Quick Note: As regular readers know, I've been having a "half war" on the PSICAN Message Board with someone who was using my efforts here as a "crutch" to say how rotten my other work is...

Well, I documented this person's attacks here in this post and this post...

Well, as proven, when you can't fight on the facts... it devolved and turned VERY ugly yesterday.

Click here to read what happened... If you're not already signed up, use the username blogusers and the password test.

After this rather tasteless attack, I locked the thread.

I thought you might "enjoy" the train wreck though... because it shows how bad people can and will "devolve" when they can't fight the facts and data.

Okay, MOST of us have heard technical support stories that make us giggle, laugh, or cringe... and many of them have basis in "real life", so to speak... but many are urban legends.

Well, good reader, allow me to introduce myself... I spent a few years "in the trenches" as an Internet Tech Support... er, "Customer Care" representative in the mid-1990's... and here's three of my FAVOURITE personal experiences... only one was "mine"... but the rest I was involved with... if nothing else, monitoring the calls and laughing like a madman.

CUSTOMER PROBLEM REPORTED: Why are you sending me all this porn?

The customer called and asked why our service provider was sending them tonnes of pornography through e-mail and "automatically" through their browser. This poor woman was most confused.

We explained to her that our company did not in fact spam porn to anyone and our homespages did not include "adult content".

She was adamant, however, that we were sending her smut... so we started diagnosing the problem.

She didn't surf adult websites. She didn't use adult newsgroups/NNTP servers. She didn't "purchase" adult anything online...

So, the next question was key...

"Is there anyone else who uses the computer and internet at your home?"

"Well, there's my husband, but he doesn't use the computer at all... and my son..."

...her voice trailed off...

Over the phone, we heard the woman "apparently" call her son to the computer... then, although the technician involved was trying to get her attention, the woman had put down the phone "off the hook"...

There was some intense conversation... followed by arguments... followed by a loud crash... then a young man's voice saying...

"Ahhhh, mom! Not the computer!?!"

The phone was then hung up and we never heard back from the customer.

SOLUTION: We believe the customer is no longer interested in being online... or owning a computer... on moral grounds.

Matthew's Notes: All computer problems can be rectified with the strategic use of a twenty-pound sledgehammer.

CUSTOMER PROBLEM REPORTED: My computer MUST crash.

The customer called to tell us that our CD ROM (with the internet service providers software) was faulty and couldn't be read by his machine.

Now, we had dealt with numerous people that, because this was in a day and age where computer CD ROM Drives were NOT standard on all systems, that people who received our package tried to "play" the CD through an audio system... so that was our first avenue... which wasn't the case.

Next, the technician asked the fellow to look at the "underside" of the actual CD for scratches or marks...

"Hang on..." the customer said... which was followed by a loud bang... and another... then the customer returned to the phone.

"It looks okay to me?" the customer said...

The technician asked what the loud bangs were... and the customer replied...

"Well, my CD ROM door sticks, so I need to drop my computer on the floor to get it to open."

The technician had to ask... how far was this drop?

"About three or four feet."

The technician then asked the customer to try ANY other CD in the drive... and after another series of crashes, they ascertained that the CD ROM drive was "inoperable" for all CDs.

SOLUTION: Customer needed to take his machine to place of origin and get CD ROM fixed.

Matthew's Notes: Folks, if you have ANY piece of electronics equipment that requires a three-foot drop onto a hard floor to "work", it probably isn't working... and it's a given that your warranty is going to be in question at the shop. Just a friendly reminder.

Quick Note About That Last One... Probably some of you read the "solution" and though I was going to the rather tired "joke" about taking it back to the store, getting a refund because the customer was "too stupid to own a computer".

The likelihood of that old joke being AT ALL true is minimal... although people say it DID happen at IBM, Xerox, Apple, and a plethora of other "computer help desks", it sounds more like something a tech support person WISHED they could have said... not what actually happened... because IF someone in any of the companies I worked for did that, they'd be escorted out of the building and their job VERY rapidly.

...moving on... best for last...

CUSTOMER PROBLEM REPORTED: When dialing into the internet, the police, fire department, and ambulance show up at my home.

...actually, I could also add this one... and this WAS how it was logged in fact...

CUSTOMER PROBLEM REPORTED: When dialing into the internet, the customer hears voices yelling at him to hang up from his computer.

Yes, the customer called us to report that they heard "voices".

Now, this MAY sound paranormal in nature... but good technical work proved this not to be so.

First off, the technician assumed that perhaps, the phone extension was "in use" and the callers were yelling and being detected by the modem's internal speaker... the customer said this was NOT the case.

Second was the idea that, perhaps, they were receiving incoming calls and the modem was "answering" the phone to dial out... again, this did not pan out.

Thirdly, the thought was that the modem was dialing the wrong number... so they looked into the "dialing properties"... the number was correct... but...

The customer had pointed out that the "number" was sadly long distance for them as they didn't have a local server to call into...

This led to the final and "problem solving" diagnostic... the dialing properties of the connection.

The customer had altered it for the long distance number... but made some other baffling changes as they felt one should make to make things "better"...

They had checked "DIAL 9 FOR AN OUTSIDE LINE".
Then they had checked "DIAL 1 FOR LONG DISTANCE".
Then they had manually entered the number... 1-XXX-XXX-XXXX

Ergo: The modem dialed 911-XXX-XXX-XXXX

(For our British friends, this is the equivalent of the modem dialing 999 before then dialing in the operator's ear the last of the number.)

Yes, the voices were emergency services... screaming that there was obviously a mistake... and probably worse.

It also should be mentioned that the customer tried "redialing" for literally hours over two days.

In essence, it was amazing the police hadn't ACTUALLY showed up to literally throttle this customer... but we got it sorted out.

Too bad, I was hoping the "voices" were more paranormal in nature! Oh well...

SOLUTION: Dialer errors fixed, fires put out, ambulatory patients tended to, police officer calmed situation... 911 operators talked out of strangling customer.

Matthew's Notes: Just because it SEEMS that a "box" on a computer needs to be checked, DON'T unless you really know why.

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