Post your ISP tech support stories

[BananaMan]

Working in customer support, I know the horrors of working on the phones. So many horrible people out there, flinging accustations at you and so forth. Most of us telephone jockeys are pretty youthful and intelligent, even if we work a job that doesn't require too much skill. But, god, there is no dismissing the numb nuts factor of some ISP techincal support technicians. Post some of your stories, gotta be good for a laugh! :)

[lazydesert]

Originally posted by BananaMan

Working in customer support, I know the horrors of working on the phones. So many horrible people out there, flinging accustations at you and so forth. Most of us telephone jockeys are pretty youthful and intelligent, even if we work a job that doesn't require too much skill. But, god, there is no dismissing the numb nuts factor of some ISP techincal support technicians. Post some of your stories, gotta be good for a laugh! :)

one time i emailed isp tech support and got a reply within the hour.

[configure Veteran]

I was asked to hold.. and until now.. I'm still on hold.. those #&(#*#%@

[gravel5839]

i know more about networking than them... "TCP/IP?"- Adelphia Tech

[aaron901]

called telstra once and waited for 40 minutes, i was using my mobile...

[jessejlt]

It really goes both ways, I've been on both sides and you get some really stupid tech support people and some really stupid customers that call.

[BananaMan]

Originally posted by jessejlt

It really goes both ways, I've been on both sides and you get some really stupid tech support people and some really stupid customers that call.

Good point, very true.

[altezza Veteran]

One day, one customer support asked me what operating system I am running. Then I said I am using Windows XP Professional. The lady seems too confused of understanding what is Windows XP Professional. She said to me, "Is XP the same version as Windows ME?" I said no, it isn't then she said again, "Found it, you're actually running Windows NT4 Server right?" Then again (I was in complete silence try to hold my laugh) said "Well, shall we move back to actual troubleshooting problem?" She said, "I am sorry for my lack of understanding, sir. We've been trying to help you to solve your troubleshooting."

From that line, I chose to end the call by saying "Let me clarify the problem again and I'll call you back". She said okay and I hang up the phone. Upon hanging up the phone, I laughed.

Geez, can't she understand the Windows at all? She must be trained harder next time ;) :D

[Steven P. Administrators]

Customer support either don't know the current version of Windows that is shipping, they are one windows version behind *OR* you'll have some nut that claims he was on the beta of the said version and knows all about it -more than you of course ;)

They dont know the simple ways to navigate to various general settings in Windows its always via the "Start" menu and ends up somewhere which is just 2 mouse clicks away from the desktop (its best just to pretend you are actually doing what they say)

Customer support pride themselves in knowing cool l337 things like command line pinging and tracert (but be patient while they grab the manual on how its done)

When you annoy a customer support person their failsafe "fall back zone" is the "Hold" button (this is funnily enough the most valued thing about a customer supports job)

Customers support wait for you to tell them you have Windows XYZ so they can tell you they wont and dont support it.

Customer support failed to answer me how I could hook up 4 PC's to my newly purchased "Fast ADSL" product where I got 4 IP addresses from the said ISP. On connecting more than 2 PC's to the modem it crashed.. To which I was told "We don't support networks" My response: "How am I supposed to hook up 4 PC's to their IP addresses then?" they responded with "We don't know"

The above was true. It was never supported and supported hardware (router/hub) was not made available either.

ISP's simply suck balls. they charge too much and know nothing about the poison they sell.

[nail]

i rung up my isp one time to TRY and find out what the ftp address was to upload some stuff to my site, i asked something like "whats the ftp address to my webspace", they said "ftp.paradise.net.nz". -click- -click-. i said to her "nop, ive tried that twise, thats a your download ftp address for demos of games and stuff, can you tell me what the ftp address for homepages, the homepages that comes up when i type 'http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/nail' so i can upload my homepage", they said. "ummm, ftp.paradise.net.nz" and so i hung up and rang up my mate, turns out it was ftp.homepages.paradise.net.nz.

heh

[username]

when i first got hooked up with AT&T Broadband, the guy never turned in the work oder that we got connected so about 3 weeks later, it stoped working. Went through all this hoopla because they didnt understand what happened, didnt even know we had their modem. After a few hours, back on. No problems otherwise though.

[Obraxis]

Im a tech support guy in a PCWorld store in the UK.... But I actually fix pc's in store aswell.

The other day, I had one customer wanting to know how to switch her pc off....

"Well madam, you can either click start and 'Turn Off Computer' or you can press the power button' ;) F*ckwhitts.

-Obraxis

[mcb]

well, first off, my ISP (Rogers Hi Speed) will begin capping at the end of the summer..5gigs d/l per month probably. They dont even plan to officialy anounce when it'll start in the form of an email or anything, i'm sure i'll find out, but that first bill for people who didnt know will be nasty...

i probably use 5gigs a week! damnit....

also, when the tech guy who set us up came, (i wasnt home first off) but the other day i found that he installed the network card it the worst possible PCI slot...the screw is right under the crossbar beam "THIS IS NOT A HANDLE" dealie. i admit thats just bad case design, but there were at least 3 slots for him to choose from, and he honestly must have gone out of his way to use that one, *******. i needed to move it the other day, and of course it was screwed in very tightly. i had to get pliers under there and ended up chewing up the screw.

that was just an inconvenience, its the capping that really gets me...so i get less service, and not even for the same price, since in April, they jacked up the price by $5 a month! evil, evil monopoly...

[aem4162]

I've had wonderful experiences with the tech support at Glasscity/Voyager and now Western OH RoadRunner.

The people were all really nice and liked that I knew what we were both talking about. Each company's tech support is 24/7, which was great, and if they needed to call me back, it was quick.

I'd give them all high marks.

:D:D:D:D:D:D

anita

[wd40]

I was talking to a Qwest DSL sales rep about those MSN DSL modems they are shipping and asked him they shipped in PPP or bridging mode and he didn't even know what those were. So I explained what they were and he was like "wow that's cool".

[Flip_Kid]

First, let me give a bit of background information... My ISP is Telus.Net, and I live in Greater Vancouver, BC. The reliability of my Internet connection is so poor that I expect it to go down for about an hour or two a day, and experience sub-56k speeds for some more time. Naturally, being the person that I am, this really ticked me off, so I went to tech support.

I sent Telus.net an e-mail regarding downtime and asking a few questions regarding it, and my response was a detailed letter on how to turn on my modem, and make sure it's correctly plugged into the wall. I responded, and then was contacted through phone at a time when I was busy. I told them this, and they gave me a reference number to phone back so I can pick up from where we left off. I gave them the reference number the next day when I phoned - guess what? They lost all relevent information pertaining to my e-mail.

I was more than frustrated by this point, but I politely restated my questions. I was promised an e-mail reply within the next week from a high-ranking TELUS employee regarding my concerns. It's been over a month, and the e-mail still has not come. When I phoned them to inquire as to the status of this e-mail, they could find no record that an e-mail of any sort (besides the Telus newsletter, which I never subscribed to) was due to be sent to me.

[nail]

Originally posted by Flip_Kid

First, let me give a bit of background information... My ISP is Telus.Net, and I live in Greater Vancouver, BC. The reliability of my Internet connection is so poor that I expect it to go down for about an hour or two a day, and experience sub-56k speeds for some more time. Naturally, being the person that I am, this really ticked me off, so I went to tech support.

I sent Telus.net an e-mail regarding downtime and asking a few questions regarding it, and my response was a detailed letter on how to turn on my modem, and make sure it's correctly plugged into the wall. I responded, and then was contacted through phone at a time when I was busy. I told them this, and they gave me a reference number to phone back so I can pick up from where we left off. I gave them the reference number the next day when I phoned - guess what? They lost all relevent information pertaining to my e-mail.

I was more than frustrated by this point, but I politely restated my questions. I was promised an e-mail reply within the next week from a high-ranking TELUS employee regarding my concerns. It's been over a month, and the e-mail still has not come. When I phoned them to inquire as to the status of this e-mail, they could find no record that an e-mail of any sort (besides the Telus newsletter, which I never subscribed to) was due to be sent to me.

that is so bad its not funny

lol

but actually it is funny

[jwndw]

The ISP, who I won't mention, but sounds like Infinet, had some stellar techs....you can tell by these responses:

First sign up....software would not work. At the time it came on 4 floppies. Called tech support and told them it wouldn't work.

Tech1: 1st response.... Did you clean the CD really well?

I don't have a CD, It came on 4 floppies.

Tech1: Ok sir, put the CD in the drive and it should autorun.

if not, click my computer, CD Rom and run setup.

Are you deaf? I don't have a CD, the software came on 4 floppies.

Tech1: Sir, you should have a software CD.

No, the CD software won't be available for 6 weeks, was told that when I picked up the sign up kit.

Tech1: Uhhh....If you don't have the CD, I can't help you.

Hung up and called back

Me: I just got the software and it won't let me set up an account and connect.

Tech2: Did you check our web page FAQ for new users?

Uh yeah, let me just go online and do that now. I can connect no problem, just got bored and wanted to see if you guys wanted to talk.

Tech2: Laughs for a second and sends me to Tier 2 where they get me connected.

3 weeks later, email goes down completely and can't send or receive email.

The lady tells me she will check in to it and get back with me. Gives me her name and extension and promises to get back with me within the hour. Two hours later I call back and guess what she tells me: "You didn't get my e-mail?"

Uh...Duh....thats the damn problem...lol

But the best one of all.....They way oversold the service at first and didn't have enough lines to cover it. My Uncle worked for the phone company at the time so I knew this. My service went down completely one day. Absolutely would not connect. I call support where the guy proceeds to tell me there is a "Fibre cut" in my area that caused the outage. I call my Uncle, who would be one of the people repairing this, as he was a maintenance supervisor and he knew nothing of the sort. He made a couple of phone calls and called me back and said there is no such "Fibre cut" and even if there was, your ISP wouldn't be affected because they are not on the Fibre network.....lol. I called them back and informed them of all this and they promised to call me back.....guess what.....I am still waiting for that phone call 5 years later.

[liar2]

Well, there was this one time that I had called up tech support and had been on hold for about an hour. They answered the phone.... finally. They asked what my problem was. I said that I have my charter pipeline cable modem service and that for some reason it isn't letting me surf the net. I also told them that I was able to connect to other people's ftp servers :D

He asked what kind of error I was getting. I told him, "I'm not getting any error, but just when I go into IE, I get the standard 404 page. He said "what's that?"

That's very sad. He also asked when the last time I was connected to the internet. I said, I still am but it's not letting me surf the web. He then said "have you tried using a different dialing number?" At this point I couldn't figure out if he could be any more stupid. He thought I was using dial-up. After wasting about a half hour of my time, he gave me a number to call microsoft. wtf was I supposed to do with that? About an hour later, my net came back anyways.

But yeah, most tech support is horrible.

[betax]

Tech support, or is it?

Through my understanding, it is not worth the money to purchase an extended warranty on any OEM computer.

My experiences with Compaq Tech support consisted of everyone constantly telling me to ?Put the Quick Restore Disk? and thus, send me back to the original configuration. This would be all fine and dandy if my OS was corrupt (actually no because the OEM OS?s are corrupt to begin with) yet? what caused me to burst out laughing was that my problem was not a software issue, it was a hardware one. Here is what transpired.

CPQ REP-?Welcome to Compaq Technical support, my name is **** how can I help you??

?Hello, I am seaming to have a problem with the network card that came with this system, regardless of what Ethernet cable I attempt to use weather it is a crossover cable or a patch cable- the light on the network card does not turn on nor is windows able to use the device. I am even unable to get a network enabled DOS disk to utilize this network card? (CLEARLY something wrong with the hardware) (I was trying to get them to notice that I needed a replacement card)

CPQ REP ?Which version of windows are you using??

?Windows 98 SE Full Retail?

CPQ REP-?In order to give you support, you must be using the OEM version of windows on your computer ? Please use the ?Quick Restore Disk? to send your computer to its original configuration?

?Excuse me, how will your original OS fix what is seemingly a hardware issue??

CPQ REP-?I am sorry, I am not qualified to give you support until you are using the version of windows that came with your computer?

(((I then hung up, laughing my ass off)))

I called 2 more times? the ONLY way to get them to send you any hardware component is to lie and say you are using Windows 95 OEM. I got the replacement card in 2 weeks? It failed within a month. Now my brand new 10$ card that I bought is still kicking 4 years later.

I got more-funnier stories about Compaq support.. yet I will leave it at this for now.

[sunnyy4]

Originally posted by betax

Tech support, or is it?

I got more-funnier stories about Compaq support.. yet I will leave it at this for now.

Please share them with us... we'd like to hear them... :D

[*AristiA*]

lol, it's great you can laugh about it, they **** me off.

It's always "sorry, you're version of windows is not yet supported"

Me "when are you going to support it?"

"don't know" or "in the next few months" and ends up being a few years. Why they have to lie about it i don't know, surely they realise it annoys ppl more when you lie.

Plu, you aren't asking for help with your os, most of the time it is the isp connection we are phoning up about.

We called our isp recently and even said fine, we'll intall windows ME then, the woman said "sorry, we an't help you" e were like "what? we will install ME, why can you not help?"

It is like getting blood out of a stone. Get themselves a bad rep.

It sorted itself out now, but forgot to call them to say so. but no-one has called us yet lol. That is how to keep custom huh!!!

[Impulfusion]

is it normal to not have a tech support storie?:ponder:

[Elektro]

I got *cough*caught uncapping*cough* by my ISP :p

I called them up and played dumb... I said i couldn't get my internet to work... they asked for account info and did easy stuff like release and renew, and reinstalling my network card. They asked me to bring up a webpage so i attempeted to and got our favorite 404, "This Page cannot be displayed". He said "Hmmmmm sounds like u need to call your manufacturer, give gateway a call and tell them what is happening"

The next day it worked again, and i got a certified letter from my friends at charter.... still its a funny story ^_^

[bigfoot]

When i first connected to the net ... my connection was shi***y so i was calling my isp to much for help ... they ping me when my connection is good .. one time i installed a firewall and called them ... they ping me ... the ping showed to me by my firewall and just blocked the ping ...they said : " yes sir your DSL conecction is discconected and we will send our technical worker to check it out "

thge next day he came and guess what he did .. he just connected something ....written sisco on it ... to my DSL lie socket ..and saye your connection is good ... and guess what he did .. he set on my pc and and started to chat with other people on the net ( my DSL connection is good in morning and bad at night he came morning ) ...I sayed in my self What the f***e ... :hurt: :dead: