Technical Support

[Jaxxxson Mayhem]

Share your horror stories of your experience with these incompetent assholes.

I am trying to find out some info on my motherboard so I can buy a new power supply that will match up with it. I talked to Intel online and they said they don't have any info on it and said to call Sony since it came with it originally. I talked to Sony online and they said to call a different number. I ended up getting an insane run around. I had to call 6 different numbers and got transferred another 3 times just to find out they know nothing about the motherboard and can't give me any info. Fucking India didn't help me at all. All I wanted were some specs on a fucking motherboard. Nothing. They couldn't give me anything.

 

[Jaxxxson Mayhem]

Forgot to mention it took about 2 hours.

 

[Smues]

I've had plenty of pleasant tech support experiences, but the bad ones certainly stick out in your memory more. One thing I hate in general is when they have hold music, but cut it out every 35 seconds to either play ads for their company or thank you for holding. Just let me listen to the music damnit!

So yeah the worst one I remember:
When I was scheduling one of the sections of the CPA exam the website gave me an error when I got to the end of the process, and then when I tried to start over it said my test code had already been used, but I wasn't actually scheduled for the exam. So I called tech support. Long time on hold, I think it was in the range of 15-20 minutes, talk to someone who then puts me on hold to look into it, another 10-15 minutes, she's back and think she has it ok hold again for a few minutes, ok she's back and figured it out she just needs a supervisor to authorize whatever she has to do in the system and then I'll be good so let me put you back on hold. I've been on the phone forever at this point, but the lady was friendly and was going to fix my problem, so I didn't mind. Then after another 20 minutes on hold I get 'Thank you for calling (whoever) how can I help you today.'

...

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK.

I explain my situation and say that I had been helped and whoever was helping me knew how to fix the problem, ok let's try and find them, hold again (this may have been the longest phone call of my life), lady comes back and says she can't find whoever I was talking to and has no idea, so let's start over. AHHHHHH. Ok explain the problem, she goes digging and I get put on hold a couple of more times but really I've lost count by this time. End result is she does NOT know how to fix the problem, nor does anyone she can talk to, so they'll look into it and call me back within a week. Pretty sure after I hung up the phone there was a lot of desk slamming and cursing originating from my office.

And of course I waited two weeks and never got a call back, so I had to call again, no one could find a record of my previous call and we started all over again, although this time they did actually solve my problem.

 

[Jaxxxson Mayhem]

Hold times and a shit ton of transferring piss me off the most.

You're right about the pleasant times though. There are some good dudes out there that really help and I'm always thankful when I get one. Usually if I'm kicked over to India for support it can either go really well or really fucking awful. Today was one of those times when it was horrible.

 

[oldskool]

I somehow killed my DISH remote during RAW last night and online help was incompetent. Was asked at least four times to enter things on my remote to reach certain screens, thankfully I'd already found the workaround instructions to get to those screens via the receiver itself.

Finally got transferred to Tier 2 support where a nice lady named Danielle actually asked me intelligent questions & helped me diagnose the dead remotes versus blindly asking me to reset the thing & change the batteries.

 

[Master Thrasher]

I've been given the run around when it comes to ISP tech support. Restarted the modem, router, and the computer and it doesn't connect me to the internet. I finally get connected to L2 tech support that says the nodes in LA are down and will up shortly. Why couldn't the L1 people say that the service was down in SoCal?

 

[Smues]

I've been given the run around when it comes to ISP tech support. Restarted the modem, router, and the computer and it doesn't connect me to the internet. I finally get connected to L2 tech support that says the nodes in LA are down and will up shortly. Why couldn't the L1 people say that the service was down in SoCal?

Oh man ISP tech support can fuck right off. About ten years ago our cable internet went to shit. It worked for a minute here and there but for the better part of over a week it was busted. We called the company at least once a day and EVERY fucking time had to go through reseting and unplugging and re-entering our login info and all that. They ignored the fact that my friend a few blocks away in the same neighborhood had the same problem, no no it must be us we're stupid! Finally after a week my friend gets lucky and gets ahold of a non incompetant tech support guy who says oh there's an outage of something or other in your area, been out for over a week, just click this and this and that and you should be able to run ok until we get the problem fixed. WHY THE FUCK couldn't they have told the basic tech support people about this problem in our area?

Then the next year some friends of mine got DSL, and it just would not fucking work. It wasn't the computer because others I brought over wouldn't work either, but if I took there computer to another connection it worked fine. They played the tech support game and every time it was the usual reset this etc. etc. and they just refused to believe it wasn't them being stupid. Finally after two weeks of this they send a guy to their house, and hey what do you know it was a problem on the providers end of things.

The early days of high speed internet really blew.

 

[Agent of Oblivion]

The guys that take care of the logistics software at work are awesome as fuck. They're on the shit fast since there's a bunch of money on the line, and not just some dope and his PC. By far the best tech bridge call I was involved with was when some janitor at the data processing center for the entire eastern US half of the company fucking unplugged a really important server to plug in a floor waxer. True story. Took down like eight warehouses.

Some guy: "Uh, Greg. I'm in the server room right now..."
Greg: "Ok....?"
Some guy: "Um...can I ask everyone's network status right now?"
Chorus of management/in house support guys: "Hey, we're up."

I IM the guy after the call, and yes indeed. Floor waxer. I was just amazed it was even possible more than anything.

 

[vivisectvi]

I've been on both sides of this fence with this. While a lot of tech support people are complete pricks, FWIW, a lot of computer users (like most of the population) are complete and utter morons.

 

[Jaxxxson Mayhem]

The guys that take care of the logistics software at work are awesome as fuck. They're on the shit fast since there's a bunch of money on the line, and not just some dope and his PC. By far the best tech bridge call I was involved with was when some janitor at the data processing center for the entire eastern US half of the company fucking unplugged a really important server to plug in a floor waxer. True story. Took down like eight warehouses.

Some guy: "Uh, Greg. I'm in the server room right now..."
Greg: "Ok....?"
Some guy: "Um...can I ask everyone's network status right now?"
Chorus of management/in house support guys: "Hey, we're up."

I IM the guy after the call, and yes indeed. Floor waxer. I was just amazed it was even possible more than anything.

Yeah, I'm surprised that was even possible to do.

I've been on both sides of this fence with this. While a lot of tech support people are complete pricks, FWIW, a lot of computer users (like most of the population) are complete and utter morons.

This is very true.

 

[Agent of Oblivion]

This is old and probably fake, but I thought it was funny the first time I read it.

True story from a Novell NetWare Sysop:
Caller: "Hello, is this Tech Support?"
Tech: "Yes, it is. How may I help you?"
Caller: "The cup holder on my PC is broken and I am within my warranty period. How do I go about getting that fixed?"
Tech: "I'm sorry, but did you say a cup holder?"
Caller: "Yes, it's attached to the front of my computer."
Tech: "Please excuse me. If I seem a bit stumped, it's because I am. Did you receive this as part of a promotional at a trade show? How did you get this cup holder?
Caller: It came with my computer. I don't know anything about a promotion. It just has '4X' on it."

 

[AntiLeaf33]

I've been in the tech support industry for about 8 years now. Some support reps are beyond retarded, or just don't have the technical background to make heads or tails of the situation. Reps aren't the only idiots, as some customers are beyond helping, but ignorant enough to voice their displeasure on the situation.

I've had some interesting stories from the year highlighted by a man in Texas who shot his computer while he was on the phone with me because his $10 network card on his computer was toast. This is my best story though:

Idiot: My cell phone turns off every time I get an incoming call
Me: What are you doing when you get a call
Idiot:I press the "press while receiving" button
Me: What button?
Idiot: You know the Press While Receiving button? PWR?

I wish I made that up.