Biggest whopper you've ever told a client...

[Wayward Clam]

Inspired by this other thread:

What's the biggest whopper you've ever told a customer/client/user? And why? Was it to cover your a$$, to have fun proving how stupid they were, or for some other reason...?

My own anecdote will be of a coworker who covered my butt... we were having an insane day and the customer came in to pick up their machine. We had no idea who they were, what machine was theirs, or whether they were buying, selling, having it repaired, having it upgraded... they weren't in our system, we couldn't find their paperwork... you can't tell the customer you have lost their computer! But that is exactly what we had done.
So my buddy the sales guy boldly steps out onto the floor and lays this on the customer:

Sales guy: "The head technician was looking at your computer and he saw the keyboard light flickering on and off. Apparently that is one of the symptoms of a new virus that is going around, and it is pretty brutal, so he wanted to take care of that immediately. The trouble is, the test for it is sensitive and takes a long time, so I'm going to have to ask you to come back later on, after he has ensured there is no damage to your keyboard."

Customer: Oh my gosh. How long will this take?

Sales: Shouldn't be more than an hour or so. (whips out trusty pen) Now how was it you spelled your name again?

Got away with it too... we found the system, don't remember what it was in for but whatever it was we got it dealt with, and the tech fixed the phantom "keyboard virus"...



Undoubtedly everyone here has heard worse stories, or done worse themselves. Come on now--give us the goods! I could use a good laugh today...

[Outcoded]

Flux capacitor.

That and, 5 hours labour for a 10 minute job.

[Cleetus]

I have used sunspots and falopian tubes!!!!

[Matridom]

I've always taken responsibility for my muck ups and been up front with the customer. The biggest lies we've ever told is when the sales departments screws up on a sale, and for one reason or another it can't be built.

One example was a cheap system we where selling, it was offered with 32 megs of ram, 64 and up. Now being a cheaper system, most people went with the 32 megs of ram. Now, the board had onboard video, and so snagged 4 megs of ram. When we went to isntall Me, not enough ram.. needed 32 megs and there was only 28 megs....

So we lied, told the customer that there was an undocumented promotion, they actualy got 64 megs of ram, ate the cost on the ram, and modified the builds so that the option for 32 megs was no longer there. we bite the bullet on about 10 systems cause of that.

The price difference at the time was about $60. (enough to take a chunk out of the profit)

[drewmaztech]

Nothing as complicated as above. I'm not a good faker.

Customer comes in, no clue who they are but they know me - try to look them up on the system and have to ask "How do you spell your last name again"

"oh there it is! must have been a typo!"


I'm always "in a meeting" when I don't feel like dealing with a particular person at that moment.

[geeksRus]

had a customer come in to pick up his machine and i had no idea who he was or anything about his machine. i looked all over and couldnt find it. after some arguing and threatening his face turns red and he starts apologizing. turns out HE was in the wrong store. i've never lost a system...but i've had one left on the doorstep of the business before hours...no name or anything on it. worked fine, and i took it home about 6 months later.

[Chëëzmønkëy]

Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?

only welsh robots...

[NooNoo]

Originally posted by Chëëzmønkëy
Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?

only welsh robots...

Or New Zealand Robots

[Wayward Clam]

Are you trying to hijack my thread?

[Archangel42069]

Originally posted by Chëëzmønkëy
Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?

only welsh robots...

Don't forget Virginian, West Virginian, Kentuckian, Tennessean, and Arkansasan.

[geeksRus]

Originally posted by Archangel42069
Don't forget Virginian, West Virginian, Kentuckian, Tennessean, and Arkansasan.

good one, eh.

[FatalException0E]

hmmm.....I think I'll go Best Try tomorrow and ask about my phantom computer in for repair......

[Orangeman]

This isn't a computer story but it is a dishonest tech story. A few years ago I purchased a used vcr from a repair shop . I took it home and recorded somethings and it worked fine. After about a day I noticed that I couldn't fast forward in 'search' mode. I couldn't rewind either.

I took it back into the store and the tech said. "You mean you didn't press 'stop' first before you pressed FF." I said no, that it wasn't necessary to do if you wanted to search.

He said my mistake was going to 'void the guarantee' but he'd look into it anyway because he 'felt sorry that it happened so soon after I left the store.'

He fixed it again, and after a couple of days it broke again. This time I took it into another shop and the tech said that the tape rotors were put in backward.

I guess you get what you pay for.

Orangeman

[Chëëzmønkëy]

whats with the sporadic attacks of mcdonalds here?

[ShadowWynd]

I think the hamburgers are supposed to be Burger King's flagship sandwich, known as the "Whopper", thus the relationship with the title of the thread on "whoppers" (i.e. fibs/lies/bending the truth etc.).