this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2024
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I think my dumbest customer story isn't programming-related but still related to computers. I worked in a small computer repair shop about 3000 years ago, and one day a customer comes in with their family computer that's "not working." It turned out to be full of viruses and malware, and when we started working on it it turned out this was due to somebody visiting shady porn sites and clicking on download buttons left and right. I explain the situation to her and then recommend steps on how to avoid this happening in the future, so how to browse safely, antivirus software etc. She feelt a bit embarrassed and says that it's her son, and that she'll give him a talking-to.
A few weeks later the same customer comes back with the family computer and this time she's visibly annoyed, and curiously she's brought along the keyboard, mouse and monitor. The computer's got viruses again, and it's my fault. Why? Because she'd had a talk with her son who had then sworn up and down that he'll mend his filthy ways. When new viruses cropped up, his explanation was that obviously they're in the keyboard, mouse and monitor too, and since they hadn't been in the shop they were still infected and we were just too incompetent to have known this. Naturally she believed her son over my word, and started demanding that we remove the viruses from all the peripherals. I tried for a very long time to explain that it's just not possible (this was a time when PS/2 connectors were still pretty common and that's what they had so it wasn't even theoretically possible), but she wouldn't budge because her son was a computer whiz (he wasn't) and a Good Boy™ and would never lie, so clearly I was either incompetent or lying.
Finally I just relented and said "OK you got me, it's possible your viruses came from the peripherals but I just didn't want to mention it because removing them is so time-consuming and difficult". I took all their hardware in and had it unfucked in pretty short order, and I looked at the browser history to make sure that it really was a reinfection via the web, which it was (I remember Pamela Anderson featuring in a lot of the searches, which we techs giggled at.)
I kept their hardware at the shop for a couple of weeks; it's a tricky and demanding job to remove viruses from mouses, keyboards and monitors, remember? When writing the bill I charged her double the time I actually put in – she didn't want to pay at all because she felt it was our mistake but at that point my boss, who was a formidable lady, practically put her boot up the customer's ass and made her cough up the money.
She left in a huff never to be seen again, thank the gods.
This reminds me of the time in HS when a letter broke off my laptop keyboard and my parents insisted on taking it to the shop for a repair. Turns out they really just wanted the shop to turn over my search history and chat logs. I already knew my parents were nosy so I would always delete it anyway.
One day I came home from school and they said the shop fixed the keyboard but just needed my password to test it and do updates. I said no it's fine if he can type in anything into the password then obviously the keyboard works, and I already did the updates regularly.
They literally had to beg me for the password and they were like pleasssse just give the shop the password so they can finish their checklist and you can get your computer back, and I was like fine if it's the only way I'm getting it back. Of course nothing came of it because there was nothing to discover.
Then my parents got the computer back but kept it in the trunk of their car for a week, and I accidentally saw it when we were leaving Old Navy which started a whole "I don't believe this!" discourse in the mall parking lot.
Moral of the story just talk to your kids instead of spying and lying, because they know and it won't work!
Oh my god reminded me of a story when I worked computer repair. Busy day, line of people waiting for me. Similar, mother came in and brought her sons computer. Apparently it had "just stopped working" and only showed a black screen. Plugged it into the monitor behind the desk facing out.
I did the ol' pop the ram out, press the power button a couple of times and pop the ram back in. Booted up like a charm.
The computer came out of hibernate - to the most ball slappinest porn ever, and I'm talking like, super hardcore. Anal, bondage, the whole sha-bang. It was only up for about 3 seconds but everyone in line knew.
Said "Well looks like it's working now have a good one", and oh man have I never seen such a combination of utter humiliation and pure rage at her son. Whoever you were kid, I'm sorry - but there's your lesson. If you're doing the dirty and the computer stops working, never have your mom take it in.
I witnessed something like this once. I worked for a pawn shop, wiping and reinstalling Windows on computers they were selling, but occasionally working on one of the counters if they were short staffed.
One day a regular customer brought his PS2 in to trade, so it had to be tested first. The manager took it as a training moment for me and and a few others, and connected it to the main TVs around the store so that we could all see how he checked the system.
The customer had left a rather hardcore DVD in the drive and completely forgotten about it, until it started playing on the big screen, and everyone in the store learned about his preferences.
Something tells me that DVD was never retrieved...
Oh, no, one of the guys took great pleasure in taking the disc out and handing it to the customer in front of everyone :D
She was rude ans annoying, but I still don't like that you took advantage of her.
Have to agree, it's a funny story but charging someone a stupidity rate for nonexistent work isn't justified by that person being stupid and a pain in your ass. Unless your circumstances force you, you can always just refuse work from customers like this. So many people downvoting this is disappointing.
Yeah, sometimes you get down voted and realize your take was a bad one. This is not one of those times.
It’s called the asshole tax. Don’t be an asshole and you won’t be charged.
It's called the asshole tax, and it's what happens when you believe a child over the person you're paying to fix your/their mistake (again).
Having run my own computer repair side business for a while, I would have (and have) absolutely done the same thing in the situation. I also had repeat fliers that realized their mistakes and didn't try to blame me for their failure, and the nicer ones even got a discount. But the asshole tax is there to make dealing with problem customers more worth it, and potentially to encourage them to find someone else to torment and give money to.
Yeah, I would have told her to get another opinion elsewhere or I can just clean it the same way again
You've never worked retail have you
I have, actually.
A scam is despiccable in my book, no matter how deserving the victim.
what scam? the customer wanted them to work on their computer, so they did, and charged the customer accordingly.
they lied to the customer and charged for work they didn't do
She wouldn't take "fuck off" for an answer. She got charged the special rate for believing whatever she pretended.
what lie? they told the customer the truth from the beginning, and still agreed to the customer's demands to work on the problem. they agreed to remove all viruses from the peripherals, which they did, because the peripherals were returned to the customer at the end virus-free.
Removing is an action, not an end result. Nothing was removed.
If you have no money, and throw away all of it, you still have no money.
The son scammed her. He told her she needed to disinfect peripherals. The tech is just allowing that to happen and charging a not listening to the tech fee.
Yes, the tech, who is also in a position of trust on the matter, is therefore part of said scam. Twist it all you want, the tech lied and benefited.
Tech tried to tell them it was unnecessary, would take forever, and would be expensive. I'd agree with you if, for a second, the customer sounded like they wanted to drop the matter. No, this was the customer absolutely digging their heels in, and the tech did what they could to get an irate woman out of the store.
At a certain point, you have to just let people make their mistakes, and get out of their way. This is exactly how I interpret the situation.
They wrote in plain text that the customers son's word had been taken over a word of a techie. So it's either pushing more to convince her, refusing service or playing dumb.
Sometimes lying is good. Like when a customer wants you to lie to them
I have a similar one! I did house calls. I got called out on a warranty call, someone said a coworker of mine didn't fix the problem. I look in the notes and the coworker says he did a standard virus removal, suggested virus protection but was turned down.
I get there and sure enough it's riddled with viruses again. Coworker was legit, notes all in order, I tell the client that this isn't a warranty issue, the work was done, and it has now been reinfected and will need another removal. He seems fine with this, but his wife flips out and demands I prove it got reinfected.
I suggest that we can check the web history. Since it was popping up ads, we'd see when the pop-ups started, and more importantly we'd see if they had stopped after coworker left. Guy says that's unnecessary, it definitely got reinfected, and this time he'll buy an antivirus. Wife is having none of it, says go ahead and check and I'll see the problem was never fixed. I ask if they're sure, guy kind of resignedly says to do it.
I'm not one to kink shame, but when all the trans porn site titles came up, the dude was clearly mortified. I didn't get very far into trying to figure out if I can prove it's related before the wife says "just fix the damn thing" and stormed out. I hope it wasn't too bad for him, she seemed a bit difficult to deal with.
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Scamming the customer because they don't know any better, nice
Is it really a scam if you tell them up front the work is unnecessary, you don't want to do it, and they insist? At a certain point, it's the customer hoisting themselves by their own petards.
People are quick to judge without considering the circumstances. Wasn't the customer's attitude equally wrong? Aren't you implying that the service person should have let her bully him?
No, they should have told them to get lost.
yes the customer was out of line, that's not an excuse to stoop to their level.
In a customer service setting, often times that's all you can do. The customer knows what they want, and particularly if there's money to be made, your employer will require you to do so. It sounds like this place wasn't exactly like that, but dude said multiple times this was unnecessary, and the customer still wanted it. He told them it'd be long and expensive. And unnecessary. They said do it. At a certain point, we have to trust that the customer really is their best advocate, and just do what they want.
She was an asshole who wanted me to redo work for free because she believed her son over someone who actually knew what they were doing, and after tens of minutes of wrangling I just went "fuck it" and obliged her request to sanitize the peripherals. The sum wasn't all that big to begin with, so it's not like she was on the hook for hundreds of euros – probably got a 50€ bill instead of a 20€ one. Not knowing any better obviously wasn't the problem here, but if that's your takeaway then I really don't know what to tell you.
So yes, I did it.
No, I'm not sorry.
Yes, I'd do it again.
Seeing as the customer insisted on that package despite the expert's recommendation, that's a fully justified idiot tax