We're not here to keep track of your passwords....

[sld72382]

Guy calls in today looking for help with resetting his password.... a BIOS password that he set up and forgot (doh!).

Backstory: For legal reasons we cannot assist with resetting passwords of any sort over the phone. Especially BIOS passwords as they require you to start messing with the mainboard jumpers and such. No matter what type of password, they need to be brought into the store for a fee.

SC: So, what can you do for me on resetting my password?

Me: Unfortunately BIOS passwords entail a hardware reset on the motherboard, and for legal and liability reasons even if the password in question is within windows it needs to be reset at the store for a possible fee.

SC: But I have a service plan.

Me: It is not the service plan's responsibility to keep track of a user's passwords. It is the end user's responsibility.

SC: You know, you're not being very helpful.

Me: The legal and liability reasons why we can't reset passwords over the phone were from corporate. I can't sidestep their requirements.

SC: Fuck this shit, I'll just stick it back up in the closet.

Me: Thank you for choose [company], have a great day!

SC: Whatever. *click*

Besides the possibility of frying the mainboard when he resets the jumpers, what if he stole the computer and is calling to wipe the password to get access to it? That's why corporate said NO password resets over the phone.

[ohsobitter]

UGH! I know everyone else on here in tech support will be along soon to reiterate the fact that it's such a HUGE liability for anyone to reset passwords over the phone. The amount of pushback I get is amazing. You do the whole " I don't know who you are, why would I reset your pw?" And trying to convince them that anyone could be calling in knowing there name or user id is pointless. At least I can tell them to talk to their IT dept.
Not that they have a clue who that is.

[Eric the Grey]

I'm amazed we haven't had any problems with our own HIPPA audits when it comes to our HR site.

Individual will call in to get their password reset. We reset it to a random series of numbers & letters, and email it to their company email. This is the only way for them to get a new password. We used to have a web page where they could do it themselves, but that went away when they upgraded the entire portal system.

Anyway, we tell them this, and quite often, they'll tell us "I never check my email. How do I do that?

So we have to reset their windows password, and walk them through getting into their email... Unfortunately, we do no checking on who the person is, so it could really be anyone.



Eric the Grey

[powerboy]

I've had that problem before at my last job. On our security system. Every week the manager changed it. What he did was write it down and he would end up tossing it. Well once, he needed to get inside to look back at the tape. Well I had to try everything to get in. I ended up going to the companies website to find out how to reset the password. I tried the override password and nothing.

[Bandit]

Anyway, we tell them this, and quite often, they'll tell us "I never check my email. How do I do that?

A quick trip through the is too good for most (l)users.

B

[MrTim]

Backstory: For legal reasons we cannot assist with resetting passwords of any sort over the phone. Especially BIOS passwords as they require you to start messing with the mainboard jumpers and such.

This makes a lot of sense, since the lettering on most motherboards is small and cluttered. All it takes is for a user to remove the jumper and accidentally short a fan connection and BOOM, goodbye computer! Nothing like a furious customer carrying in a burned out PC claiming that a tech told him to destroy it.

[Naaman]

This makes a lot of sense, since the lettering on most motherboards is small and cluttered. All it takes is for a user to remove the jumper and accidentally short a fan connection and BOOM, goodbye computer! Nothing like a furious customer carrying in a burned out PC claiming that a tech told him to destroy it.

Or run to full idiot mode;

We were allowed to tell them how to reset the BIOS, if they had a fax machine we'd fax over the mobo diagram with the JBat jumper circled, if not we'd describe it's location and advise a magnifying glass and torch. If all else failed we could advise them to (carefully) remove the "large, flat coin battery - a bigger version of what you find in your watch" - right up till someone yanked a capacitor off the motherboard because "it looked like a battery!"

*sigh*

[lordlundar]

This makes a lot of sense, since the lettering on most motherboards is small and cluttered. All it takes is for a user to remove the jumper and accidentally short a fan connection and BOOM, goodbye computer! Nothing like a furious customer carrying in a burned out PC claiming that a tech told him to destroy it.

This one reminded me of one from computer stupidities.

* Tech Support: "Hello, tech support, can I help you?"
* Customer: (slowly) "Oohh." (pause) "I think I did a bad thing."
* Tech Support: "Ok, so tell me what's up."
* Customer: "Well, my computer was running great. Everything was working fine, I had no problems whatsoever."
* Tech Support: "Ok..."
* Customer: "So I decided to open it up and have a look inside. I saw all these wires dangling all over the place. There were grey flat ones, and small red, black, and yellow ones, and it seemed like they weren't connected to anything. So I decided to plug them all in."
* Tech Support: "Um, you mean you plugged them all in? What did you plug them into?"
* Customer: "Well, whatever I could get them to connect to. I saw pins sticking off of some of the boards that didn't have anything on them, so I plugged all the loose wires in to make it run better."
* Tech Support: "And then you..."
* Customer: "And so I plugged them all in, and I hit the power button, and there was this loud bang and a flash and a puff of smoke. Now it doesn't work at all."
* Tech Support: (suppressing all emotion and turning deep crimson) "Can you hold for a minute, please?"

Kaboom! "Explosive" doesn't adequately describe the laughter. I related the story to some co-workers between gasps for breath. Several of the techs and I had quite the laugh fest while he was on hold. After about five minutes of eye-popping, sweat-beading laughter, I wiped away the tears, took a sip of water, and came back on the line. I knew it'd be futile to even attempt to troubleshoot it.

* Tech Support: "Ok, well why don't we just have you wrap it up in the original packing material and send it back to us, we'll take care of the whole thing."

And so another computer newbie learned that the extra power supply cables and unused IDE ribbon cables don't have to be plugged in for the computer to work just fine.