Tech Support Hell

[svasutin]

This little thread is growing as i'm relating my really bad tech support experiences from different vendors. Feel free to add your own

So for the past month and a half i've been dealing with the worst support ever - since 1995 and possibly before.

A certain very well know - popular, high-end - motherboard mfr offered to cross ship a few boards for me. Sure - great - i thought. I told my clients they'd be back up in less than a week.

Opps, turns out they don't manufacture the board anymore. Alright, but they can have it repaired within 10 working days. So i pay the $ 70 USD to have it over night'ed. Only thing is, it was sent 2nd day since it was already past the out time. Alright, alert the clients there is an additional delay, expect their system to be back in 2 weeks. Naturally, after the product has arrived, i get some monies back since it went out 2nd day and not overnight.

I reply to the e-mail, only to have some person issue a tracking number and rma for me to ship the product in ~ never mind i used the rma in the subject header. So I respond and asked for a website to check the status, and tell them they have my board, here's the tracking number to the board that has been shipped and already rma'd, btw, the person who signed is _____.

Response: If you don't give us the info, we can't create an rma. Pick up the phone and yell for a bit.

So now my clients are a week into not having a computer. Fortunately, i have their hard drivers, and they are configured by me, so i can set them up with external cases and just sync and redirect folders from their notebook. Of course the notebook only has 256 MB of RAM, 8.4 GB hdd, and predates 1 GHz CPUs.

Again i call and check - yes it's being repaired and should ship out soon. Just ignore the emails i'm getting. Working day 9, i tell my clients about the website and tracking. Yes, it says it's repaired and they are waiting for it to be shipped. I make a conference call, with my clients silently on the line to find out what's going on.... well, it's stuck in repair, it is repaired, and it is waiting to be shipped...

So now i'm 3 weeks with nothing - daily phone calls and emails have produced nothing - although i've been promised a call back and i should get a tracking number soon. Then an e-mail arrives today. We're sorry, but your board can't be repaired. You have the option of us shipping you this new board or we could try and fix your old one but that will take another 10 days. Oh you mean repair like everyone's at the company has told me it was?

Hmmm... clients haven't had a working system since September - i wonder what they are going to do? Naturally - take the new board.

Great, so the new board will be coming via ground. Oh ya, things just get better with this new board. Not only is it a newer ( hence better ) but the chipset and sata controller is different. So this means they won't be able to boot into Windows to transfer their settings. Let's see, clients have their hard drives, so i'm pretty limited on what i can do. Great - looks like more fun with slipping drivers and pre-installing software.

Of course, once i get the board, i plan on contesting charges to my credit card. In all this, my clients are on the phone with me daily, as well as me sending them e-mail blogs about what i'm doing to get them back to their 4 GHz system.

Tomorrow i'll add my dead printer story to this thread: India - can't make a declarative statement to save their lives

Edited October 29, 2007 by svasutin

[puntoMX]

Nicely written story, if you like you can tell us what brand it was and to where you send it so people can be aware of this .

I’m moving this topic to the "general forum" as it does not fit right here in the Hardware Hangout.

Waiting for the printer-story by the way .

[Tripredacus]

This happens from time to time with any company. Mistakes are made because someone forgets to save something or a server doesn't send data right. Whatever the case, it causes a lapse in the process somewhere. The failing that your report shows is that the motherboard company should have gone right to a supervisor or even a call to the warehouse/receiving to check. I have been on the support side in these instances, and I have called the receiving warehouse, or the repair company to comfirm delivery signatures or that a product has been received and/or what stage it is in.

But some reps will do more for customers than others, mostly because either they don't care, or they are just working there for the sake of having a job. I know as I had seen it myself. Then there are those good support people that are pressured by their work environment to not be on calls for a certain period of time or whatever. There is also the potential that the rep is limited in what they can do. Call centers come up with strange rules sometimes, like not being able to make outgoing calls, or a strange unreliable process to communicate problems to other departments.

Don't get me started about India. I have had strange dealings with both MSI and AOpen. Here is a recap:

With MSI, we got a bunch of notebooks with buttons on it that didn't do anything. There were also Unknown Devices sitting in Device Manager that we found out were linked to these buttons. So I did some research and found out they were part of Windows Hot Start. I go to the website to get the drivers for it on this model, and only the Vista drivers are available. I figured I would download the drivers and take a look at them and see if I could rewrite them for XP (I had previously re-written the Intel IME drivers for Vista on certain Intel boards to use before Intel released them). But it was just 2 registry entries. So I call up our MSI support rep, and he emails me the link to get the drivers.... but for the wrong model. So I email him again and post the complete model number. And he replies back to say "is not sold in the U.S. region you must have..." another model... Doesn't sound so bad but after figuring out that MSI was labelling their notebooks with the wrong model number, we were able to get the correct BIOS to fix the issue.

And to continue with MSI, there was another instance where the BIOS update on the P4M900M2-L motherboards would render them "hosed" aka they wouldn't boot after running the BIOS update. We had encountered that only twice, then suddenly we blew through 7 motherboards that couldn't handle their own BIOS update. So we emailed their support again, and they sent us a "new" BIOS update, but the problem was... it was the exact same file we were already using. The fact that this "new" update worked on the next board we tried meant absolutely nothing since it works about 70% of the time. The fault here was that we noticed that multiple boards of the same revision had different circuit layouts on it. Of course "we were mistaken" and their idea is that we were at fault in incorrectly flashing the BIOS on at least 7 boards... The battle continues.

And then there is AOpen, another company failing in labelling their products correctly. We received a batch of the DE-945FX "Digital Engine" machines that had a red light on the front. Well since we never seen this before, and the revision changed, I was given the task of calling in and verifying what this light was, and if it was bad or not. To begin with, AOpen claimed this was not a "Digital Engine" even though it uses the Digital Engine naming convention. That aside, the first response was "I don't know". That was not a good answer to us, so I called back. There I got a "we can't figure it out because ours does not look like what you are saying" and "we will research and call you back." Well that call-back never happened, and 6 business days later I called them again. So I am talking to the rep, and I then say "does this light have anything to do with the remote it comes with?" and the rep says "This model does not come with a remote." So my response was "I am pretty sure it does" and he says "you must be mistaken". So I say "OK well I am looking at the open box and it comes with a remote, batteries and some cable." But the rep was clearly confused or had no idea what model I had in front of me. Forget the fact that we had 2 models that looked different and had the same model numbers. He put me on hold and went to talk to someone, then came back and said "yes, that must be it." And that is how it was left...

I must say tho, AOpen products do come with some amusing documentation...

[twig123]

Hah! Was it Gigabyte? lol those jokers...

Back in the XP chip days... I was sent a DOA board.. sent it back 3 weeks later, they send me a replacement... guess what... it had a defective AGP slot.. send that back... got another DOA board (1month).... sent it back... 6 Months after sending the last board back... I finally recieved my board back... this time in "almost" fully working order (the chipset fan was dead)... I slapped a new one on there and gave up on the company and sold it... (Never going to buy one of their products again...)

Those were the days...

Edited October 25, 2007 by twig123

[svasutin]

Sorry 'bout posting into the wrong forum. It was 50-50 for me, so - thanks for the move. Originally i was going to call this one Hardware Hell, but changed my mind, and didn't change the forum.

Anyway, unfortunately, i've been bogged down, so i can't put my India + Printer story up yet.

As for the board, the company's name starts with 'A'. I gotta go for now, but i should be back in a few hours with my India story.

* Update *

The thing with motherboard companies is, it is a fairly technical area ~ BIOS, circuits, jumpers, shorts from the solder around the rear IO ~ a bunch of little things that can go wrong. Troubleshooting down to a board is quite complex - could be the CPU, RAM, power supply, or a number of other things. Usually, if there's an issue, and from people who recommend, build, implement, support, and recycle the reps operate at a different level than normal consumer channels. In this instance, however, the company seemed to switch to a "help desk" environment; techs are separate from the reps. Anyway, the point is, the reps i was dealing with were all lying.

Oh yes, i and i do mean reps, as for some reason, i was being bounced around to different people, as well as receiving replies from different people.

Supposedly the board had been fixed a week or more ago, and it was just waiting to be shipped. I could almost understand it if i hadn't been calling in and checking up. However, they received no less than 3 calls per week from me, coupled with daily e-mails. Usually i wouldn't even blink an eye - but this was a high profile client that i really wanted to keep.

* update 2 *

I could understand a slip through the crack if i had just sent in the board and checked in once a week. However, given the near daily communications - this was just flat out lies. I know, since i deal in service, things go wrong, and times i need to sit there and just take it from a client. My service is honest, open, transparent, and ethical. When we do mess up, we have to take the blame - it's our job ~ buck stops with us. However, we also implement more checks in our internal process to never make the same mistake twice. This type of support is just... bad

Edited October 29, 2007 by svasutin

[svasutin]

Alright, so again, back in September a client wanted a printer for his soHo. While they are not yet in a small office, i've definitely set up their Home Office. So i found a nifty printer for them, 2-trays, wireless + wifi, memory card interface, scan, print, fax. While it was an ink jet, it goes much faster than laser. Naturally, i tell him, "any problems, just give me a call"

So he goes out and buys one and i think nothing of it. A few days later i get call. He can't connect it up wirelessly or through the wired connection. The people in India said it was a problem with his networks security settings. Hmm... they can share files, were able to print before, but maybe it could be... i so hate DHCP, and some of my installations are tweaked so maybe.

I get over there, and they have run a usb extender to pass the printer around. Alright, connect up an old printer to one of the unused systems and print from there. Connect up the printer to the router and check for attached devices - good it's there. Disconnect it, wait a minute, then try the printer's built in wireless network setup wizard. Searching... Searching... well, might as well install the software as it's searching.

I install the software, some 30 minutes and 1 GB data later, i reach the "How do you want to connect up". I check the printer, nope - i know the printer's radio is broken. There are only 6-7 wireless networks in the area. What's the printer trying to do? Sniff the keys? break encryption?. So i follow the instructions. I cancel printer out of the Wizard, reset it to factory defaults, wait a minute and connect up an ether cable. Check attached, yep it's there - assign it an ip, and continue with the installation. Hmmm.... the software doesn't see it. i ping it - yep it's there .

"Please wait" i've see that before. No luck. So i try the smart key approach. No luck. Patch Cable. No luck. let me try and access their network and print - yep - all good Well, it's either a software installation issue + hardware issue, or a software installation. Time for a call.

wait, wait, wait.... ah someone to talk to. Person one, the Parrot.

"Hi i'm blah, blah, blah, i have a client with a blah, blah, blah, the printer's wireless radio is broken and i think he should return it"

"Hi svasutin, i understand you have a client with a blah, and you think the printer isn't working"

"Yes"

"ok, let me transfer you"

wait, wait, wait

"Hi i'm <random name>, i understand you have a printer that you can't install"

"Not exactly, the USB interface seems to work fine, but your software doesn't install the files for the network"

"Alright, let me look into this" - silence - "try this..."

* four hours later *

"ok, there is a solution to this, and it is a know problem"

"really? a known problem after 4 hours of work"

"yes, someone will be calling you tomorrow with the patch and fix"

my day 2, client day 4-5

So i go back the next day and wait for the call. While i'm there i help 'em out with their work. Find patches, updates, plug-ins, and tools to help them with their work. I also check the printer. Hmmm... it didn't find a single wireless network in 12 hours of searching. So i connect it up through the ethernet again, and go to the ip to see what i can configure. Interesting - invalid certificate, but i'll accept it just to try and get things to work. It sure is slow.... strange....

I check the router, and watch the printer for a few minutes while i'm playing with the front buttons. Sweet - it copies, prints, full duplex fast. Pretty decent 4x6 pictures from my cell phone's 1.3 camera (oh ya, and bluetooth doesn't work either). It seems the ethernet is buggy as well. The printer disappears and appears from the router.

No call, it's friday, and i only told them M-F. I call, see parrot conversation above. Someone will call you Monday before noon. I suggest to my client they just return the printer and get a new one one. It's still within 15 days.

Day 8, 3pm - no call. I call, see parrot

So this person says i'm having issues with the software, linksys router, as well as my security settings don't let me see the printer. 1st there are no linksys products in this network. Next, the security settings are fine as the network works and we can print and share using other devices. Software maybe, but the hardware itself doesn't stay attached to the router when wired, and it has never found a wireless network, and oh ya, blue tooth doesn't work.

"well before i can transfer you, we have to go though some procedures"... 1 hours later ... "Well it's to late for them to call you back now, but someone will call you tomorrow".

"ok, call tomorrow" Tell the client, they said they would call, again, and maybe should return it. Of course, no call ever comes

So i call a day later as i drive to their soho. See parrot, add "i've spent out 20 hours on this printer - one of your morons over there said there is a know solution"

"oh yes, i'll transfer you". Some level 1 id*** again, wants to go through a procedure again. "Look, don't you trust your other colleagues? Do you believe as i do you are all just a bunch of morons? Do you think yourself better than the 3-4 other people i've talked to? it's broken, so give me the **** fix!!!"

"i'm sorry but we have to follow procedure, and i think it's a problem with how you are installing the software"

"Since you called in, we have to have you test something before we transfer you"

we go over the same old thing - "that's one thing. So transfer me."

"I'll see what i can do..." 1 hour later, "i'm sorry but they will have to call you tomorrow"

"wtf? you sons of motherless goats < probably didn't get the reference to the 3 amigos movie - but i didn't care > can't you just transfer me or give me a freakin' number to call?" I get no where, even with the supervisor.

Supervisor: blah, blah, blah, be nicer, more polite, there is a solution. It's usually your Linksys Router or your Security settings and not the printer.

Me: repeat - no linksys - hardware ethernet + wireless issues... can i fax over or email you the 50 pages of your diagnostic tests saying parts of your devices fail?

Tell the client "You should return the printer for a new one"

Oh ya, in the mean time, another client drops the $1000 for the same printer. I installed w/o issue. Anyway, another week passes by, well past the return date now

a few more days of these morons not calling, me calling getting the level 1 person going, "yes i understand, but to transfer you a super we need to ..."

Talk again to the super, "ok, it appears the hardware might not be working" Hey - that's what i've said all along. Someone will call you tomorrow to set up a replacement

Edited November 8, 2007 by puntoMX

[svasutin]

* sorry about the delay - had to take care of some business *

Of course the call comes 2 days later. They will ship out a refurbished product and it should be there in 5-7 business days.

Now then, i used to work for HP. When it was HP and Agilent. Yes, sometime ago. I recall when they first started to roll out their new support strategy. It was all about handling calls per minute. Calls/minute was the metric they wanted to use - of course i opposed that metric. Look, the internet will allow us to collect information from all people about the quality of calls. The metric should reflect quality of service. In the end, and for other reasons, i left for due to HP's shift to quantity over quality.

These days, HP and many other companies don't even bother with their own support anymore. In texas, there is an office with 1-2 people. This american service company is where an Indian company is located. They are the contact for major companies. The manufactures only submit testing procedures. Of course, this means the people and engineers creating the products don't actually know about the issues.

While i'm not a large company, i do work with many soho's and medium sized businesses. We recommend, implement, support, and recycle equipment for our clients. One thing we've always been able to do is provide excellent service over most all other vendors. While i still can provide better software support - hardware support is terrible these days. In the end, i think this shift towards india is going to put me out of business.

So the moral of my story is this. As companies outsource their products support and customer service suffers. No doubt at some level the bottom line is measured. how many products are being returned and after how long? If these outsource companies have the consumers return the products within x-days, it would appear they are not doing their job. So the "trick" is to increase the time the end user has the product. Of course, i'm sure you get more brownie points if you solve an issue a colleague couldn't.

This makes it appear as if it is a client issue and not lousy tech support. Over the past few years i have watched support decay into what it is now... which reminds me of the beginning of my woes

but that will be in another post

Edited October 28, 2007 by puntoMX

[svasutin]

Alright, so the year was 1998, 56k dial up was all the rage. E-bay was taking off, in the us i think the max cd-r speed was 8x, and in the uk they had 2.6gb dvd +- r's, and craiglist was, well craigsligt. I was in the market for a notebook, something really hot. I knew better, but at that time, a Sony had a notebook that spec'd out well. I searched and searched, and found a deal on E-bay. What a bargin!!! I could save $700.

Of course it was suspicious, but the Internet was still starting out, and it was not uncommon to find large price differences from where i lived and purchased products. Matter of fact, my camcorder, from yahoo shopping was over 1k less than it was in my local cash and carry stores. So i sent my 2.5k USD (worth a lot more back then given the current us economy) - western union. Now then, as soon as the money was picked up in New York, i received an e-mail from e-bay telling me i might have been scammed, as the user said there had been unauthorized activity.

So i sent emails with follow up, called western union, tried to contact e-bay, and got a hold of the a District Attorney in New York. Well first, Western Union was useless - no help, but a confirmation code. They have a policy of, if you send it - it's gone. Ebay was useless, but fortunately their main ( and at that time only ) HQ was within a few minutes driving distance ( i'm in california btw ). So i actually got a few ebay phone numbers, but these never went anywhere. Ebay has a policy - if you bought it, then you spent the money.

Now then, there happened to be a few Assistant DA's in NY that were interested in these "new" computer crimes, and NY had one of the first computer crime divisions. Of course though, this wasn't a priority, since the crime had already been committed.

However i never really gave up contact with the seller. I played dumb. I said wasn't going to be home for a while, so when it was supposed to arrive, it might take me a while to give him a rating. That and i was wondering if he could sell me a warranty?

woot! now i had a crime in progress. Again, this was the early days of the internet where security was lacking, but could be used for an advantage. First, i tracked the email headers, one of them was funny, but most went back to NY. So i few out...

the rest will have to come later, as i've got someone one the phone

[svasutin]

looks like i'm still swamped, but might be able to get back later today.

Just a few more comments about the board issue. It purchased in June of last year and still under warranty ~ i'm pretty sure it has a 3 year warranty, so i'd expect it to fail sometime after 3 years. No vendor ever extend their warranty past what they expect a products' typical life cycle to be.

If i had to guess why this happened, i think ( very heavy speculation ) it might be a consequence of the new Vista policy. Given finite resources, if a board goes bad and can't be repaired, then the consumer will be forced to purchase a new Vista key. So maybe board manufacturers are switching over to repairing existing boards to an effort to help new Vista customers out. However, in doing so, they don't manufacture or repair "legacy" boards.

Still though, i'm watching the warranty on boards now to see if it goes down. If it does, then we know we're in for more trouble.

[svasutin]

So where was i...

ah yes, sending e-mails. Now then, this being so long ago, HTML e-mail was fairly new. So on a secure server, i created a little 1x1 transparent gif ( as well as tracking and enable read replies ), placed a link in the image, and shot off another reply. In the meantime, i'm still trying to get e-bay, western union, and NY PD interested in this case. So i start to trace the previous headers, look in to the name, as well as comments and other people who bid or bought items from the thief.

Slowly a circle of buyers and sellers emerge. For the most part small to medium priced items are sold around, and ratings are boosted over a two year period. These people are very, very patient.

I finally find a person in the the computer crimes division who is willing to work with me. So i tell them my little story ( i was scammed!!! ) and what i'm currently doing. From a trip to NY, i was able to track down who picked up the money. From there and a little research, i found the suspect and followed him to school at NYU ~ he was working on a doctoral thesis in Accounting. Oh yes, and the Western Union location has his picture on file and is waiting for your pd to pick up the image.

Also, my little web bug is going from place to place but eventually finds a home in Lithuania, before it starts finding its way back to me in a reply. The ADA says she can contact the FBI since this crosses state lines, but can't seem to get a hold of e-bay. Well, it's a good thing i live close by e-bay. Another useless trip to e-bay with her information and the case number that goes no where. Fortunately, the local police department was close and i found a willing detective who would called, verified my story, and went into ebay to get some information.

By this time, enough time has passed that the scammer knows i should have noticed, so i send another e-mail. "Hey, umm, i didn't get my notebook yet. i know i wasn't around, but ups hasn't left anything on my door. i haven't checked with my neighbors, but i'm wondering what address did you ship it to, and how did you ship it, thank you" ( yes, bad grammar and spelling makes people think ur n0t a$ s(V)art )

Also, i'm getting another email from someone else who wants to know what i thought of the scammer. For the most part, these are left on the server, untouched, and just collecting dust. From my little research, i know it's the thieves checking up on themselves. Since i now have a contact in the FBI, i give them and the NY Computer Crimes access to my e-mail. Of course i asked that they help me clean out some of the spam as well.

So a week after the NY Computer Crimes gets involved, the thief is arrested. A month or two later, the ADA calls me. Turns out, this was part of an international money laundering scheme. This person took many other people totaling in over $100k, and from the "ring" i found, arrests in other parts of the nation were also made. My thief was in the US on a visa. So in the end, i sent a letter to his academic adviser, which got him expelled. He was forced to pay everyone back ( judge ordered me first ) or be sent to jail. Of course he couldn't pay everyone back, but i got my money, and he ended up in jail for 6 months, and was then deported

In all this, e-bay wasn't willing to do anything and had to be forced to work with law enforcement or the person who got scammed. While i don't use e-bay anymore, i was quite surprised how little they do to protect people from scams. While i can string code together i'm no pro. I didn't have access to their internal networks, but was able to track down quite a few scammers. Of course e-bay wasn't interested in any of my code or work. Their attitude is very much, it's not our problem & don't ask/don't tell.

One thing that happened during this time was the fact i was out a few dollars. Not that i hadn't planned on it, but i had planned on receiving something in return. I still needed a new notebook, so i went out and picked one up ( again on line ) from a major manufacturer's website. It worked fine for a few months, but then it started to fail...

* stay tuned for the next installment of Tech Support Hell *

[svasutin]

Well, instead of adding my the final installment of my Tech Support Hell Story Series, thought i'd bring you an update on my board. The ground did a little shaking and everyone wants you to visit them just to make sure everything is ok

Anyway, so it has been one week since the board support said i had to choose between waiting 10 days or, if no reply, the "upgrade" would be shipped out in two weeks. Naturally, i replied yes, approved, please send last Wednesday ( and could you please over night it ). Well it should be there in 3 days... i was thinking on Monday or Tuesday by the latest. Well it has been a week, and still nothing, no emails, no calls, no responses. Well, no responses except that the board would be shipped "this week" ( actually last week, but anyway ).

So i finally call and get someone ( i'm guessing when they saw my caller id - they just didn't answer ). I get a tracking number... it was shipped out yesterday. Finally, the board is set to arrive on the 2nd of November.

i'll be back tomorrow

[svasutin]

Well things just came up - so sorry if you were following along and i left you hanging. First, let me go back to the initial issue of the board. Well, the board finally arrived and i installed it. No - windows didn't recognize the sata device so i slipped in some drivers and proceeded to reInstall as much software as i could for my client ( naturally, this is covered under the it/mis services i provide ).

All done. Time for some testing of the various connections and plugs - great - one of the usb ports has issues . However, it's now the weekend and i can't allow my client to wait an longer. I go out, purchase a new board, CPU, RAM, & PSU. w00t! no need to slip drivers now

One interesting thing we noticed. When we compare their old hdd sysdrive to their new one - there is 20 gb less used on the new one. Because of the way the system is configured, the only thing that could be causing this 20 gb difference is all the updates over the past year. You know, going from firefox 1 to 2.x, updating IE, all the patches, new versions and updates to anti-malware s/w. This is despite using ccleaner and the Zone Alarm cleaner daily ( or at boot ). If i had to guess, it's mostly from %windir%\Installer. Every since MacroMedia took over Installshield, that folder keeps growing.

Anyway, it's now day 3 since they have had their desktop restored - my clients are happy that they have a faster computer and everything appears to be in place. Not only that, but from their "friends" and other support people, they've been complimented on the system speed So now i contact the company again, and we set up another RMA to return this new board.

Once i get everything back and verify it all works, i think i'm going to have a massive e-bay sale.

maybe tomorrow i'll have an update on the new book, but for now, i've got to deal with a surge suppressor that failed and fried and fried some devices

Edited November 5, 2007 by svasutin