them take me to the web site but I'm unable to select pages, log in or order stuff.

[Niko]

just one out of many possible reasons...

did you make sure you have the newest version (a new version) of firefox installed? took me several hours recently to find out that this was the reason hotmail didn't have a reply button in the emails anymore...?

also before completely resetting your computer, give the site at least one day to start working again on its own - possibly the issue is on their side...

[Jim Alfredson]

Maybe it's not your computer, maybe it's the site. Have you tried accessing it on another computer?

[Niko]

i just went to www.puritan.com (seems the site has several names) and successfully added CO Q-10 200 mg. Softgels to my shopping cart, i use firefox version 5.0

[BERIGAN]

Try setting system restore back a few days....I can't tell you how many minor issues that solved through the years....

[kinuta]

Thanks for the tips. Alas, I've tried them all without success.

I have the latest version of Firefox, I tried, without success ' backdating' the pc and have accessed Puritan. com from my sister in law's pc without a glitch. Actually I've given the problem more than a week in the vain hope that it might fix itself. No dice.My wife placed an order using her sister's pc so there is no great urgency to solving the problem.

I'm still puzzled and reluctant to reset the pc with all the related hassle.

Any further pointers are, of course, greatly appreciated.

[RDK]

Besides virus protection, do you have spyware blockers on your computer? I like to use two free programs: spywareblaster (which blocks most spyware) and Spybot Search and Destroy (which can be run to find and remove spyware and malware from your system). I also use ad-aware. It may seem redundant, but they each find things that others won't find. You should download them and run them occassionally. You might be surprised what you'll find.

Additionally, it could be a java problem, if it somehow got corrupted. You might try the java site and either reinstall Java or update it. Are any other websites acting "weird?"

[kinuta]

Besides virus protection, do you have spyware blockers on your computer? I like to use two free programs: spywareblaster (which blocks most spyware) and Spybot Search and Destroy (which can be run to find and remove spyware and malware from your system). I also use ad-aware. It may seem redundant, but they each find things that others won't find. You should download them and run them occassionally. You might be surprised what you'll find.

Additionally, it could be a java problem, if it somehow got corrupted. You might try the java site and either reinstall Java or update it. Are any other websites acting "weird?"

Thank you for the advice, which I acted on immediately as I had neither of those programmes installed.

I was surprised, to put it mildly, at the long list of suspect files thrown up by the Spybot Search & Destroy scan. It included two Trojan that hadn't been picked up by yesterdays Avast! scan.

Unfortunately the Puritan Pride site problem remains unsolved but I'd like to thank you very much for drawing my attention to this hole in my pc protection. I'll be using Spybot on a regular basis henceforth, and will now investigate ' ad-aware'

BTW, I'm currently using the latest version of Java

Thanks again !

[JSngry]

Even if you have cookies enabled for your browser in general, you might have accidentally this specific site. Check you browser's list of sites that your computer will not accept cookied from & see it this (or one related to it) is on the list.

[Chuck Nessa]

Gotta tell this story. We are in the midst of installing new windows and siding on our house. We needed to buy 3 exterior wall lights and Ann went online to discover "just what we want" and put three in the shopping cart. Then going to "check out" the shipping charge was $9999.00. She cleared it all and started over with the same result. She emailed the site and they were amazed to see they had a problem. All is fixed today and the shipping was reduced to $22 and change.

[kinuta]

Even if you have cookies enabled for your browser in general, you might have accidentally this specific site. Check you browser's list of sites that your computer will not accept cookied from & see it this (or one related to it) is on the list.

Thank you for that advice. Unfortunately being rather limited in my knowledge of pc's, I'm not sure how to do that. Any instructions you might care to offer would be most gratefully accepted.

[JSngry]

In Firefox it's Tools - Options - Privacy - Cookies - Exceptions

In IE, it's Tools - Internet Options - Privacy - Sites

[kinuta]

In Firefox it's Tools - Options - Privacy - Cookies - Exceptions

In IE, it's Tools - Internet Options - Privacy - Sites

Thank you for that.

I've checked the exceptions list and it is not included.

The plot thickens.

[Chalupa]

Spybot Search & Destroy has a user's forum on their website. Post your problem in the "malware removal" forum. The moderators at SD are very knowledgeable/helpful. Small caveat - it may take 3 or 4 days before you get an initial response.

http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=288

The mods helped me get rid of a nasty virus (called "XP Antivirus2008") last week.

[kinuta]

Spybot Search & Destroy has a user's forum on their website. Post your problem in the "malware removal" forum. The moderators at SD are very knowledgeable/helpful. Small caveat - it may take 3 or 4 days before you get an initial response.

http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=288

The mods helped me get rid of a nasty virus (called "XP Antivirus2008") last week.

Thanks a lot, I'll do that.