Worst Computer Company Support

[oneless]

so , for now , from brands , dell is on the market

first on the Worst Computer Company Support also

first for the Best Computer Manufacturer !!?

[cheezus420]

so , for now , from brands , dell is on the market

first on the Worst Computer Company Support also

first for the Best Computer Manufacturer !!? wacko.gif

Same Here Im not sure if that is how it is supposed to work

[oioldman]

have to say HP.

situation i had involved a dodgy cd-r years ago that just stopped writing. They asked questions based on script, could tell by way he spoke, and wasn't sure what to do if you manage to deviate them from it. Got it changed after some more fruitless calls to more robots.

[cheezus420]

hehe, try calling sony support. I had to call them for service on an amplifier that I bought from them, and I think they had me talking to a darn robot... Literally

a deaf and dumb robot at that It must have been mu crazy wisconsin accent that threw the robot off, but it didnt understand a darn thing that I said to it... I finally ended up screaming into the phone... it finally got the clue

[Wicket20519]

Also wanted to say that Dell SUCKS when it comes to businesses, such as hospitals.

A lot of schools use Dells, however. I'll ask my IT dept. to see how many times they have to fix those computers. It'd be interesting to learn.

[KamiQuazi]

I'm sorry but for me i build and i think the worst parts company is TIGERDIRECT

[Andromeda43]

As a tech, working on every make of computer you can imagin, I hear all the complaints.

The biggest complaint that I hear (daily) is that the caller in the US can't understand the support person on the other end of the line. (usually in the far east)

There are just certain word-sounds in our language that they just can't make, because those sounds just aren't in their native language.

Lollypop can come out sounding like "rorrypop"...

Combine that with an elderly person who doesn't hear very well anyway and put him/her on a cheap K-Mart phone and you have a combination for disaster.

I've been at customers' homes when they called for Tech Support. After just so many "HuH? HuH? HuH?" they would just hang up the phone in a rage.

It was great, years ago when most major corps had their help lines answered by "Ruppman Marketing, Inc." in Peoria Illinois. Many of those girls answering the phones were bi or even tri lingual. But they all spoke flawless English.

Well, that's my 2 cents worth for a Sunday morning.

Cheers!

Andromeda43 B)

[Tarun]

Voted Other. Cause all techs like that suck. There are at least three or four levels of techs when you call into Gateway, Dell, etc.

Do it yourself, it's that easy.

I still remember calling Gateway about a simple bug. Windows ME machine, the Start > Documents > My Docs/Pictures broke.

So, I called support to fix it and sat there and listened to them say "blah blah do this do that" to which none of it was related. Since I was at my pc I was fiddling around with it trying to fix it myself.

I fixed it well before they had a clue. Start > Run > regsrv32 C:\Windows\System\MyDocs.dll

The tech asked ME how I fixed it, what I did and wanted all kinds of information. I never call tech support anymore, I just fix it myself.

[Jlo555]

I still remember going through Dell tech support. It was the most inconvenient thing ever. They have at least 3 different 1-800 numbers, one of which was the desktop phonenumber, and the other was the laptop phonenumber. I called the wrong number a couple of times, and waited 5 minutes on hold until they informed me that I need to call a different 1-800 number. I called the "right" number, and was on hold for at least 20 minutes, then I hear a distant, barely audible voice saying "please tell me your service tag number and express code." Now when you're talking to someone thats all the way across the goddamn globe, it's hard for them to hear you. I had to tell them at least 3 times a bunch of stupid meaningless numbers until I could start talking about my computer issues. But for the most part, they were able to help me somewhat. Luckily, once, I was able to talk a tech support person in the Central United States. That makes a WORLD of difference. So, Dell Support is highly inconvenient, but sometimes, it is helpful. I can't really speak about other computer manufacturers that much, but I can tell you that Rockstar Games support REALLY sucks. Newegg.com tech support is perfect. ADS tech support is efficient, but not helpful and Microsoft is tedious and annoying with reactivating windows xp pro for my laptop.

[cheezus420]

Just thought id check back in on my poll, and Im seein' the exact results that I expected All in all, I think all support sux, some more than others of course. This is y us non-computer illiterat folk stick to building our own machines, and being our own computer supporters. A forum like this is 1,000,000,000,000,000 times better than any computer support line (not always as quick but way more effective ) Keep on votin'

[Davor]

This poll is better called "who has experience with computer company support" and the results would probably be the same

[Nepali]

who buys all those branded computer at once

so how will it be possible to know abt their support from a single person

Edited September 2, 2005 by Nepali

[evilvoice]

for today, id say packard bell has the worst customer service...oh wait...are they still around??? hmmm, wonder why.

its a joke guys...Creative Labs by far is the worst

[n00b]

I never had to call Dell for anything so I donno

[HyperHacker]

Y'all gather round and listen to the tale of my experience with Western Digital. I got a new 250GB HD for Christmas, and plugged it in and all that. I booted it up and checked out the entry in the BIOS: WDC [some number] 137GB. 137? No... So I looked at the manual, and it said that in cases like this, I should use the included controller card instead of connecting it to the motherboard. Except one problem... there was no controller card. OK, next idea... supposedly the installer CD can install a hack to work around this. Great, I'll just put the disc in, run setup... and it says I have no CD drive. While it's running from a CD. -.- With no other options, I looked up the tech support number in the manual. There's a single 1-800 number listed. I dial it up and immediately get put on hold... for 15 minutes. Now I don't mind having to wait that bad... the part that drives me nuts is that literally every minute they repeat the same annoying line "please stay on the line, your call is important, blah blah blah" until you've gone completely looney. So 15 minutes later, someone answers. I tell them the problem and they inform me that I called the wrong number! (Gee, so many numbers to choose from - ONE. I can see how I would have made that mistake. ) So they redirect me to some other number, not bothering to tell me what it is in case I need to call back. Back on hold for ANOTHER 25 MINUTES. Finally, someone picks up... I ask about the missing controller card, and they say that they haven't included those in a few years. How lazy are these people that they stopped producing these a few YEARS ago and still haven't updated the manuals? The CD? He has no clue. He tells me to go to their website (don't you just love it when computer tech support asks you to use the Internet to get your computer working?) to download a smaller version that runs off a floppy disk. So I go to the website... it's blank. Sure, it works on their end, but I see an empty white screen. I hang up and find the download page myself via Google. Download, write to disk, reboot... Disk error.

Now, this is the part that really ticked me off. I put in a second disk and do a full format followed by checking each sector. No problems, but the program conks out at 95%. It takes TWELVE disks to get this **** thing to work. After finally getting it running, it asks what OS I'm using. Since I haven't actually installed one yet, I choose WinXP with no service pack. Does it continue on its merry way? Noooo. Does it install that workaround it's supposed to install to support >137GB HDs? Oh no no no. It tells me that WinXP without a service pack can't handle a drive this big. -.- So I decided screw it, I'll just make 125GB partitions. It won't even let me do that! I have to restart and say I'm using SP2 just so I can install anything. And just to make things that extra little bit annoying, I can't even choose my partition size. It just has some crappy, inaccurate percentage thing.

But as long as we're discussing tech support, I may as well add that Cogeco is one of the best I've dealt with. They rarely put you on hold for more than 5 minutes, the automated voice recording - WHICH YOU CAN SKIP - tells you if there are any known outages (though it's often wrong ), and the people actually speak English and really know what they're talking about.

Also, I dunno about tech support but I noticed HP sucks at making computers (or at least they did before they merged with Compaq). I had one and it screwed up everything. I'm not sure exactly what the problem was but programs would always just have random little bugs in them, as if the RAM were faulty, but it wasn't. I also had to add a new fan soon after I got it because it was overheating. It had a Celeron and came pre-loaded with WinME. And to top it all off, guess what it had for a power supply? 100 watts. One hundred. (Come to think of it, that's probably why nothing worked right...)

Oh and speaking of crap... if you're going to have a limit on smilies (quite pointless imo, but whatever) would it hurt to at least say what that limit is? And really, five is too much?