dumbest things said by "tech" support

exampasser

I was inspired to make this thread when I was chatting with TWC "tech" support about anonymous phone call blocking (which I was later told by phone support that it does not function properly.)

Me:
"I have already done so and talked to technical support earlier and followed the representative's instructions but I'm still receiving anonymous calls."

rep's response:

"Do you have the number from which you are receiving a anonymous call?"

Feel free to post your experiences.

the_Grinch

I had to work with a Director of IT who knows nothing about technology. The person has only the ability to repeat things said by the various techs they have worked with. One night a piece of software was prompting for Admin creds so the user called in at 4 AM to have the issue fixed. This had occurred over the weekend and a senior tech had resolved the issue. Conversation went like this:

User: We're getting the prompt to run with admin creds again

Me: Ticket opened, I will reach out to the tech and follow up with you

(reached out to tech, he asks me to test with a regular account and found the issue is on one Citrix server. Checked and the elevated privileges/compatibility have been set need to reach out to maker of software, but they are closed)

Me: I worked with the tech and the settings appear correct, but we do see the problem. I will have the morning team reach out to the product support team

User: Did you speak to tech, he fixed this issue over the weekend (pretty sure I just said I spoke with that tech)

Me: Yes, we've confirmed the needed setting, but the issue is still occurring, product support will need to be called

User: So you made sure that the program is running with elevated privileges?

Me: Yes.

User: So it is running as administrator, this is what the tech did over the weekend? (elevated privileges should imply admin correct?)

Me: Yes, it is running with elevated privileges as administrator

User: And it's running in compatibility mode? (um didn't I say I reached out to the tech and confirmed all the settings?)

Me: email step by step (with screenshots) exactly what I did

User: Oh so I am down a Citrix server then?


I gave up after that, it was too late in the shift to continue to deal with....

Forsaken_GA

That's not so much of a dumb user as it is one who doesn't actually trust you. I've been the guy taking that phone call, and the one making it.

Psoasman

I had a Qwest technician insist I try and renew my static IP address.

N2IT

IT director was docking his machine with no network cable and connecting to the visitor wireless access network at the office and then using VPN for 3 years.

Plant manager was doing something similiar with an Aircard. Said he liked how it always worked and never had to worry about connect to those damn routers.

C'est la vie

Forsaken_GA

Psoasman wrote: »

I had a Qwest technician insist I try and renew my static IP address.

That's actually not as unreasonable as you'd think. I know quite a few providers that assign static IP's via DHCP, using an LDAP lookup to associate the MAC with it's IP address, and I've seen a few screwups where the users static got assigned incorrectly to someone else, so their lease attempt was rejected as the IP already being live.

Now, if you actually have your router configured statically instead of to pull via DHCP, then yes, he's being stupid

Forsaken_GA

N2IT wrote: »

IT director was docking his machine with no network cable and connecting to the visitor wireless access network at the office and then using VPN for 3 years.

I actually know a few folks who do this as well. They do it because the guest wireless, as well as the wired conference rooms, don't go through the corporate proxy, and therefore don't get filtered.

N2IT

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

I actually know a few folks who do this as well. They do it because the guest wireless, as well as the wired conference rooms, don't go through the corporate proxy, and therefore don't get filtered.

Is this just a matter of configuration rather than capability? I thought most filtering agents were applied/filtered at the router level.

***Disclaimer I am no networking expert.

the_Grinch

We had a sales person who would continually connect to the wrong wireless at their old office. Someone in the building had unprotected wireless and the laptop would connect to it instantly. She'd then call and complain she couldn't get into citrix/print, all while never looking at what network she was on. We'd remote in and switch to the right one, bam everything works....

mochaaddict

My coworker lost his sense of location just yesterday and senses. A server went down at the main site. He received a call from a "trusted" super user so he told that user to go to the imaging deparment and reboot the router?? The super user got frustrated after he couldn't find a router and called me to find out where it was. I'm glad that they didn't find and reboot the site's router. For one he should have been looking for a server and two the super user was at a remote site...

mog27

On the phone with Comcast once because of a cable TV problem a tech was telling me an S-Video cable was for sound.

RobertKaucher

mog27 wrote: »

On the phone with Comcast once because of a cable TV problem a tech was telling me an S-Video cable was for sound.

That's what the s stands for right? Sound-Video! LOL! It never works for me, though. I see things visually.

Bl8ckr0uter

N2IT wrote: »

Is this just a matter of configuration rather than capability? I thought most filtering agents were applied/filtered at the router level.

***Disclaimer I am no networking expert.

You can do it on a LAN/Subnet level. Most IT folk worth their salt have a different network for wireless (we have a cable modem for serving that network so it doesn't even leave out the same man as our main network). That network isn't filtered so if someone wanted to look at some, alternative entertainment at work, they could connect to that network. No one does but it is possible.

Everyone

"Hello my friend".

Devilsbane

Psoasman wrote: »

I had a Qwest technician insist I try and renew my static IP address.

I posted a story awhile back about how Qwest had me on the phone for 20 minutes rebooting my router and all of that jazz (all stuff I did before calling them of course, but I played along because the guy apparently didn't understand the term "Yes, I did that already") before checking to see if there was an outage in my area. Sure enough, the internet was down.

Psoasman

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

That's actually not as unreasonable as you'd think. I know quite a few providers that assign static IP's via DHCP, using an LDAP lookup to associate the MAC with it's IP address, and I've seen a few screwups where the users static got assigned incorrectly to someone else, so their lease attempt was rejected as the IP already being live.

Now, if you actually have your router configured statically instead of to pull via DHCP, then yes, he's being stupid

I worked for an ISP and they used static IPs and that happened a few times to customers. Someone would provision a line or make a quick change, but not check to see if the IP was already in use.
With the Qwest tech, I told them we had been assigned a static and there would be an error message if I did the ipconfig / release /renew. I asked him later if he was using a checklist and he was.

Hypntick

Devilsbane wrote: »

I posted a story awhile back about how Qwest had me on the phone for 20 minutes rebooting my router and all of that jazz (all stuff I did before calling them of course, but I played along because the guy apparently didn't understand the term "Yes, I did that already") before checking to see if there was an outage in my area. Sure enough, the internet was down.

Oh my goodness, happens all the time with Comcast. We have three clients in one office building downtown, and another one the same block, who are running off the same Comcast junction. If I see those four go down at the same time, if it's not a power outage, I know it's an area outage. Every time I call to confirm, they ask me to reboot the modem. I just told you I have four clients down in the same area, I either want to confirm or report the outage, rebooting modems is a moot point at that stage.

Forsaken_GA

N2IT wrote: »

Is this just a matter of configuration rather than capability? I thought most filtering agents were applied/filtered at the router level.

***Disclaimer I am no networking expert.

In the case of a web proxy, it's normally a separate device. Your firewalls will block direct access to port 80/443, which forces all traffic through the proxy. Users will need to configure their browsers to use the proxy instead.

We use Cisco Ironports, so in addition to functioning as a web proxy, it also does filtering and scanning at the same time (as well as SSL interception so it can scan those streams too). That makes some folks mad.

The guest access, otoh, is entirely segregated from the corporate network. All of it's traffic gets sent directly out to the public internet as is (except for the NAT, obviously). So we've got a few smart folks who use that as their primary access method, and then login to the VPN via that way in order to avoid any filtering, but still be able to access corporate resources.

MAC_Addy

Everyone wrote: »

"Hello my friend".

You know it's going to be a good call when they say that.

mattlee09

MAC_Addy wrote: »

You know it's going to be a good call when they say that.

I'm signed up for several listserv's...they even lead off with this in email. Several times a day. It's not a stereotype if it's true?

rsutton

Not something tech support said but did. When setting up a camera system on an internal network he configured it with a public IP address. The public IP was not part of our public IP range nor was it accessible from anywhere in the LAN (10.x.x.x network). When I got a call saying a user could not access the camera system using the instructions the technician left I was surprised to find the IP settings as they were. It was like he picked some IPs out of the air. This was a brand new camera system so I know these settings were not left in there from a previous installation. He also did not understand why I had to change the IP address when I talked to him - he did not want to admit that the camera system was not configured correctly - but that it was something in our network. So Camera guys are not network technicians - but if you are charged with installing a device that requires an IP address and you don't know anything about networking, it makes you look bad. Yes, we had given him a static private IP to use when we ordered the system...

Akaricloud

I have a couple...

First was one of the Techs at Frys Electronics. I went to return a bad stick of ram that I had just purchased and he insisted that it wasn't compatible because it had a lifetime warranty any my computer probably didn't have such a long warranty.

Also, I argued with Comcast for 45 minutes to get a refund on the manditory self-install kit(AKA one small cat5 cable, one coax cable and a cd). Talked to 4 of their techs and none could believe that I installed it without using their cd. They really thought that it was impossible to do without their junk software. At one point they were trying to charge me $34.95 for professional installation because I told them I was a professional and installed it myself.