National treat BuggedMei like an idiot week.

[BuggedMei]

Why did I miss the memo?

I check my bank account daily. Just in case.
I log in and it says that my account has been suspended and to call the number below to find out why. I log out and log in again (maybe I mis-typed something) and the same message pops up.

Panic! Called the number, spent 10 minutes navigating menus to talk to a human being. I go through the security things to prove I am me, and this conversation beings...

Mei: Alright, I logged in to my bank account today and I got a "account suspended" message. Whats going on?
Phone Rep: Well, lets make sure you have the right login info. Your user name is Bu... bugg..
Me: BuggedMei. I know my login name, I logged out and back in to make sure.
PR: That is spelt B-u-g
Me: g-g-e-d-m-e-i... i can spell it as well. I would just like to know why my account is suspended, please.
PR: Now lets reset your password, can you verify your email on file?
Me: .....blank@gmail.com or otherblank@gmail.com. I'm not sure which one is on file.
PR: Alright, thats correct. Now we will s-
Me: Which one?
PR: The gmail.com one. Now, an em-
Me: ... they are both gmail emails. Which one?
PR: The gmail one, ma'mn, Please stop interrupting me.
Me: ..............Ok, please, why is my account suspended.
PR: An email will be sent to your gmail.com account which will change your password.
Me: Can I please speak to another rep?
PR: Have a good day now!
*click*

........Thankfully, the email seemed to reopen my account.


---
I'm mildly experienced with the workings of computers. I've built my own and I can often fix most problems on my own.

My laptop's screen up and dies on me three weeks before school starts. I haven't replaced a laptop screen before or really worked on a laptop so I get recommended to this shop which takes my laptop in, gives me an estimate, and the promise they will start working "immediately". I specifically tell them a folder of files to back up if they need to reformat for any reason and to call me before doing so. it is written down on an order form. (I didn't have an external monitor laying around to back said files up)

About a week later they call me and tell me my laptop's motherboard is dead. Its an old laptop, repairing it would be too costly, I tell them I'll be around later that evening to pick him up. As I was walking in the door my laptop is fixed! Now, my laptop somewhere along the line got a little dead pixel spot on his LCD. It annoyed the piss out of me but I never found a reason to go and get it fixed because why spend $200+ when it was not harming anything. This spot has been here for over a year now.

Two hours later, the screen dies again. Funny thing, the dead pixel is still there! In the same spot!

I bring him back the next morning with the ultimatum to either fix the screen this time, or I'd like my money back. (Minus the initial repair fee, since I was paying for the new screen + repair fee) Two weeks pass and no phonecall. I call the shop a few times, at different times, and the tech is always out, or on lunch breaks. Finally, they get back to me, my laptop is "dead"(they knew for over a week, as well), and they will refund only a third of the total repair costs. The tech tells me the laptop will work with an external monitor (how can it be "dead" then..) I pick him up, furious.

I borrow my friends monitor and go to recover my files. Turns out my laptop has been formatted and partitioned into five random little sizes. Two of the five have files on them, none of them mine. My order form states they were not to reformat without calling. There is no OS on my laptop either.

I call them up demanding to speak to the owner, manager, whoever. They take a message and say they will call back as soon as they are in. No call back yet. I called a second time but got voicemail.

I'm pretty miffed I lost all these files (I know I should have kept a backup, but I was writing on a train >_> I didn't have my usual option of emailing them to myself) and I'm really pissed they wont return my calls. I also have a pretty good reason to believe they didn't replace my LCD as well since my favorite dot was still there!

---

College time means spending an arm, leg, and spleen for textbooks! I was assigned a reader which was fairly inexpensive compared to my other books and went to pick it up from the school bookstore. Our professor also assigned a reading out of it since we had a long break to our next meeting and guaranteed us there would be enough copies of the book in the school bookstore. Off I went...

I showed the sales girl the class syllabus that showed the section, class number, and book title.

Sales Girl: Oh, we don't have any books for this class.
Me: o.o? This was the assigned text... um.. is it going to be ordered or can I order it?
SG: We didn't get an order for this class.
Me: Are you sure? Professor G said the book would be here and there would be enough copies..
SG: Well, Professor G is a liar. I have other customers, so please leave.

and she walked away.

Mass email was sent to my class that night from my professor stating that he did order the book, but by phone and not on the automatic electronic system and his order got lost. It will take six to eight weeks for the books to come into the bookstore.

...and the reading assignment is still due next week! (Anyone have a copy of Beowulf I can borrow?)

[gremcint]

beowulf's been around long enough that there's probably a free online version somewhere legally.

Go in and ask for your old laptop screen back, if you are not under warranty and paying for the repair then the part is still yours unless you told them to throw it out and if they actually did replace it then you should have got the old screen back, also I don't know if screens have serial numbers but you could look and see.

[Aisling]

Look online, there are digital or audio versions of a lot of books available. Which translation of Beowulf are you using?

[Gawdzillers]

I showed the sales girl the class syllabus that showed the section, class number, and book title.

Sales Girl: Oh, we don't have any books for this class.
Me: o.o? This was the assigned text... um.. is it going to be ordered or can I order it?
SG: We didn't get an order for this class.
Me: Are you sure? Professor G said the book would be here and there would be enough copies..
SG: Well, Professor G is a liar. I have other customers, so please leave.

and she walked away.

Mass email was sent to my class that night from my professor stating that he did order the book, but by phone and not on the automatic electronic system and his order got lost. It will take six to eight weeks for the books to come into the bookstore.

...and the reading assignment is still due next week! (Anyone have a copy of Beowulf I can borrow?)

She needs to change her tampon. I would have cussed her like a dog for being that rude.
And I do have a copy of Beowulf. What is the professor's major malfunction to still keep the assignment due when he knows the book isn't available?

[BlaqueKatt]

beowulf's been around long enough that there's probably a free online version somewhere legally.

yup-here's four of them

[bankworking]

And I do have a copy of Beowulf. What is the professor's major malfunction to still keep the assignment due when he knows the book isn't available?

It's Beowulf. Shouldn't that be available in pretty much every bookstore around? Plus half a zillion places online. Sure it'd be great to get the exact edition that the prof is using, but it really shouldn't be that hard to get the book in time to read a few chapters.

But I guess I was kinda spoiled in English classes since generally my mom had a copy of whatever classic that I could borrow if I needed to (though those were one type of book I enjoyed buying since I generally kept them).

[MaggieTheCat]

Man, oh man, there are at least 4 necks I'd be going after, after encounters like that:

The call center rep you talked to regarding your bank account. Did he truly not understand that your account appeared as suspended, or was he just stupid? Either way, he was very rude for telling you to not interrupt (I think that should have been your job) and then for disconnecting the call before you were done with your inquiry. I would be talking to a manager about this.

The computer shop...definitely talk to a manager or owner or whoever you can...and, I don't know how much data you lost and how valuable it was, but, my husband said you may be able to sue them for it, depending on the laws in your area and if you had it in writing that you specifically wanted them to back it up (which, if I read your post right, you did.)

The clerk at the bookstore. Completely uncalled for and, again, rude. What the hell is it with customer service reps being jackasses lately? I know customers are rude and disgusting some times, but it's a clerk's job to help a customer and answer simple questions like "Do you have this book" and "Can I order it" without having an attitude about it.

Lastly, the prof of your class. He's seriously going to continue assigning stuff out of a text that no one in the class can get from the bookstore for 6 weeks? Unless he can get another source of that text soon, that is available to everyone in the class, I would talk to the dean about that. I know it's available online, but what if someone doesn't have internet access in their home/dorm? Is it possible they can do the reading for it on campus in a computer lab or library?

What a bunch of suck all piled into a short amount of time. I'm sorry you had to deal with all that. *offers chocolate chocolate chip cookies*

[wagegoth]

I think a call to the computer shop mentioning that you'll be pursuing a case in small claims court unless you hear back from them in X days. Follow that up with a letter stating the same thing. Then don't back down. They owe you way more than the money you already gave them.

And definitely complain to the textbook shop manager. The clerk's behavior was completely out of line.

[BuggedMei]

Thank you for the Beowulf link! I have no idea what translation we should be reading.. I was just instructed to read it. *shrug*

I'm really furious about the laptop bit. Its a really nice machine but I really think I got the run around with these people. I keep calling on my lunch breaks, my only real sanity time from work/class, but the managers/owners are often away (at 2pm? really?). I don't really have the money to drop on a new laptop but its almost a necessity with the amount of time I spend away from my desktop at home. Dell wants $800 just to even look at it after I described the problem to them.

The files I lost weren't...erm... ok, to me, the loss of these story and novel bits is KILLING me. I'm desperately trying to find a way to recover the info. I was almost in tears when I saw it was reformatted. I plugged the hard drive into my desktop and I'm running recovery.. or trying...

It wasn't school work or important in terms of general info, but god dammit, that was close to 20k words of a novel that just went missing. I'm sure someone is going to come down on me about backing up my files too...

[Akasa]

You gave orders to back up certain files before a reformat was to be done, and contact you before it be was done. Neither happened. Store at fault. You have a case.

[alcaholjunkie]

Chances are that they didn't do a low-level format, so a lot of your data should still be on the hard drive. (besides anything that was overwritten by new files due to the reformatting)

There are plenty of file recovery tools out there, like Piriform's Recuva comes to mind. (has a portbale version which can run from a usb stick/drive so you don't overwrite deleted data by installing) Can download it from The builds page (Comes as a zip file called rcsetup138.zip, but it's not the installer and it has both 32bit and 64bit builds in same package, just save it directly to a usb drive and extract it there and run.)

Edit: just had a little run through of that app myself, basically a wizard and you choose the files types and locations (can look everywhere for any file type), and results in a list of deleted files and states if they can be recovered or not.

[BuggedMei]

Thank you! I hope it works. ; ;!

[C. Cecil Ivanish]

PR: The gmail one, ma'mn, Please stop interrupting me.

Please... WHAT?
This is quite unacceptable already. OK, the guy was not listening to you, but he pretty much asked you to STFU? No good.

SG: Well, Professor G is a liar.

I hope Professor G was told about this and that he complained through official channels.

(Anyone have a copy of Beowulf I can borrow?)

Ach, if you bother going to Italy and pick it up mine MIGHT still be around somewhere...

[WinterWolf]

http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

This has worked well for me. I actually use an older version.

PM me if you need help.

[ThirdGenRetail]

Can Geek Squad or someone like that try to recover your stuff...? I also wanna know something... How did they partition it into -5- partitions?! I've only ever seen up to two partitions, but -5-?!

Is there somebody you can talk to about that book store girl's attitude? Because that was very uncalled for. What if you had other stuff you were going to buy there? They just lost business. And word of mouth can be powerful in this kind of case... You may be able to also check out a copy of Beowulf from a nearby library, if your classmates haven't beat you to it. Yay, free! XD