Email question woes.

[sld72382]

So, they're having some of us techs on the floor answer the technical question emails that the public defense dept can't answer.

These are questions being sent in from the company website. While most are perfect OK technical questions, some are people trying to get out of paying for support - I'll call them deadbeats, to which let them know that need to pay for actual support. Other times they're just stupid. Keep in mind if I don't answer, there's another tech willing to answer it.

1. Wireless Deadbeat

SC: I just bought a wireless router for a cable modem and I need to know how to set it up with 3 computers, please help me step by step.

Me: I'm sorry but we don't help with network setup over email or phone. An onsite agent will have to come out for a fee.

SC: Why do I have to pay for this? Can't you just help me?

Me: Because wireless router setups are too involved to do over email. If you don't want to pay us, you can call the manufacturer.

SC: I don't want to talk to india. You know what, I''m just going to take this back.

2. Um, yeah that's the point of the email form.

SC: Is this where I put my question?

I never responded to this one, but another tech did and and the SC responded with "Don't be so snarky with me!"

3. Lost cause.

SC: Is there any way to get my data back after the service center formatted my computer? I lost all my word documents and I had a good friend that recently committed suicide and all I had were saved converations.

Another tech responded back, saying once it's formatted that's it for the data, it's gone.

SC: No, there HAS to be a way, that's rediculous!

Me, this time: Sorry but you can try bringing it to the local store. They can send it off to the data recovery center for a fee, but there is no guarantee you'll get your data back, especially after a format.

4. Vague.

SC: Printer won't print.

That's it? Dude, let me at least know your O/S and printer model. I left this one for another tech.

5. Vague, part 2.

SC: I need the threats neutralized as soon as possible, I can't have my computer being on the frizz.

This again?

Me: Please call (1-800 number) and ask to speak to the sales dept, we can't do in depth virus removal over email.

6. Not. So. Urgent.

SC: This is urgent! I need to know this NOW!

So, what it a computer issue like a virus or non working software they badly needed?

No...

It was the detailed specs of the Xbox360 Elite. Yeah, urgent. I just copy-n-pasted the specs from team xbox's site.

[tropicsgoddess]

Ugh. I hate the Tech Support Deadbeats. They always try and finagle their way out of not paying a dime for tech support while trying to be slick about having you fix their laundry list of issues. If there's one thing I really hate about tech support besides the armchair technician SC's is the ones that expect you to be the computer fairy godmother and fix their computer this very second with the flick of a wrist.

[Akasa]

I once had a guy who deleted his system.ini file call me(DSL tech support) and try to get me to walk him through reinstalling it.
No call Microsoft.
But they'll charge meeee!

[sld72382]

Here's another one from Yesterday:

1. Huh?

SC: I have an IMac right now will I have to get a Mac Pro because I have a Compaq Prosario?

I just left in the queue for someone else to answer....

[technical.angel]

:: brain go crash ::

Really. I just sat there with my head cocked to the side and re-read that like 5 times. It makes no sense.

[sld72382]

:: brain go crash ::

Really. I just sat there with my head cocked to the side and re-read that like 5 times. It makes no sense.

Another tech asked the customer to clarify what that meant, he responded with the. Same. Darn. Sentence.


Here's another one, the fluff was removed:

1. How is this our fault?

SC: I bought a GM5260 (Gateway, this wasn't stated but was obvious) computer to play games 2 years ago. All this time, none of my games played well or not at all. I take it into the store to troubleshoot and they find nothing wrong with it. Well, after doing research the onboard video needs a 350 watt power supply and you sold it to me with a 300 watt power supply. At this time I am presenting you with an ultimatum: either exchange this computer for a proper gaming computer with no cost to me, or let me return the computer and all the games I ever purchased for it. If not, I will go public and let everyone know [store] sells poor quality products. I expect a prompt response to this.

Okay, you are supposed to do research before plunking down $800+ on a new computer for gaming, as you would know onboard video is never good for games. Secondly, Gateway and all the major OEM's put week power supplies in their desktops, how is that our fault? But then again, that's expecting logic from an SC.

I feel bad for the person that answered this one, as any logical solution (power supply and video card upgrade) will be met with opposition.

[Broomjockey]

will I have to get a Mac Pro because I have a Compaq Prosario?

This one's easy. They think that since they both have "pro" in the name (unless that was your misspelling, and not the customer's), they're compatible. Stems from inability to read.

Well, after doing research the onboard video needs a 350 watt power supply and you sold it to me with a 300 watt power supply.

Okay, they should have dealt with this before 2 years passed, but seriously, if I'm buying a premade system, I'd expect the damned thing to work too. This is purely the manufacturer's fuck up. I wouldn't lay any of this off on the customer. If they wanted to do research, they wouldn't be buying a prebuilt system.

[Pedersen]

Well, after doing research the onboard video needs a 350 watt power supply and you sold it to me with a 300 watt power supply.

Customer's demands: sucky.

However, if he's correct and the system needs a 350W PSU just to be used, then your store does indeed sell inferior quality products and the very least that should happen is that the PSU is upgraded at no cost to the customer. After all, he paid for a computer that would be expected to function as he described to the sales person.

He did not get what he paid for. As for the expected reply of "but he waited for two years!" Yes, you're right, he did. However, Windows is not exactly known for stability. It was reasonable to assume that the machine was crashing due to Windows issues. He had no reason to expect the hardware to be incapable of being used to its fullest.

Okay, you are supposed to do research before plunking down $800+ on a new computer for gaming, as you would know onboard video is never good for games. Secondly, Gateway and all the major OEM's put week power supplies in their desktops, how is that our fault? But then again, that's expecting logic from an SC.

Of course, blame the victim. He's a n00b, and doesn't deserve to have a system that works well if he didn't personally validate everything himself. Who cares if he bought a prefab system specifically to avoid having to deal with personally validating all the components? He should still have done it.

I know that when I go and look at a car, I hand check every component, making sure that I know where every nut and bolt comes from and that I approve of the factory. All these n00bs should do the same.

As for how it's your company's fault about the OEMs? Well, your company should do what you're saying the customer should do: Research the product and gasp refuse to sell it if it will be incapable of meeting the needs of the customers who will be buying it.

As a final side note: You have no idea how much this sort of attitude pisses me off. Unless you're a geek, you do not buy a computer so you can tinker with its guts, practice what programming/networking/administrative skills you can practice. You buy it to actually get stuff done. This can be playing games, or it can be doing work, or whatever else.

The attitude here makes life harder for everybody who ever touches a computer. You get people who tinker (like me) who are now expected to handhold every single mouse click for frightened relatives because the computer does things for no reason they can discern. And then, when it comes out that they were sold a product that could not do what they were told to do, it makes all of us look bad.

Customers are not the enemy. They are not idiots. They are not people to be looked down upon and loathed. They are people, every bit as smart as any computer person, but who don't give two shits about how a computer works: They have too much else on their mind to worry about such things. And here we sit, mocking them for dealing with something else.

Things like this make me weep for the entire profession.

[cawaker]

you might not check ever nut and bolt of a car, but you do know the basics of 4 cylinder s V6 or V8 right? What kind of fuel it uses? gas or diesel?

We don't expect people to know everything but basic knowledge of the tools you buy is just common sense.

BTW no onboard video is gonna need 350 watts to run right, unless the guy had 4 hard drives extra that 300 watts is just fine for most people usage.

[Broomjockey]

We don't expect people to know everything but basic knowledge of the tools you buy is just common sense.

And knowing what wattage is needed is basic knowledge? No, I'm sorry, that's asinine. Basic knowledge is keyboard, mouse, power switch, monitor, OS, and CD-RW versus CD-R type stuff. If I'm buying a car, I expect the engine to be powerful enough to power all the components at the same time. A/C, radio, headlights, etc. If it can't do that, then the manufacturer screwed up. It shouldn't be up to me to know that the electrical system will only let me have the headlights OR the radio.

And since sld didn't say the SC was wrong, and in fact admonished him for not knowing they put underpowered PSUs in pre-fab computers, I'm going to assume that it did indeed need a 350W PSU.

[technical.angel]

heck, until recently, *I* didn't know the wattage of my psu. I do now, since I'm looking at new cards, but I didn't when I bought the computer. I just assumed that everything would be fine.

[Samaliel]

I'm with Broomjockey and Pedersen on that one. The blame lies very much on the manufacturer, but the store that sold it is just as guilty if they knew the power supply was underpowered.

(As for the car simile, I think "expecting the engine to be able to move the car with 5 adult pasengers and a trunk full of camping gear and not to stall when you've got just the one friend riding shotgun" would be more alike to the situation but this is hardly relevant.)

[Pedersen]

you might not check ever nut and bolt of a car, but you do know the basics of 4 cylinder s V6 or V8 right? What kind of fuel it uses? gas or diesel?

I have awareness that v8 is more powerful than v6 is more powerful than 4 cylinder. I don't know fully what that means, only that option a is more powerful than option b. Why don't I know what that means? Because it doesn't matter to me. I use the vehicle as transportation, not as a hobby. I have other things to do that matter more to me.

We don't expect people to know everything but basic knowledge of the tools you buy is just common sense.

Now this is just plain ridiculous. I'm fairly experienced in building computers, and the first time I ever ran into an issue with a power supply was a couple years ago. The thought had never even occurred to me that I would have had an underpowered PSU, and the computer is both my hobby and my profession.

And you're expecting people who buy something that another company puts together for a living to know that the company puts together defective products? Short of doing significant research into the arcana of computers (which, again, the vast majority of people do not care about), how are they to do so? More to the point, why are they to do so?

BTW no onboard video is gonna need 350 watts to run right, unless the guy had 4 hard drives extra that 300 watts is just fine for most people usage.

Let's see, sld didn't say he was wrong, and instead said that he should have known that computer makers use underpowered PSUs. We don't know the make and model of the CPU (some of which chew about 140 watts all by themselves when under load). We don't know the model of the chipset for the motherboard (varies, but 10W is normal). We don't know the model of the hard drive or the optical drive (another 40 watts here is common). We don't know the model of the chipset (per Tom's Hardware, we can expect 130+ watts without much effort, with at least one graphics card reaching 400 watts).

So, if what you're doing is playing flash games, browsing the next, writing emails, word processing, etc, yeah, you'll be fine. But if you try to use the machine to its capacity, you're going to have problems.

Oh, and finding that sort of information online for the first time was very hard for me. For a newbie to computers, it might as well be impossible. This sort of thing is anything but common sense.

[sld72382]

I just looked at the specs of his computer:

http://support.gateway.com/s/PC/R/10...09212sp2.shtml

First, it has a LOW-END video card. Getting any graphically intensive game to play will be a challenge. The customer said onboard video but that is clearly not the case.

Yes, I will agree that the power supply is weak for the type of CPU. But how is most salespeople supposed to know that and for that matter most consumers? This customer thought this computer would meet his needs when he looked at the spec tag.

To me, the store is not at fault really for selling a computer with a weak power supply. If the store decided to make a house brand computer I would say OK but Gateway was the one that made the computer, not the store.

HP is actually the worst when it comes to weak power supplies. I had to send out a service call for a recent HP desktop that wouldn't turn on. This computer had 4GB of ram, a quad-core CPU, large hard drive, you name it. The power supply? 250watt. No wonder it died so quickly!

[Pedersen]

I was going to let this go, but ever since I read this reply, one part has been bugging the snot out of me:

Yes, I will agree that the power supply is weak for the type of CPU. But how is most salespeople supposed to know that and for that matter most consumers? This customer thought this computer would meet his needs when he looked at the spec tag.

How would the salespeople know? Maybe by doing some of what you yourself said the customer should do:

Okay, you are supposed to do research before plunking down $800+ on a new computer for gaming, as you would know onboard video is never good for games.

The part I find distressing here is that, no matter how you slice it, the fault lies with somebody other than your company (according to you). The OEMs make crappy product (which your company sells). And the user should do enough research to know this. But no way is your company even remotely to share in the blame for selling a crappy product as a complete solution to that user.

Yeah, things don't quite add up here.