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Post your bad tech support experience.....

L

lesman

2[H]4U
Joined
Dec 30, 2004
Messages
3,913
Well, I've seen so many people posting about how bad certain companies and stores (*cough* Dell *cough* Best Buy) tech support and service is, that I thought I'd start a thread about it...so....post your bad tech support experience...or, flat out, your stupid experience...meaning the tech could've been a total douche bag, didn't know what he/she/they was/were doing, etc etc etc....POST AWAY! :)

EDIT: Well, since we got a few posts I want to say one thing: Comments are welcome, such as :"Oh that sucks" (or something along the lines) or a relevant comment....not something like "Emachines tech support doesn't suck-I've used them for years and have no trouble..." This isn't the place for that! It can only lead to arguing and/or flaming-grounds to get a thread locked...thank you, and let us in on your bad experience! :)

EDIT 2: The tech support experience can be for ANYTHING electronic- computer hardware, software (not exactly the forum for software, but who wants 2 threads like this? It can only make ones' day worse! ;) )game consoles, TV's, DVD players....anything that uses and is part of electronic technology!
 
I got two stories

From Sony I had to deal with tech support to get my PS2 sent in for the DRE thing. And then like a year later I had to get my cousins sent in for the same problem. So here what happens.
I go through there crappy press # menu(they need a frigging if u r calling for PS DRE error press 5 on the first menu, they never once have a # for PS2 DRE errors) So then I have to be on hold for 15 minutes. After the guy gets my info on the PS2 and everything I am like ok its getting the DRE thing. I have checked everything out and gone through all the steps, so can you ok me to send it in? He is like no we have to follow the procedure. And he starts asking me all the questions that I have already answered and told him myself. And then just when its about over, the call drops. Had to repeat the whole thing again!

From Dell.
One word OUTSOURCED!
 
Emailed Abit about my mobo having issues and not POSTing if i try to run RAM in dual channel......on Feburary 16th...still waiting -_-
 
The dumba$$es at my cable ISP god dammit, those jerks :mad:

...daily calls....


0ldmX
 
Its more of a design problem, but i have a revision A 12" powerbook, ordered it the day they were announced, one of the first to have it.

Well i got it and if you squeezed the bottom of the casing it would cause a kernel panic. So i call apple, i send it in, week later it comes back with a "could not duplicate problem" note. WTF?

So i got my girlfriend to drive me to the local apple dealer (i'm legally blind), 50 miles away. I show them, they say they would get it fixed. Day later there tech guy calls me, he couldn't get it to do it, so i told him where to squeeze and he got it to do it. 2 weeks after i dropped it off there, they called me to pick up, By then the problem had became well known on the forums and i could have fixed it myself. The airport card works itself loose and causes kernel panics, gotta peice of foam in there now to ensure a snug fit.
 
i ordered bluetooth with my dad's new Dell M600 lappy. we get it, blah blah blah, BT is not working. check BIOS, its not there. call Dell, tell them wat happened, they take me through all the stepes in BIOS again. send it in for repair and get a $100 coupon thing. get it back, the SAME thing..... send it in again for mobo replacement, got another $100. got it back and it works like a charm. so i got $200 for all of my trouble. ordered webcam, wheels, and surges, plus got money back with rebates. :D
 
MrSlacker said:
i ordered bluetooth with my dad's new Dell M600 lappy. we get it, blah blah blah, BT is not working. check BIOS, its not there. call Dell, tell them wat happened, they take me through all the stepes in BIOS again. send it in for repair and get a $100 coupon thing. get it back, the SAME thing..... send it in again for mobo replacement, got another $100. got it back and it works like a charm. so i got $200 for all of my trouble. ordered webcam, wheels, and surges, plus got money back with rebates. :D
Click to expand...
Ha ha, good deal!
 
A buddy of mine purchased an e-Machines notebook a while back. Big mistake, but he didn't know jack and just needed something for school.

Notebook comes with a dead CD-ROM right out of the box. He ships it back.

Second notebook comes with a fucked up hard drive that loses data after a couple days and a BIOS screen that appears with random junk characters. Their technical support morons are baffled at the issue. He ships it back.

Notebook comes back with the same issue. Tech support morons claim they installed the "Restore CD" seven times and each time it worked perfectly, but that wasn't the problem to begin with. He ships it back.

Notebook comes back with the same issue STILL. He's now about a month in dealing with this piece of shit and has yet to talk to anyone at e-Machines that knows dick about computer technology. This time, he calls the corporate office to try and ask them for a brand new replacement instead of being sent back the same hunk of crap every week. The first asshole he deals with hangs up on him twice. Eventually, he's able to get some lady on the line. The bitch on the phone is immediately defensive, rude, and belligerent. All he's asking for is a PRODUCT THAT WORKS.

He calls every day, several times a day, for about a week. They eventually crack and give him a brand new replacement that finally works.

And I saw a mention about Best Buy above and figured I'd contribute this wonderful link that pretty much sums them up quite nicely: http://www.mentaldischarge.com/?section=beef&id=495
 
A friend of mine lost her Outlook Express shortcut. No big deal right? So she called Dell. The dude told her to fdisk her hard drive and reinstall Windows. Telling her to do that is like telling her to build a nuclear bomb with ordinary household chemicals. I ran Control Panel once and everything was back to normal.

Then lightning hit her house and blew her modem and mobo. She really wanted to keep the system because it was cute. So I had to order a new mobo and modem from Dell. It was a SSF case style. Well Dell sent me a defective modem. It was marked refurbished. She wound up paying me like $200 for support on that one.

Dell sux.
 
TOSHIBA SUCKS SO BAD. I sent my laptop in because it was freezing up, I get it back and not only was the problem not fixed but, the screws that hold it together were hanging out and the lcd was cracked. My fathers a lawyer I am suing those bastards. It took them about 2 months to fix i mean drop on the floor. THOSE PIECES OF SHIT.
 
Dell, I had a simple question and I swear she was reading me word for word what I've been reading in there manual... :eek: Avoiding the questions just telling me to re-do what I've been doing...
 
Last fall my Comcast internet was goin in and out at nighttime, or lagging hardcore. It went on for a week or 2 so I finally called. After 10 tries I got an American on the phone and said,

"I know 5 other houses on my street who are having the exact same issue at the same time, it is not something with my house, but the entire line. Please make sure you send someone out to fix the lines, its not my computer that's messed up."

Sooo, Comcast tech comes, knocks on my door. Asks to come check stuff out, I tell him it's not my house, but whole area. I'm asked to humor him, so I do.. yada yada yada. I tell him that it's the whole block and he has to fix the lines outside. As which point he replied...

"Oh, I'm only allowed to work on the connection in your house, I cant touch any of the lines in the street"
 
Scariest words to ever hear:

Thank you for calling Dell Technical Support :eek:
 
This is really a story about an idiotic user and tech support. This happened to MY computer while I was off at school. Needless to say, the computer hasnt worked since.

After my now ex-step-dad tore off the CPU fan and ripped off the CPU, he shoved it in his shirt pocket and took it (CPU only, now with half of the pins bent flat) to a local computer repair shop to be fixed. Smartly, on their part, they told him they couldnt fix the "I dont see nuthin on my moniter" problem with a now broken CPU.
So he took in the whole tower, or whats now left of it. This was a K6-II system. When I finally went home and was asked to re-assemble the computer, I was given the K6 replacement CPU my ex-step-dad was sold. I also noticed that they "forgot" to give back the video card.

**sigh**
 
I know that everyone have told and/or heard stories about how crappy CompUSA is (hence the nickname -- CrapUSA), but this one -- which just happened about a couple of days ago -- is really funny (well, I think it is)....

About three weeks ago, I picked up a Epson all-in-one printer (Stylus Photo RX600) that was a 'Manager's Special" for $150 -- about half its normal price. Since it was previously used as a store floor model, I also paid for a two-year warranty on the printer. I was still getting my computer set up and running at the time and pretty much forgot about the printer for about two weeks. When I finally finished the computer, I started up the printer to test it out before I installed the software.

Long story short, the LCD display on the printer didn't work at all (though the printer powered up and operated with no other problems) so I went back to CompUSA to "exchange" it. My dumb procrastinating ass brought the printer back one day after the return period expired, so I went to their "Tech Support" guys to see what they could do.

I apologize for this long bedtime story, but I have to mention that the reason why I bought the warranty was that I assumed that the printer, being a used (and recently discontinued) store model, was bound to fall apart at some point before next year. The warranty, as I was told, would allow me to get my printer repaired at no cost within the two-year time period or they would either exchange the printer with a working model or give me some money back (as in, depreciate the value of my purchase over time). Since I'm in Hawaii, their tech support "guys" were actually a fat -- real fat, Orca fat -- Hawaiian woman and some guy who looked more like an old, lazy beach bum than a tech support guy. After explaining the problem to them, I asked them if they could have someone look at my printer, and Shamu -- er, I mean, the woman told me this long story about how they couldn't fix the printer here (translation: they didn't know what to do with it). I then asked them if they could send it to the manufacturer to get it fixed, and the bum -- uh, the guy told me that if they sent the printer to Epson, my two-year warranty would then become invalid. The lady then gave me some good news: I could send it to Epson under my own dime!

So what's the big deal? Compared to the cost of buying the latest Epson printer from CrapUSA, here's how much it's actually costing me to own this POS:

Epson Stylus Photo RX620 (Latest model, CompUSA price + tax): $315

My Epson Stylus Photo RX600 (As-Is condition, Manager's Special price + tax): $156
+ Two-year "extended manufacturer's" warranty: $26
+ New ink cartridges: about $87
+ Replacement parts (USB cable, neg/slide holder, paper feeder trays): about $40
+ Shipping materials (box, shipping peanuts, tape): about $20
+ Shipping (since I haven't mailed anything yet): about $50+
= Grand (estimated) total: $379+

The moral of tonight's story is that it's easier (and probably cheaper) to replace something bought from CompUSA than to have their tech support "fix" that same thing under warranty.

Alright... who am I kidding? The real lesson behind this is never purchase any "Manager's Special" garbage, especially from CrapUSA!
 
Staples, back in 1999 or maybe it was 2000, can't remember for sure, but anyway I went in and bought a 128mb stick of PC133 for my Compaq(I know! Kill me!) AMD K6-3. All was well and good until I arrived home and installed it. After I put it in there, the PC wouldn't boot at all, so I looked over the memory stick that I had just installed and noticed it wasn't even close the stick I thought I had bought(just details anway) so I took it back to Staples and asked to have it replaced or get my money back. The girl behind the counter didn't believe my obvious lies, and immediately summoned her manager. The manager was probably in her 40s, and obviously didn't know jack about PCs. I explained the same thing to her, and her first reaction was that I had already switched it out and wanted to return it for a full refund! I told her that I didn't switch it, and if they had the part on hand I'd accept a replacement, but she didn't care. She told me she was going to call the cops and when I asked her why she couldn't come up with a straight answer, just that I could be making it up and she didn't trust me. I finally convinced her that I didn't steal the part, and I honestly just wanted it replaced or my money back, and she eventually agreed to replace it, but she took down my name and address before she would hand it over (No idea what she intended to do with it..) Anyway, long story short, I've only shopped at Staples once since, and only because it's the 'best' alternative for computer parts in the area in a pinch(Best Buy is over 100miles away).
 
Im still waiting for a reply from ASROCK on a mobo I had purchased...hmm maybe a year and a half ago? dont remember anymore cause I dont use that mobo anymore....anyway this mobo was supposed to work with WinXp and of course I could never get XP to install on it....it worked great with Win 2K on it....so a year or so and still awaiting a response from them in email for that mobo.....come to think of it I think I trashed it as I didnt have a need for it anylonger when I bought another mobo.....hehehehe
 
I work at a local computer repair/build shop in a small town of about 3,000 people. All time I get people who bring in their computers that they bought from a store like Best Buy and such or online from like Dell. Normally, tech support for these brand name companies usually suck or they are not too bright and I end up being the middleman sometimes when the tech support gets really dumb and telling them to just as dumb or dumber things, here is one of those stories.

A guy had a Dell that he ordered online, got it and everything was fine, and three days later he called and said that it would not turn on any more. He called our shop and told us what happened, since it was only three days old he decided to go through tech support at Dell before bringing it to me. The next day he brought his Dell to me and told me of the things that Dell told him to do, which I will list in order that he was told to do.

1. Make sure the power cables were connceted and that the VGA cable was plugged in the right spot.
2. Keep the power button pressed longer. (the next step is the real winner)
3. They told him that the hard drive was bad, and wanted him to ship it to them!!!!!!

After the third step the guy told them that they were stupid sob's and brought it to me.

So, I open up the case and take a look around inside (this is the first thing I normally do in this case because my town suffers from crappy power issues, brown outs happen occasionally).I didn't notice anything right away, such as burn marks or bubbled capacitors so I checked the power supply with my test adapter and it was fine. So I decided to take a closer look at the processor and I noticed something odd. I was looking at the fan on the heatsink, the fan seemed fine, but the wire connector coming out of the fan looked like Dell had run the wire around the base of the heatsink, through some capacitors and then to the fan connector on the board, but I could not see the whole wire, I took an even closer look and could not find where the wire was passing through to make the connection to board, and then it suddenly dawned on me.

OMFG, they didn't really do this, but unfortunatly oh they surely did.

I took the fan/heatsink off and low and behold a big ol mess, the masters of assembly at Dell had ran the fan connector wire between the processor and the friggin heatsink and totally fried it. I was suprised that it made three days before this happened
 
The dumba$$es at my cable ISP god dammit, those jerks

...daily calls....


0ldmX

Who do you have for you cable ISP? I might work for your cable ISP?
 
A few weeks ago I was looking for a video card for my net surfin', music listenin' rig. I came across an Nvidia FX5500 overclocked 256mb PCI bus card. I said to myself, "Eh, this should work out" I do play some games...mdal of honor, grand theft auto-nothing really new. I already have the normal non overclocked version, with only 128mb RAM, I wanted to see if there was a difference in the games.

There was absolutely no difference whatsoever, so I decided I wanted to take it back. I lost my receipt, but Wal Mart has a policy to where they take down your ID, yada yada, and they have it in the system if it was bought at that store or not. Well, they search and search and search through their system and they tell me that I didnt buy it from their store!! I said "Excuse me?! Go look in the electronics department!" And they searched some more...they said they might have it, but they wont take it from me...I told them I bought it just yesterday, and that they had a scanning problem with it when I bought it and that it held up the line for a while and that the manager who dealt with it would remember.

I used to work at that wal mart, so I knew the managers name. They said she wouldnt be back for 2 damn weeks. I was pissed. So I go home and tear apart my whole apartment for the reciept, and I FINALLY found it! I went back there, they look at the reciept, the descriptions the same, etc, etc, etc, so they try to check it in....they say it's not in their system...I'm like, "I have the reciept, right fucking there" they start talking about how the reciept could be a fake, etc etc...so I'm pissed and there's more managers there now....then the store manager comes.

He punches in the number and VIOLA! It checks just fine.....turns out the few complete IDIOTS that were there were typing in the wrong damn last digit...................I couldnt beleive it, I was in shock and proceeded to laugh my ass off out loud. Normally I would have just gotten store credit, but the manager gave me a refund and a discount's worth of cash back, so I was happy that I got my money and that the stupid ass customer service reps were embarassed as all hell. :)
 
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