Most Ridiculous Reasons to Call Tech Support

[gunsage]

Here's a good one. As mentioned in my profile, I'm a tier 3 tech. What does that mean? It means I don't follow a script a la tier 2, nor am I customer service aka tier 1. For the record...

Tier 1 primarily deals with cable issues, but also act as the front lines for bill payments, promise to pay, and a general redirect for other departments. I'm sure they deal with mountains of $h!t.

Tier 2 primarily deals with standard cable internet service. I'm almost certain they get their steps via a script, because rarely is there deviation, but often are there "logic" errors (more on that in future rants, surely).

Tier 3 deals with the tough stuff. Not only do we deal with customers who've probably been transferred 4 times, etc. and are rightfully p!$$3d, we deal with VOIP, advanced cable internet issues, etc. Only we and tier 1 can set up trouble calls, though I question the notes in certain tier 1 trouble calls.

ANYWAY, tier 2 transfers me a customer with a "DHCP server error" issue. I find these both amusing and annoying because what it boils down to is that they've expended their steps and are about to tap the liability bubble, as it were, so it's time to transfer to us...I guess.

It's amusing because they honestly have no idea what we do after that point or what we can access (which is cause for amusing situations whereupon I've caught them in blatant lies), but it's annoying because it generally means that unless they didn't do their legwork (often, unfortunately), I only have a few steps to relay to the customer before an unfortunate system restore or possibly taking it to the computer shop (your wallet says "ouchie").

So I believe the tier 2 agent and take the ticket (despite the fact that I later found a number of lies that I promptly reported in the feedback section) only to experience the following conversation...

Me: "Thank you for calling *Company Name*'s level 3 department. My name is *Gun Sage*, how can I help you?"

Cust: "Um, yes, I have a ticket number."

Me: "Yep, I've got that! It appears you cannot get online, right?"

Cust: "Um, well...I can't turn on my computer."

(pause)

Me: "...Okay. Now, by turn on your computer, you mean you can't bring up your Internet?"

Cust: "No, anytime I try to turn on my computer...well, it doesn't turn on at all."

Me: "...Alright, well, unfortunately, you may have to have that looked at because that could be a failed power supply, cord, etc. Make absolutely sure it's plugged in and-"

Cust: "Well, I did that. In fact, I tried a couple of different plugs, and they didn't work."

(at this point you may be wondering what, if anything, this has to do with cable internet...you'll see)

Me: "Well, ma'am, unfortunately there isn't much I can do about that except to advise you to take that to your local computer shop-"

Cust: "Okay, but...my pc activity light isn't coming on on my modem, so I thought..."

(there it is)

Me: "Well, actually, it's not coming on because it isn't detecting a connection."

Cust: "Oh, I see. Well thanks!"

The customer sounded like a very nice lady, given the circumstances. Granted, that was kind of silly, but the primary reason I list this incident is because it proves just how DECEPTIVE and LAZY our tier 2 agents can be. The sad part is...even tier 1 could've figured this out.

[BravoOrig]

Luckily our Tier1 handles the customers and they have the leads and sups for help or to escalate customers. Tier2 handles tickets sent up and sending few customers up to a software vendor we use. Tier 3 and 4 don't know what a customer is, they're on the network end of things.

[greensinestro]

The call I had yesterday: Woman called in saying she was having problems with her DSL, and it turned out she just received the DSL package and had not yet bothered to do the installation herself! Okay, so what was the problem she was reporting? Damned if I know, except I think it was she wanted someone to hold her hand instead of her reading and following the instructions in her kit.

[Abstruse]

I work technical support for a government agency, which means I get people calling us all the time for stuff like Human Resources forms and forms for this and forms for that (it's the government). However, the whole bit where I say "Thank you for calling ___ TECHNICAL SUPPORT" seems to go in one ear and out a completely different oriface.

My favorite, though, was the man who called up saying it was an URGENT matter, that he was not a ___ employee, but he was about to go in front of the Supreme Court and needed to be connected to ___ (different agency) Security immediately. This was 8 PM on a Sunday. Took me ten minutes to convence the guy he had the wrong number without actually calling him a crackpot.

[gunsage]

Luckily our Tier1 handles the customers and they have the leads and sups for help or to escalate customers. Tier2 handles tickets sent up and sending few customers up to a software vendor we use. Tier 3 and 4 don't know what a customer is, they're on the network end of things.

Yeah, we have a network group that handles the REALLY tricky stuff (data discrepancies between systems, customer can't call only certain numbers, etc.), but tier 3 primarily only receives abuse in the form of cold transfers, which leads me to an important point...

SOMETIMES THE WORST KIND OF SUCK IS THAT OF A FELLOW COWORKER.

I HATE cleaning up after someone, ESPECIALLY if the customer was given BS info just to get them off the call. For example...

"Yeah, the last guy was saying that X Box Live is handled solely through you! So did their support staff!"

Whoops. Sorry, but we only show you how to log into your modem/router (if it's one of ours, anyway) and where to go provided on data they've given you...but if all they said us "Uhh...contact your ISP," well we're in quite a pickle, aren't we? Especially if the previous agent isn't ballsy enough to say "Sorry, they lied, call them back" just like I'm going to have to.

Maybe it's because of my prior work in security, but I have a tendency NOT to let people intimidate me. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed, but it's important to pause, breathe, and continue, regardless of how ridiculous the situation. That and if they're being uncooperative, I can't very well help them, especially if I've lost my cool too, right?

[BravoOrig]

I get a sick pleasure out of disabling email addresses of customers who have discontinued service. Now alot of times the email address stays linked to their old account doesn't get transferred, that's fine. What I love is recieving email asking for support with some issue pertaining to email, and not being able to find an active account for the customer. I do help with the issue and ask for their active account number so I can put in the transfer.

Last night I recieved a email from someone proclaiming their love for their boyfriend. Email address linked to an old account, and I exhausted all searches to find the customer at a new location. Guess who's email address got suspended? I didn't think the message was worth replying to, plus their account was charged off due to bankruptcy. What do I get tonight? An email from them through the website form asking why their email addresses were suspended. Apparently someone had told them they would stay active forever, just like AOL does.

Unfortunately they did not provide an alternate email address and I can't call anyone at night. If they had simply disconnected services or moved to an area where we don't have service, I could work with that. Just reenable their email and advise them to migrate to a new address, then shut it down later. But when there's no evidence on the account that we told you this and we had to write off the money you owed us, you are not going to get anywhere.

[gunsage]

Here's another fun one. This actually happened to a coworker of mine, but I helped him with it. The customer called in to REMOVE HER SECURITY FROM HER PERFECTLY SECURE WIRELESS NETWORK, AS SET UP BY OUR TECHNICIANS. I'll repeat and rephrase, just in case you didn't quite catch it...

A lady called in wanting to REMOVE her WEP key on her wireless network. Her wireless network, of course, was supplied through us via a wireless modem/router combo. Our technicians are required to set up a generic WEP key for the customer, relay this information to the customer, and show the customer how to hook up other computers to the network, if applicable at the time.

I'd also like to point out, as I relayed to my coworker that this should be his primary concentration for the remainder of the call, we also handle "security calls." These types of calls usually involve a customer calling up because we quarantined their connection because spam was coming from it, generally through open ports via a trojan program, virus, etc.

The point? When your connection is not secure, obviously you're more susceptible to this sort of garbage, thus you come to worship encrypted connection, but not this SC. In the end, he DID help her decrypt her network, but stated that we were NOT liable if her computer, network, etc. was damaged, quarantined, or worse.

She seems cool with that, but he documented the HELL out of her account, just in case. Honestly, I never got a chance to ask him WHY she wanted it decrypted...I'm trying to remove it from my mind, lest I receive a brain tumor.

[BravoOrig]

I once had a lady call in because she could no longer access her wifi router, she said it was setup as an unsecured network but now its asking for the secure information. My first thought was someone got on it and changed settings to lock her out, then just use it for themselves, but the router no longer wanted to talk to the modem either, so they went a step further. It wasn't ours so she had to call the manufacturer. Something made me think it wasn't just a router malfunction but I can't recall what.

I turned into abuse a modem downloading 70+GB a week, 255GB a month. Would have been either worse if they were uploading. Now everyone is trying to find out how to do the same thing for modems they see using alot of bandwidth. I guess my nights will be spent looking for email IDs that should be shutoff, high modem use, and general surfing. Oh, and to take calls, if I have to.

[BravoOrig]

Also, the home networks we setup are a pain in the rear. There is a set of information the tech is supposed to use for the WEP, SSID, etc, but it never works, and we can never seem to remotely login to them either. This used to be bundled with our highest speed and you had to get it to get that speed, thankfully the company decided certain modems could handle the speed and the customer will be left to do their own networking.

[greensinestro]

Also, the home networks we setup are a pain in the rear. There is a set of information the tech is supposed to use for the WEP, SSID, etc, but it never works, and we can never seem to remotely login to them either. This used to be bundled with our highest speed and you had to get it to get that speed, thankfully the company decided certain modems could handle the speed and the customer will be left to do their own networking.

Thankfully, the DSL equipment we deal with is just the modem, the cables, and the filters. We do not support networking equipment. The customer can have it set up, if they wish, but we do not troubleshoot any equipment we did not give the customer. Still, we gets tons of calls that crap, too.

[BravoOrig]

Unless they get it through us and pay the installation fee plus additional per month, we don't touch it. I can't tell you how much of my life I'd get back and how many calls I would not recieve if routers were setup a little better and didn't require us telling the user to unplug it for 15 seconds. Why can't a router pickup a new ip address without power cycling it? Our connection is DHCP and everything is automatic. We say, here's the IP address, here are the DNS server addresses, which your router needs to automatically detect.

[trunks2k]

Here's another fun one. This actually happened to a coworker of mine, but I helped him with it. The customer called in to REMOVE HER SECURITY FROM HER PERFECTLY SECURE WIRELESS NETWORK, AS SET UP BY OUR TECHNICIANS. I'll repeat and rephrase, just in case you didn't quite catch it...

*sigh* if you guys keep setting up people's wireless encryption for them, how am I going to steal other people's internet connections?

We have our own internet connection, but a neighbor also has an unsecured wireless network that we tend to use when we are doing things that we technically shouldn't be doing. The best was when we wanted to watch a football game but didn't have internet or cable installed just yet. So we found a stream of the game on the internet via sopcast, streamed it over the stolen wireless internet, to a file on computer A. Computer B then connected to Computer A over our LAN and read the file, playing it on the TV in the living room. There was a bout a 2 minute delay in what was actually happening in real life, but we at least got to watch the game.

[Shabo]

*sigh* if you guys keep setting up people's wireless encryption for them, how am I going to steal other people's internet connections?

There are most definitely ways around that. However, unless you live in a high population area, or you live next to a parking lot/somewhere to hide, you probably aren't going to have a rogue criminal snooping around looking for signals to hack into. The chances are pretty good that none of your neighbors know how to get around a WEP. Keep in mind that nothing is ever completely secure. I mean, the Homeland Security systems got hacked into like a month ago (by the Chinese, or so our gov't. says). But the good news is that there aren't people actively trying to hack into most accounts, so a decent mid-level security system should keep you safe for the most part.

[trunks2k]

There are most definitely ways around that. However, unless you live in a high population area, or you live next to a parking lot/somewhere to hide, you probably aren't going to have a rogue criminal snooping around looking for signals to hack into. The chances are pretty good that none of your neighbors know how to get around a WEP.

Of course there's ways around it. But really, the cost/benefit analysis in terms of effort to break really don't make breaking a person's wireless protection really worth it for my purposes. If I was going to do something REALLY illegal, I'd just go the train station (if they still have the open wireless network) or one of the hundreds of coffee shops within walking distance.

[Shabo]

Of course there's ways around it. But really, the cost/benefit analysis in terms of effort to break really don't make breaking a person's wireless protection really worth it for my purposes. If I was going to do something REALLY illegal, I'd just go the train station (if they still have the open wireless network) or one of the hundreds of coffee shops within walking distance.

Sure, but if they have cameras, they'd be able to possibly identify you. Besides, it's not terribly hard to crack that wireless. It's not worth it for most people to do it, but then again, it's not worth it for most people to steal identities or steal cars, or anything like that... but it does happen.