Worst Tech Support Experiance

XZeroII · May 29, 2002

For those of you who offer tech support to others, what is your worst experiance? I mean the one that still gives you nightmares to this very day and you still feel like telling the person on the other end of the phone wrap the phone cord around their neck and pull really hard.

Here's my story. Not long ago I received a phone call from someone who's taskbar (the one that's normally on the bottom of the screen and contains the start button) had mysteriously gone to the top of the screen. It's a simple fix really. If I were there it would take me less than 3 seconds to fix the problem (maybe 4 if was uncoordinated with the mouse that day). The phone call lasted more than 20 minutes trying to remedy the problem. Here's basically what I said to the guy: First I asked if he had any programs open. He said no. I asked again and told him that if he had any programs open he should close them now. He said ok. After trying to explain this in normal language and failing, I tried a simpler approach. 'Move your mouse over the start button. Just move it directly over the start button (everything must be said twice or three times).' He said he did that. 'Now move your mouse directly to the right until you hit the middle of the screen. Do not move up or down, just to the right. Now click the left mouse button and hold it down.' He said ok to all of this. 'Now with that mouse button down, move your mouse directly down to the bottom of the screen. When at the bottom of the screen, let go of the button.' This did not work. He kept saying something about the start button being in the middle of the screen instead of the bottom. WTF does that mean!!! Eventually I figured out that he was dragging the edge of the task bar and making the taskbar fill up half the screen. I went through the entire thing again and again and again trying to explain this in as simple terms as I could. It wasted 20 minutes of my life.

rufruf44 · May 29, 2002

LOL, wonder how you going to help him if the taskbar got minimized to the point it dissapeared from the screen ?

Linflas · May 29, 2002

The government employee that called in a ticket because he could not connect to a website. That ticket stayed in my queue for weeks because no one would would give him the final word that there was nothing we could do about websites outside the Pentagon. I tried 5 ways from Sunday to explain this simple concept to him to no avail and kept getting my gazots busted for the ticket being open. Thank god my days of help desk support are far behind me.

DocBartend · May 29, 2002

any call to Comcast is a wasted call.

GT1999 · May 29, 2002

People who call up complaining about not being able to connect and are seriously pissed off. They then tell me it's my fault and I need to fix it.

Calmly, I check their account in our billing software. I notice everything checks up. I then ask them what their username and password is, and it checks up okay. They say they are unable to connect, and it sticks are verifying username and password. I tell them to remove both the username and password on their computer and type them in lower-case letters, because that's probably what the problem is.

Of course, the pissy ones never believe it to be a problem on their end, or that they might have their caps lock key on or have their password typed incorrectly. Then once they retype both it, it fixes the problem, and they're like "oh" and hang up.

I probably get at least 3-4 of those a day, if not more. The worst ones are where people can't even talk straight, or hear a word you're saying -- or worse yet, talk when you talk, and only then. Don't forget the mom's who like to call up with their baby's at their side screaming their damn heads off. Yes people, I do have hearing I'd like to keep.

So of course I'm stressed and crap when I'm giving support. Unless if you call up with a half-way intelligent attitude while being POLITE, you're just going to get my monotone unconscious "reboot and shutup" sayings...

Viper GTS · May 29, 2002

Not really a bad experience, but I just got off the phone with this lady...

Her: I just bought a new toner cartridge in March, & now it's out again.
Me: How many pages have you printed since then?
Her: I print 500 a week maybe.
Me: Well, 500 a week is roughly 2000 a month, & the cartridge life is rated at 5000 pages @ 5% coverage... So that sounds about right.
Her: But that just seems so expensive, I pay $100 for these cartridges I feel it should last at least another month. That's why I bought this good printer (our absolute cheapest printer, with the highest per page costs - $0.02).
Me: It sounds like you're getting full cartridge life.
Her: Well, OK, but I'm a court reporter, and I print lots of pages...

Simple math, ma'am.

Thankfully most of the people I deal with now (as opposed to ISP support) are pretty decent. Most of them are employees calling about a work printer, so they're pretty laid back. Small business owners are probably the worst to deal with, they tend to be the most unreasonable.

Viper GTS

XMan · May 29, 2002

Originally posted by: Geekish Thoughts
People who call up complaining about not being able to connect and are seriously pissed off. They then tell me it's my fault and I need to fix it.

Calmly, I check their account in our billing software. I notice everything checks up. I then ask them what their username and password is, and it checks up okay. They say they are unable to connect, and it sticks are verifying username and password. I tell them to remove both the username and password on their computer and type them in lower-case letters, because that's probably what the problem is.

Of course, the pissy ones never believe it to be a problem on their end, or that they might have their caps lock key on or have their password typed incorrectly. Then once they retype both it, it fixes the problem, and they're like "oh" and hang up.

I probably get at least 3-4 of those a day, if not more. The worst ones are where people can't even talk straight, or hear a word you're saying -- or worse yet, talk when you talk, and only then. Don't forget the mom's who like to call up with their baby's at their side screaming their damn heads off. Yes people, I do have hearing I'd like to keep.

So of course I'm stressed and crap when I'm giving support. Unless if you call up with a half-way intelligent attitude while being POLITE, you're just going to get my monotone unconscious "reboot and shutup" sayings...

I don't know, man, I had that sort of problem with MSN, and I couldn't connect with ANY of my computers, and they were still insisting that my password file was corrupt. On 3 computers, simultaneously? They fixed the problem about two weeks later - the authentication server was screwed up.

gopunk · May 29, 2002

Originally posted by: Xerox Man

Originally posted by: Geekish Thoughts
People who call up complaining about not being able to connect and are seriously pissed off. They then tell me it's my fault and I need to fix it.

Calmly, I check their account in our billing software. I notice everything checks up. I then ask them what their username and password is, and it checks up okay. They say they are unable to connect, and it sticks are verifying username and password. I tell them to remove both the username and password on their computer and type them in lower-case letters, because that's probably what the problem is.

Of course, the pissy ones never believe it to be a problem on their end, or that they might have their caps lock key on or have their password typed incorrectly. Then once they retype both it, it fixes the problem, and they're like "oh" and hang up.

I probably get at least 3-4 of those a day, if not more. The worst ones are where people can't even talk straight, or hear a word you're saying -- or worse yet, talk when you talk, and only then. Don't forget the mom's who like to call up with their baby's at their side screaming their damn heads off. Yes people, I do have hearing I'd like to keep.

So of course I'm stressed and crap when I'm giving support. Unless if you call up with a half-way intelligent attitude while being POLITE, you're just going to get my monotone unconscious "reboot and shutup" sayings...

Click to expand...

I don't know, man, I had that sort of problem with MSN, and I couldn't connect with ANY of my computers, and they were still insisting that my password file was corrupt. On 3 computers, simultaneously? They fixed the problem about two weeks later - the authentication server was screwed up.

hehe, that sucks

pretty rare though... 99.9% of such calls we get, it's user error. and it really irks me how some people just say "oh" and hang up. at least have the balls to admit you were wrong, b!tch. (not you, xeroxman

)

DaiShan · May 29, 2002

Ok, I have one from the other side of the table, I called up Linksys Tech support, I was having trouble connecting my wireless network adapter to the wireless router. I had 2 other computers up and running, sharing the internet and everything. I was talking to this guy and I tell him which model number I have (BEFW11S4) and that I am having trouble routing the internet to this one computer (It was a stupid problem that I fixed after I got off the phone with him)Anyways he told me that I can't share the internet with this router, I told him to check the model number again and read it to me, he did, and I told him that I was using it at that moment and sharing my dsl to 2 computers, he told me that that was impossible because the TCP/IP does not provide for it. I politely asked him if he knew what a router did, he told me that is was something that you can connect a bunch of computers on a network to. At this point I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere with him, so I thanked him for his time, got off the phone and fixed the problem myself (input DNS info wrong)

SinnerWolf · May 29, 2002

When i was working best buy tech .....

This lady just buys a laptop, printer + cable, inks, etc...a day or so later she comes screaming into the store. Mind you, this is a semi-attractive middle aged brunette with some supposed education. She begins cussing at the top of her lungs claiming that we fried her computer and that it won't power on now. Her "computer expert" for her company comes along with her, agreeing with her that the laptop is toast. After about 2 minutes of examining it, we learn that the AC adaptor is still sealed in the box and that she merely ran the battery dead. She calms down a little bit, only to start going off about how the printer only prints in black and white, despite the printer being a photo printer. Once again we examine the item for about 2 minutes, and show her she had left the seal on the bottom of the color tank. She then proceeds to go off about why her databases aren't recognized by the laptop. 2 seconds of looking through her program list, and we try to explain to her that she doesn't have access or any other such program installed capable of reading her work files. She loses it once more, saying we are trying to milk more and more money from her. She then decides she wants to return the laptop. Upon explaining there would be a 15% restocking fee if she chose to do so since there was no defect, she hurled the laptop into a nearby wall. Keys went flying, and she finally left after ~ 2 hours of bitching. Since we had no way of contacting the brunette beast, we held the laptop for 30 days, and then had an office space moment in the back.

a mild day in retail tech. FYI rednecks and old people are the worst. An old redneck is the devil incarnate.

gopunk · May 29, 2002

Originally posted by: SinnerWolf
When i was working best buy tech .....

This lady just buys a laptop, printer + cable, inks, etc...a day or so later she comes screaming into the store. Mind you, this is a semi-attractive middle aged brunette with some supposed education. She begins cussing at the top of her lungs claiming that we fried her computer and that it won't power on now. Her "computer expert" for her company comes along with her, agreeing with her that the laptop is toast. After about 2 minutes of examining it, we learn that the AC adaptor is still sealed in the box and that she merely ran the battery dead. She calms down a little bit, only to start going off about how the printer only prints in black and white, despite the printer being a photo printer. Once again we examine the item for about 2 minutes, and show her she had left the seal on the bottom of the color tank. She then proceeds to go off about why her databases aren't recognized by the laptop. 2 seconds of looking through her program list, and we try to explain to her that she doesn't have access or any other such program installed capable of reading her work files. She loses it once more, saying we are trying to milk more and more money from her. She then decides she wants to return the laptop. Upon explaining there would be a 15% restocking fee if she chose to do so since there was no defect, she hurled the laptop into a nearby wall. Keys went flying, and she finally left after ~ 2 hours of bitching. Since we had no way of contacting the brunette beast, we held the laptop for 30 days, and then had an office space moment in the back.

a mild day in retail tech. FYI rednecks and old people are the worst. An old redneck is the devil incarnate.

wow.... i bet she's something in bed

for whatever reason, nurses and secretaries are the worse ones for us. not entirely unusual to have one yell at the top of their lungs and hang up.

Frosty3799 · May 29, 2002

Originally posted by: SinnerWolf
When i was working best buy tech .....

This lady just buys a laptop, printer + cable, inks, etc...a day or so later she comes screaming into the store. Mind you, this is a semi-attractive middle aged brunette with some supposed education. She begins cussing at the top of her lungs claiming that we fried her computer and that it won't power on now. Her "computer expert" for her company comes along with her, agreeing with her that the laptop is toast. After about 2 minutes of examining it, we learn that the AC adaptor is still sealed in the box and that she merely ran the battery dead. She calms down a little bit, only to start going off about how the printer only prints in black and white, despite the printer being a photo printer. Once again we examine the item for about 2 minutes, and show her she had left the seal on the bottom of the color tank. She then proceeds to go off about why her databases aren't recognized by the laptop. 2 seconds of looking through her program list, and we try to explain to her that she doesn't have access or any other such program installed capable of reading her work files. She loses it once more, saying we are trying to milk more and more money from her. She then decides she wants to return the laptop. Upon explaining there would be a 15% restocking fee if she chose to do so since there was no defect, she hurled the laptop into a nearby wall. Keys went flying, and she finally left after ~ 2 hours of bitching. Since we had no way of contacting the brunette beast, we held the laptop for 30 days, and then had an office space moment in the back.

a mild day in retail tech. FYI rednecks and old people are the worst. An old redneck is the devil incarnate.

bahahaha awesome

Viper GTS · May 29, 2002

pretty rare though... 99.9% of such calls we get, it's user error. and it really irks me how some people just say "oh" and hang up. at least have the balls to admit you were wrong, b!tch. (not you, xeroxman )

One of the printers I support has the power switch on the left hand side of the printer. There are two buttons on top, one of which people constantly assume is the power switch (I have no clue why).

This lady calls up, says she can't turn her printer on. I ask her a couple basic questions, then I ask her what button she's using.

Her: The one on top.
Me: The power switch is actually on the left hand side.
Her: (audible click in background, sound of laser printer coming online)
Her: I feel so stupid now.
<click>

Viper GTS

Soybomb · May 29, 2002

I had a guy yesterday who didn't know what the space bar was. He kept typing an underscore _ It took ten minutes. Telling him it was the biggest key on the whole keyboard, dead center in the bottom, right between both alt keys wasn't much help really. There had to be serious mental defect before. I've had to explain how to double click or right click before but the space key........

gopunk · May 29, 2002

Originally posted by: Viper GTS

pretty rare though... 99.9% of such calls we get, it's user error. and it really irks me how some people just say "oh" and hang up. at least have the balls to admit you were wrong, b!tch. (not you, xeroxman )

Click to expand...

One of the printers I support has the power switch on the left hand side of the printer. There are two buttons on top, one of which people constantly assume is the power switch (I have no clue why).

This lady calls up, says she can't turn her printer on. I ask her a couple basic questions, then I ask her what button she's using.

Her: The one on top.
Me: The power switch is actually on the left hand side.
Her: (audible click in background, sound of laser printer coming online)
Her: I feel so stupid now.
<click>

Viper GTS

hehe, i bet that was gratifying

i just got a call, fooled around a bit and user goes "oh, i bet this was just another dumb user error"

NikPreviousAcct · May 29, 2002

Mine's probably either the one with the customer's username of "LatinLover" that he was too embarrassed to tell me so I could bring up his account, or the lady who couldn't reach the "sugar cocks dot com" website and wanted us to fix the routing, or the lady who was offering me sex on the beach -or wherever I wanted it- and trying to hook me up with her daughter all the while yelling at her husband to shut the hell up -and then violently bursting into tears and hanging up on me when we narrowed the problem down to her ISA NIC.

nik

CraigRT · May 29, 2002

Oh such a perfect thread, I should subscribe...

I had a guy call in who uses our dial-in MLS listing service, and he kept telling me it was a software problem, and that i should help him fix it.. after he stopped bitching i found out his error message was "no dial tone" to which i explained to him nicely that it wasn't OUR problem and that he had to get his own internal support to figure out why he couldn't get a dial tone (he told me he checked all his plugs and stuff) and then he went off telling me that the "last guy he talked to was being nice about this all" well, i WAS being nice... it's hard to be frank with a freaking DOLT... the funny thing is.. I WAS THE LAST GUY HE TALKED TO.. pure stupid...the guy was off the wall.. Anyways, I told him to call a friend or something and have them check out his system and he never called back...there was no problems with the software.. i bet the modem wasn't even plugged into anything.. some people are just unbelieveable.. how do they end up with a computer when they have to call a software company for support when it says NO DIAL TONE.. omg soooo dumb.. I have so many more stupid calls too.. its ridiculous! realtors are pretty dense, and the funny thing is, alot of them say that.. they say stuff like "us realtors are really computer stupid" and i tell you.. i am sure as hell not going to disagree... :Q :disgust:

skace · May 29, 2002

Ok, this is the hardest one to support off the top of my head. I get a call telling me that they could use my help remotely to Pamona California. I'm in a New Hampshire. So I call the guy and remotely connect to his machine. His problem? When he scrolls in Explorer, it goes sorta slow. Now, this may have been hard to troubleshoot when being at the actual PC, but over a remote connection software it was damn near impossible. I had to make a bunch of changes, then scroll, see if it looked ok for me, then ask him to scroll and he would always say it seemed a little off. I finally unmapped a bunch of his drives and it seemed to speed up enough that he was happy. I still don't know whether there was an actual problem with the machine or not - since I couldn't tell over a remote connection.

I can't stand tickets over "feeling". As in: "Pc feels slow", "network connection feels slow", "Application seems to be running slow", "Things arn't working as fast as usual". Argh, those tickets are always hard because their usually isn't a problem, usually the network is just a little more bogged down than usual or whatnot. Nothing you can actually fix.

zsouthboy · May 29, 2002

Originally posted by: ffmcobalt
Mine's probably either the one with the customer's username of "LatinLover" that he was too embarrassed to tell me so I could bring up his account, or the lady who couldn't reach the "sugar cocks dot com" website and wanted us to fix the routing, or the lady who was offering me sex on the beach -or wherever I wanted it- and trying to hook me up with her daughter all the while yelling at her husband to shut the hell up -and then violently bursting into tears and hanging up on me when we narrowed the problem down to her ISA NIC.

nik

Wow, dude, you have girls CALL YOU and ask you when and where you want to do it.

zs

Kadarin · May 29, 2002

Great stories! ISP support, well, just kill me now...

I used to work for a company that built NAT routers (no, not Linksys, but a competitor).. Picture in the most hick accent imaginable: "My name is Buford Jones, and I got one o' your..." Need I say more?

I still do support, but it's now on a whole new level (no end-users, thank God!)

NikPreviousAcct · May 29, 2002

Originally posted by: zsouthboy

Originally posted by: ffmcobalt Mine's probably either the one with the customer's username of "LatinLover" that he was too embarrassed to tell me so I could bring up his account, or the lady who couldn't reach the "sugar cocks dot com" website and wanted us to fix the routing, or the lady who was offering me sex on the beach -or wherever I wanted it- and trying to hook me up with her daughter all the while yelling at her husband to shut the hell up -and then violently bursting into tears and hanging up on me when we narrowed the problem down to her ISA NIC. nik

Click to expand...

Wow, dude, you have girls CALL YOU and ask you when and where you want to do it. zs

Yes, actually, and I've been hit on by men while on the job :|

nik

metallibloke · May 29, 2002

Not exactly a nightmare, but it frustrated the hell outta me!!

A few weeks ago, a lady calls me up and says her computer is too loud. So it go to her office, thinking it might just be a PSU fan thats on its way out. When I get there everything seems fine. She tells me that its far too loud, giving her headaches, and she has to shout so her boss can hear (they have adjoining rooms and have the door open all day). Her room isnt very big, so explain about the fact that in such a small room, you're going to notice it rather than if you were in a big room, etc. At university, I studied Human-Computer Interaction, which was all things like the effects of certain things like colour, types of interface, work environment (lighting, positioning) etc, so i know what I'm talking about.

Her: "I'm sorry, i dont believe that"
Me: "i didnt make the laws of physics"
Her: "I need a new pc, that will definitly solve it"
Me: "Not necessarily."
Her: "I've been in other peoples rooms with identical machines and theirs arent this noisy"
Me: "I garuntee you havent because you are the only one on site with this type of machine" (not strictly true, but I wasnt going to let her get the better of me!)
Her: "Its too loud, I'm going to get health and saefty involved, then you'll have to get me a new machine"
Me: "Health and safety will more than likely just say what I've already told you"
Her: "No they wont, they'll be able to hear it for themselves, I need a new pc"
Me: "Call Health and Safety if you want, I'm off to tell my boss, lets see what he says"
Her: "No dont do that" (slight panick in her voice) "He wont do anything about it"
Me: "He wont do anything about it, because there is nothing to do, Bye"

and left it at that. I see my boss later and he said that we would change the PSU just to show that we were doing something, and surprise, surprise, it didnt make any difference!!

XZeroII · May 29, 2002

Originally posted by: skace
Ok, this is the hardest one to support off the top of my head. I get a call telling me that they could use my help remotely to Pamona California. I'm in a New Hampshire. So I call the guy and remotely connect to his machine. His problem? When he scrolls in Explorer, it goes sorta slow. Now, this may have been hard to troubleshoot when being at the actual PC, but over a remote connection software it was damn near impossible. I had to make a bunch of changes, then scroll, see if it looked ok for me, then ask him to scroll and he would always say it seemed a little off. I finally unmapped a bunch of his drives and it seemed to speed up enough that he was happy. I still don't know whether there was an actual problem with the machine or not - since I couldn't tell over a remote connection.

I can't stand tickets over "feeling". As in: "Pc feels slow", "network connection feels slow", "Application seems to be running slow", "Things arn't working as fast as usual". Argh, those tickets are always hard because their usually isn't a problem, usually the network is just a little more bogged down than usual or whatnot. Nothing you can actually fix.

lol, I've gotten a lot of them. Especially with people who have a 2gig hard drive, and there is only like 10mb free. Since I build computers, I also like the people who show me ads for BestBuy and ask if such and such computer is any good and if they should get it.

XZeroII · May 29, 2002

My story above is not the first time this customer has needed help either (the very top story). I've had to explain the internet like 3 times to him. I went to his house to help him with something in word, and he starts up his computer and dials into the internet. I ask him why. He says that he needs to go onto the internet in order to use word. 3 TIMES I HAD TO EXPERIANCE THIS AND EXPLAIN WHY HE DIDN'T NEED TO DO IT! He also wanted to upgrade his computer so it would be faster. I went over a bunch of things with him, what he could save from his old computer and what it would cost to replace the old stuff. After all this, he is excited that his internet will go faster

Back to square one and explain that this will not make his internet go faster. He needs a broadband connection to speed up his internet (which I've already explained 3 times already on different occasions). Cancels upgrade.

freegeeks · May 29, 2002

a year ago I did ADSL support for a telco company. I helped someone to get back online (some driver problem with his USB modem)
I solve the problem and ask him to connect and try to surf a bit to see if everything is OK --
after 30 minutes of holding his hand to get the driver installed the fun began

Me: start your web browser and try to surf
Him: web browser???
Me: Just double-click the big blue E on your desktop
Him: ooohhh ok -- click click -- It's working now
Me: Try some different websites -- I want to be sure that everything is ok
Him: different website ??????
Me: uuuuhhhh -- just type another address in the address bar on top, the place on top with http://...... and so on
Him: what do you mean ????
Me: You do know that you can type another address so you can surf to another website ???
Him: No -- when I start the big blue E I have The Internet (yes -- you guessed it -- his home page)
Me: Sir, don't tell me you are surfing for more then a year on one web site -- just your home page (the portal website from his ISP)
Him: Yes
Me: you are a disgrace for broadband -- get some basic "how to use my PC and the internet" training or get a dial-up connection --

##Click##

I'm so glad that I don't have to give support to stupid end-users anymore --

Worst Tech Support Experiance

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