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Thread: What is your worst Helpdesk/Tech Support Experience

  1. #1

    What is your worst Helpdesk/Tech Support Experience

    I recently had the worst helpdesk/tech support experience ever...


    A friend of mine bought an Area 51 laptop from Alienware.
    (P4 3.2, 1GB DDR RAM, 60 GB 7200 RPM HDD, ATI 9600 - 128 MB, 16.5 Display, integrated 56k modem, integrated 1Gbps NIC)

    Alienware are pretty costly, but they come hooked up. (When they work) Costs about $3500.00 ...that aint NO JOKE....

    Anyway,
    He came over to the house to play some Battlefield 1942 (Desert Combat Rocks!!) but he couldnt connect to my network. It wasnt anything on my end, I have 3 other computers running without a problem, including my laptop. I had to stop fragging people to help him out. I ran a few tests and sure enough...the integrated NIC didnt work... HA HA

    He was ****ed! He was upset for having a $3500 piece of junk.

    He got the warranty on it so I told him to call the tech support to get an RMA, I don't know why but we had the most ignorant tech I have ever talked to. I was 3 steps ahead of him. Everything he suggested I did he even had the balls to say that "this is not a game" and that he "didnt believe I rebooted the PC" . I was in shock! After 3 1/2 hours my buddy gave me the phone and I had to set things in place. It was horrible, I had to ask for a supervisor and let him have it. After another half hour with the supervisor.. they came to the same conclusion I did.. the NIC was not working... (DUH!)

    It was the worst helpdesk experience I have ever had.

    Anyway, they agreed to the RMA and now my friend is waiting for his brand new $3500 laptop.....

    =================================

    What weird/bad helpdesk experiences have you guys had?? Its always good for a laugh!

  2. #2
    Right turn Clyde Nokia's Avatar
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    Hello @tt!tud3

  3. #3
    who???

  4. #4
    AOs Resident Troll
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    You know I have dealt with tech support for many years now...and they are just trying to decern the issue....

    They have steps to follow...and I find if you treat them nicely...with respect......they will try and help you out

    Now...yes...I have bad tech support...mostly because of my female voice....

    To take 3.5 hours to resolve a bad nic....

    Tell me ...what steps did you do to gleen this information ...before you called tech support???

    Did you relate that to the tech???

    MLF
    How people treat you is their karma- how you react is yours-Wayne Dyer

  5. #5
    AO's Resident Redneck The Texan's Avatar
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    MLF thank you! I am a tech guy... I put up with alot of BS! now to be fair some cx's have legitimate beefs ( someone closes their network ticket for no damn reason at all and i get blamed for it!) anyway just realize we are trying to do our jobs to help you out and no we aren the presidents of _____ company and no we cant connect you with the president of _____ company lol.
    Git R Dun - Ty
    A tribe is wanted

  6. #6
    Senior Member
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    <monthly rant>

    Im one of those field tech guys for onsite service. The worst is having to explain to the client that ******* sent the wrong part (what a surprise). Here is this poor guy who has been dicked around on the phone by some idiot that wants to send out a CPU because the LCD is dim. And most of the time it is just some home user that wants their machine to work like it should, they have no idea what an lcd backlight is. So they get on the phone with their vendor, ask what the problem is, and the idiot on the other side of the phone doesn't know the difference between a LCD or a CPU.

    I would have serious doubts if you told me that most (mostly for a certain vendor who shall remain nameless) phone techs have the slightest clue about the most basic components of a computer.

    </monthly rant>
    phew... just need to blow off some steam every now and then.
    The fool doth think he is wise, but the wiseman knows himself to be a fool - Good Ole Bill Shakespeare

  7. #7
    Senior Member Cemetric's Avatar
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    The one that keeps calling me to ask for the correct subnetmask and gateway although they are working in this firm a lot longer then I do ...go figure ...Is it that difficult to remember a gateway and subnetmask ...they have the IP-address ... One time I had one of this dudes fill in the DNS server as gateway (I know this because I asked him to do a IPCONFIG /ALL)...then he calls me and asks me why this pc wont go on the network ... I told him I wouldn't know ...find it out ... After 2 hours he came by and said he had to replace the NIC ???

    Thank Budha for the few good men/women in tech support

    .C.
    Back when I was a boy, we carved our own IC's out of wood.

  8. #8
    Game production companies are the worst. I had a problem with the game Quake 4 (stupid openGL wasn't being initialized or something like that) and I had gotten in contact with Activision Customer Service and the idiot that got my ticket seriosly read me "the book". I seriosly predicted all of his responses and fixed the problem myself, After I fixed the problem I updated my ticket one last time thanking him for reading me his book of support and not helping one bit.

    Theer is also the time at work my supervisor requested a bigger KVM switch for this one server room and when it got in I pulled it out of the box and the word "DEAD" was written on it with a marker.

    I'm like, "Pat, I don't think this is gonna work." he goes, "Why?" I show him the KVM and then he says, "WTF!" (well he didn't say the letters, I'm sure you get the picture)

    The help desk at where I work is horrible.

  9. #9
    Frustrated Mad Scientist
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    Worst I heard of came to me after the chap had given up with the help desk. He had just bought a new D*ll (* insert vowel of choice) desktop and it was DOA. He'd spent a couple of hours on the phone to them. He was told to reformat etc etc but that would work blah blah. So he brought it in to me before he was going to sent it back.

    I plug it in and see : HD not detected, pop the case, IDE cable unplugged. Plug it in, PC no longer dead. They don't seem to teach the KISS principles on the helldesk very often.

    I've had various run ins with that particular company and very occationally very good service too.

  10. #10
    Dead Man Walking
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    I love warranty work. Actualy I love people who think thier factory warranty should cover virus and spyware infections and other stupid stuff. I actualy took a call where a customers house had exploded (dont ask, I didnt) and he thought we should give him a free laptop because his was under warranty. Do you have any idea how hard it was to not just put him on hold and piss myself laughing? I have also had to explain to one lady that a drive by shooting was not considered damage due to normal use and therfore not covered under her extended warranty

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