Mobility Site - View Single Post

suemccartin · 10-02-03, 11:17 AM

Tech support for practically any computerized gadget, computer, motherboard, cdrom/cdrw is practically non-existant no matter what company you're dealing with. After building computers for ten years I've already figured out on my own that the tech staff at most places is next to worthless. And why is it that way? Because they put legal jargon in their fine print that basically says they are not responsible for anything that doesn't work with their product. Why do they get away with this? Because so far no one's been able to make it financially unviable for them to have this attitude and enough of the time it does work right that the complaints get ignored. You get much more help on a forum like this one than you will ever get from most companies so called "tech support." Sometimes company employees haunt the forums which truly does help them fix the bugs in their products even though they rarely admit such is true!

The "consumer protection" authorities in my state and most others from what I've read, does absolutely nothing about the way computer hardware is sold and not supported. The companies do a fantastic job of convincing the consumer, the protection authorities (who are usually tech-illiterates) and the jurors that the end user is some kind of idiot with the IQ of the average amoeba and so the bad customer service goes on.

I can tell you from experience that Dell seems to be one of the better companies in that they even "try" to offer upgrades and after enough complaining do replace malfunctioning products. I had an experience with Gigabyte (big motherboard manufacturer) a few years agao when I had a AMD 751 based motherboard made by them that was supposed to support a Slot A firebird cpu but it wouldn't work (board did nothing but reboot every few minutes). I sent it in, they tested with a Slot A classic cpu sent it back said it was ok but when I tried to boot it the board was dead as a doornail. I sent it back again and they insisted nothing was wrong and still refused to test with a firebird chip that is technologically different from a classic slot A chip. I talked to the "english as a second language" tech once, he was more interested in politely convincing me that I was an idiot than trying to verify that there was a problem by simply popping a slot A thunderbird on the board and testing it!!!!!! Later I got a different board with the same chipset and it continues to run fine today with that firebird cpu so I know there was nothing wrong with my cpu. It's just this kind of pigheaded stupidity that really frustrates the techies out here, they need to realize that we are not all technoidiots that don't know how to do our own troubleshooting before resorting to sitting on the phone for an hour to be insulted.

Yes, a classaction lawsuit would get their attention at least for a little while but have you seen what kind of "spanking" they get in those? The lawyers get all the money and the consumers get a "coupon" for a few bucks off something new they buy, big deal, I didn't even send in my paperwork for the big MS class action, I would have gotten 40 bucks in coupons for more MS products???? Something wrong there if you ask me. The problem wouldn't have been so bad now if there'd been more action in the beginning when companies first started putting out marginal hardware with no testing before they released it onto the world to cause problems.

10-02-03, 11:17 AM	#9 (permalink)
suemccartin Aximsite Major League Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Florida Posts: 338 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	My two cents....... Tech support for practically any computerized gadget, computer, motherboard, cdrom/cdrw is practically non-existant no matter what company you're dealing with. After building computers for ten years I've already figured out on my own that the tech staff at most places is next to worthless. And why is it that way? Because they put legal jargon in their fine print that basically says they are not responsible for anything that doesn't work with their product. Why do they get away with this? Because so far no one's been able to make it financially unviable for them to have this attitude and enough of the time it does work right that the complaints get ignored. You get much more help on a forum like this one than you will ever get from most companies so called "tech support." Sometimes company employees haunt the forums which truly does help them fix the bugs in their products even though they rarely admit such is true! The "consumer protection" authorities in my state and most others from what I've read, does absolutely nothing about the way computer hardware is sold and not supported. The companies do a fantastic job of convincing the consumer, the protection authorities (who are usually tech-illiterates) and the jurors that the end user is some kind of idiot with the IQ of the average amoeba and so the bad customer service goes on. I can tell you from experience that Dell seems to be one of the better companies in that they even "try" to offer upgrades and after enough complaining do replace malfunctioning products. I had an experience with Gigabyte (big motherboard manufacturer) a few years agao when I had a AMD 751 based motherboard made by them that was supposed to support a Slot A firebird cpu but it wouldn't work (board did nothing but reboot every few minutes). I sent it in, they tested with a Slot A classic cpu sent it back said it was ok but when I tried to boot it the board was dead as a doornail. I sent it back again and they insisted nothing was wrong and still refused to test with a firebird chip that is technologically different from a classic slot A chip. I talked to the "english as a second language" tech once, he was more interested in politely convincing me that I was an idiot than trying to verify that there was a problem by simply popping a slot A thunderbird on the board and testing it!!!!!! Later I got a different board with the same chipset and it continues to run fine today with that firebird cpu so I know there was nothing wrong with my cpu. It's just this kind of pigheaded stupidity that really frustrates the techies out here, they need to realize that we are not all technoidiots that don't know how to do our own troubleshooting before resorting to sitting on the phone for an hour to be insulted. Yes, a classaction lawsuit would get their attention at least for a little while but have you seen what kind of "spanking" they get in those? The lawyers get all the money and the consumers get a "coupon" for a few bucks off something new they buy, big deal, I didn't even send in my paperwork for the big MS class action, I would have gotten 40 bucks in coupons for more MS products???? Something wrong there if you ask me. The problem wouldn't have been so bad now if there'd been more action in the beginning when companies first started putting out marginal hardware with no testing before they released it onto the world to cause problems.