Stupid Tech support: Where do they hire these people??

[carlyn]

So I get a complaint from an email customer Friday, saying that any email she sends is getting tagged as spam (even when she sends it someone on AOL!! )

So, I get her to forward me the flagged email.. Of course I receive it flagged with a Spamassassin score of 13.
Reading the SA report, she is sending from an IP address that is listed in several sender blacklists. She insists it's our server. I tell her we do not flag outgoing email as spam or not-spam - only incoming.
I tell her to reset her DSL connection and call her ISP about the IP address in question.(which I tell her to write down)
I also tell her to scan her computer and any others using that connection for viruses, etc.
So she calls her ISP....
An hour later, I get this really pissy email from her (no longer flagged as spam because she now has a different IP address after resetting her connection)
[ISP] told me that they only provide the *internet* connection and that my email has nothing to do with that!

Why must idiots be hired? Now this lady thinks it's our server and will not be convinced otherwise because the "experts" at her ISP don't know what the hell they're talking about!
Talk about the blind leading the blind.

[HawaiianShirts]

Why must idiots be hired?
Talk about the blind leading the blind.

Because the world is full of idiots. If they didn't get jobs, the intelligent people out there would each be doing the work of twenty.

I don't mind them being hired. Hiring managers make mistakes sometimes, thinking that a nice suit and a poised interview equate to intelligence and work ethic. What I mind is them staying hired once it is proven that they are incompetent.

Can't say I've ever had a run-in with stupid tech support. I've had co-workers who fall into that category, though. One (the guy we call Mario) is still around.

Nice older lady comes in, finds Mario, and describes a monitor problem she's having. Her problem sounded like either the monitor was going out (it was old, according to her) or the cable was having connection issues. But what does Mario do? He hands her an external hard drive and tells her that it will solve the problem, never explaining exactly what it is or what it will do. Luckily, I was working on another aisle and managed to catch her before she left. She bought the hard drive anyway once I told her what it was, thinking now was as good a time as any to do a backup, and went home with instructions to check the monitor cable. She was back a day or two later for a new VGA cable because hers had somehow lost a pin or two.

Mario is also in the habit of telling customers that printers only come with enough ink for five pages of text or one photo, that DVD+R discs hold more data than DVD-R, and Sony and Toshiba are the same company. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

[BravoOrig]

Its even worse when the ISP escalates an issue with an address on the DNS servers and their DNS host says its not their problem. Specifiaclly a customer could not get to a website. We could get to it on our call center computers on the corporate network, but could not do the same on training pc's hooked to cable modems. We had tested and also had the customer test inputting different DNS server addresses and we could get to that site. Escalate it to our DNS host, they claim its a problem with the website.

Same thing with our own IT department, I don't have right-click access like I should for the additional stuff I have to do. Do they login as me and try it? No! They logged in as administrator and found no problem using right-click. GENIUSES!

[tollbaby]

Why must idiots be hired? Now this lady thinks it's our server and will not be convinced otherwise because the "experts" at her ISP don't know what the hell they're talking about!
Talk about the blind leading the blind.

If it makes you feel any better, my ISP blocks port 25 for outgoing mail... I'm trying to set up a 3rd party pop3 e-mail account, so I phone them to get it unblocked. The tech I spoke to told me, "We don't block ports here, it's not our problem. You'll have to call Microsoft."

Microsoft. Right. I'll get Bill Gates to come over personally to unblock the port that's blocked at YOUR END. Argh. I couldn't get her to listen to me, and she actually said to me, "Ma'am, if you don't understand how to use e-mail, maybe you shouldn't be using it"... *SCREAM*

That's how I discovered that my ISP's tech support was outsourced to India.

[sld72382]

The problem I have with pretty much all the major broadband ISPs is that if you have rented a modem from them, they will pretty much point fingers at everything but the modem itself if there is a problem in order to get out of replacing it.

We had a woman try to have one of our techs out because her ISP said it's not their problem. OK, if she tried the cable modem on two different PCs and two outlets and it still doesn't work (and she said that to them), it IS their problem! Needless to say, we didn't schedule her because it would be a waste of time.

Strangely if the issue is with a modem you bought yourself they seem to have no trouble telling you it's bad and you need to replace it.

[sld72382]

Mario is also in the habit of telling customers that printers only come with enough ink for five pages of text or one photo

That used to be trued - 5 years ago.

Nowadays printers don't come with "starter cartridges" as we used to call them but the cartridges that come in the box are usually "standard capacity" ones, most printers have "large capacity" cartridges you can buy for extra cost.

Seems like Mario is trying to stretch the truth to get his "attachment" rates up.

[carlyn]

If it makes you feel any better, my ISP blocks port 25 for outgoing mail... I'm trying to set up a 3rd party pop3 e-mail account, so I phone them to get it unblocked. The tech I spoke to told me, "We don't block ports here, it's not our problem. You'll have to call Microsoft."

So many ISP's block port 25 that I've made it standard practice to have our email clients set up their outgoing email to use port 587 or 8080. Of course, that usually adds another 5-10 minutes to the call.
I have explicit instructions for most major email software, with SCREEN SHOTS, and still some people just don't get it!!
Out of curiosity, I searched the mail log for the sample username I show in my screen shots.. 540 times it came up, login failed for "you@yourdomainname.com".
I thought ok maybe 1 client used that and thier email client checks POP3 every few minutes. Wrong I was. There were 4 or 5 different clients.

I swear... and those are the ones who will call and say "well, I think something is wrong with my email, I set it up just like you told me to" ... and insist over and over that they are using the correct username, and will FINALLY begrudgingly read you what they typed in the boxes... And then 45 minutes later, when they finally get a successful "Test Account Settings" will click "Cancel" ..

Bleh!!
Feh to all of them! FEH!

[draggar]

So many ISP's block port 25 that I've made it standard practice to have our email clients set up their outgoing email to use port 587 or 8080. Of course, that usually adds another 5-10 minutes to the call.

My hosting company blocks port 25 and they have specific instructions on how to set your email client up for port 587.

Its not uncommon at all.

[tollbaby]

yeah, well my ISP refuses to admit they even block the port, and won't help me at all. They keep telling me to call Microsoft *sigh*

[Kilamon]

Out of curiosity, I searched the mail log for the sample username I show in my screen shots.. 540 times it came up, login failed for "you@yourdomainname.com".
I thought ok maybe 1 client used that and thier email client checks POP3 every few minutes. Wrong I was. There were 4 or 5 different clients.
Feh to all of them! FEH!

I did the same thing. I set up a file with instructions for ftp users to log in and they use "username" and "password" in the appropiate boxes. Multiple IP Sources, multiple attempts from each.... They even call me up and are irate because their account isn't working. *sigh*

[NightWolf]

I feel most of your pains. I worked in tech support for over 3 years. It was a local company, but we still had the same calls you all get. Problem is, we had a few lazy slackasses that just refused to actually solve the problem instead of just giving them a half-assed solution to get them off the phone. That seems to be the most common issue today. "I don't really care what your problem is, I just want you out of my ear."

9 times out of 10, this is the case with finger pointing. Too lazy to actually look into the real problem, or just don't care.

If it makes anyone feel any better, I was one of the tech support reps that actually took a stance of, "no, you're more than likely right. There more than likely is an issue on our end and nobody's told us anything yet." Then I'd get their # and call them back after some bitching to the people that thought they mattered in the company.

[XXDarrienX]

I get those calls all the time, and after looking at the notes the rep sent a hit to the box to refresh it and tell them to call back in 15 minutes. Sometimes the other troubleshooting procedure worked and sometimes it didn't but man how incompetent or lazy do you have to be to have a customer call back as if the high call volume is not enough.