Let's hear it for that customer you dread going to see...

[JKSteger]

I have to visit one of my cutomers that I DREAD in the morning. I tried to get out of this one but I need the money. Here is the story.

Last time it was working on a laptop...now a desktop. On the laptop issue he said that when he tried to "get on" the Internet it (laptop) would act funny and wouldn't work. I asked him exactly what it would do and he said to me "H*ll, I don't know it just wont work...fix it". I told him I would take a look at it and give him a call he said don't bother calling him just bring it back fixed. (I reinstalled IE, problem fixed).

Now it's his desktop that he said is "fried". He will not give me any more information on his computer at all. Now this guy will pay no problem but I hate doing any work for him because he ALWAYS thinks that after I work on something that he shouldn't have ANY problem for at least another year or something.

You guys have any stories about regular customers that you just hate?

JKS

[senectus]

I would suggest to the guy that he get some user training as it seems that his real problem is not knowing how to look after a computer.

You might be able to sell the idea to him as a cost saving measure...

[Papa Smurf]

I only REALLY hated one customer. And even then it was only the owner of the company that was the pain in the a$$ not the users. I only went to this user twice after that I like the other 4 engineers before me refused to go back EVER.

During my 1st visit which was on a really hot day she complained I blasted up her long drive way (This company was in a country mansion) at about 70mph with dance music thumping out of my car "boy racer style". This cheesed me off cause it was only like 20mph and I had the radio OFF!!!
Once inside I replaced the keyboard which she had spilled coffee over and was about to leave when she dragged me into her office and pointed to a virus alert flashin on her laptop. She blamed this on me. I explained that I was working on an other PC next door which wasnt even on the network I also mentioned the fact I was only swappping a keyboard. To keep her quiete I removed the virus from her PC and left. She complained to my boss about this.

2nd visit : She had just ordered a new dot matrix printer and as a "perk" my company also supplied a free box of listing paper to say thanks for the buisness. Well she was complaining her new printer was jamming paper and required if fixed ASAP. I arrived on site and looked at the printer it turns out she left some of the packing material in the paper feed path of the printer. I remove this stuff and run 5 pages of listing paper through the printer as a test to make sure everything was OK. I leave and get back to the office to find out she has phoned up demading a new box of listintg paper as well as a new ribbon for her printer as I had used ALL of it during my tests.......now here is the killer line "Since of the probelms with the new printer as well as the amount of paper wastage which she will have to fork out for she will be deducting it off the bill that is due to us". Once I heard this I told the boss I refused to go back ever not even if he offered me a cash bonus. NEVER

Turns out that this user has always been like this and complained about EVERY person that she has ever met.

I have found out that this company has one the highest turnovers of staff in the area with 2 people leaving a month. I wonder why.

Cheers
Papa"I'll only go back with a full SWAT team"Smurf

[Garak]

Yeah, i built a machine for a user about 3months ago, as always, the hardware is covered, not the software, and this guy is phoning me constantly saying this and that isnt working, trying to blame the hardware, well i have proven to this guy that it isnt the hardware at fault, but actually the software, yet still doesnt listen, so i basically lost my nice side and said, " You voided your warrenty by opening the machine, goodbye" and hung up... Im not normally like that, but i can only take so much, i mean being woken up at 7am for 3weeks solid is enough to drive you crazy, would'nt you agree?

[JKSteger]

Well, I know what the "fied" computer was. The SirCam virus. I removed it and all worked fine. After I did this his PowerDVD was not working and needed to be "re-installed". I asked him for his software and he handed me a restore CD that had an image on it. I told him that I could not get the software "out" of the image without reappling the image and that this would set it back to factory install...he got mad and of course took it out on me! Then he said that he was just going to buy a new P4 and that he wanted me to come by and transfer all the software and data to the new computer. I told him how this would work (going from ME to WinXP)and that I had to reinstall all software and then move all his files over. Then listen to this...he told me that I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT!

I seems that he saw an advertisement for DriveCopy for $20.00 and said that DriveCopy would work. I told him that I wouldn't work for what he wanted to do and then he got upset and said something like.."why would they lie about this software". I explained that they didn't lie and that he misunderstood what it could do. Then he paid me and told me that he was going to buy the DriveCopy and call me back out next week to "do this thing right".

I would drop him off of my list in a NewYork second except that he is the owner of 2 companies that give me ALOT of revenue. The company work is fine since I only deal with managers onsite but working with this man is driving me crazy. He's an older, rich guy who thinks that it either his way or the highway...never takes NO for an answer and such..you know..."I get whatever I want" and all.

I HATE this man, I really do. He just wont listen to the voice of experience!

JKS

[ephmynus]

I used to have one customer come in all the time. He had 6 scsi drives all under 2 gig each and I kept trying to sell him ONE ide drive and offered him discounts and money for the SCSI drives he had but he wouldn't take it. He messed it up every month and came to me for a $45 call EVERY month to fix it but he just couldn't see that for two service calls, two months - just TWO months, he could get a nice new shiny hard drive and not have any of these same problems but he refused to do it. He came to me about 8 months in a row before I left that job.

[Outcoded]

Anyone who's bought a PC with a PC-Chips board. They buy them from another company, yet it's your fault when they go wrong.

Once had a complaint from a customer that I drive to fast. They said there was no way that I could have done 30miles fom the office in 20 minutes (that would mean an average of 90mph). They then proceeded to give me a lecture on safe driving before I pointed out to them that I don't work out of the office, but out of my house two miles away.

I spent fifteen minutes trying to explain that the boss takes the call in the office, and then rings the nearest available technician.

In the end I gave up and showed them my 15-year old 1 litre Fiat Panda started the engine to show them how bad it sounds and explained that it has enough trouble hitting 9mph, let alone 90.

They immediatly became sympathetic saying the company should at least give me a decent car for my job. I explained they don't give me any car, it is my own personal heap.

[ephmynus]

[quote]Originally posted by Outcoded:
<strong>In the end I gave up and showed them my 15-year old 1 litre Fiat Panda started the engine to show them how bad it sounds and explained that it has enough trouble hitting 9mph, let alone 90.

They immediatly became sympathetic saying the company should at least give me a decent car for my job. I explained they don't give me any car, it is my own personal heap.</strong><hr></blockquote>

That's hilarious

[joelen]

I have a few people like that, and after a couple times, i usually raise my hourly rate. I have one guy who is up to $125.00 an hour! (sad thing is-- even at this rate, i am considering not doing service for him anymore)

[Stalemate]

[quote]Originally posted by joelen:
<strong>I have a few people like that, and after a couple times, i usually raise my hourly rate. I have one guy who is up to $125.00 an hour! (sad thing is-- even at this rate, i am considering not doing service for him anymore)</strong><hr></blockquote>

Say, that's not such a bad idea

[CodeDragon]

My favourite customer of all time had to be Miss Lefayre.
Back in the days when I was working as a bench tech at PC World in Blackburn, a couple of ladies walked into the store. On was about 70, stooped and white haired. Her companion was... interesting. She was about 6'2", had blonde permed hair, well manicured fingernails and... 5 o'clock shadow.
Once, a collegue accidentally called her "Mister" by accident, whereby she went into a frothing rage and called the manager.
She had a Comcrap Presario which had nothing but problems. Despite the fact that we advised her to purchase a surge protector, she insisted on plugging the unit into the same dirty mains supply, thus runining about 5 PSUs. We eventually got tired of this, and told her that we could not repair the same fault when she could avoid it blah blah blah.
So she decided on a new problem. She wanted to plug a terribly expensive Korg synth into her Aztech soundcard ( ). We advised her against it, so she went and bought a Korg synth card, which was about a foot long. When we told her that no, it's third party and no, we can't fit it because it's third party and it won't fit in the sodding case, she got mad and eventually threw the system at our tech manager (boy did that guy dance), shattering the (allegedly) reinforced glass behind him.
Needless to say, we didn't serve her again.

CD

[mhull616]

I had one show me naked pictures of herself, It made me a little uncomfortable.

[CodeDragon]

[quote]Originally posted by mhull616:
<strong>I had one show me naked pictures of herself, It made me a little uncomfortable.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Uh-huh.

I once RMA'd a scanner for a woman and found a piccy of her German Shepard in it. So? I hear you cry... Well it would have been fine if she hadn't been in the piccy too, pointing at the Dog's manhood (or should that be doghood) which was *ahem* standing out...
You never can tell...

CD

[Crazy02]

Once reloaded a pc for a customer and I wasn't shure how his last name was spelled, so i just typed in his first name as reg owner. I figured no big deal most time we only type in user or "" anyhow. But apparently he wasnt too happy because he picked up his pc which was reloaded at a bargon price for him to keep him from complaning in the first place, (boss knew what he was like) and not 15 mins after he leaves the shop phone rings and he is barking about me not putting in his name right. so i tell him to bring it back and i will go into the reg and fix it for him, but his answer is no he dosen't want me messing around in the reg and messing up his pc. guess he figures we are too much of an amature operation to handle such a task.

Next time we see him is over a year later and his pc is roasted again, turns out a local used pc vender sold him some ram which his pc choaked on (used pc 66 mixed with pc 133) so i reload his pc again firs and last name by the way he made shure I did it this time, got a yuck out of that. In the end all it cost him was the used ram that roasted his pc in the first palce as we had a customer who just happend by needing the pc66 ram. and all said and done he gives us grief on how bad that it all turned out for him. If he only knew how cheep he got off. Oh well just can't please some people.

[gtiseb]

All of these problems are why I don't do home or personal work anymore, Just corporate.

Had a lady wanting to buy a pc from me, Friend of a friend, I spec her a system qith quality parts (asus, Nvidia, Soundblaster) and tell her the price and she decides to go HP instead behind my back. Of course 3 or 4 months later her PC's not working right and she calls me and starts getting mad at me. Turns out the store she bought it from went out of bussiness and now she has no one to honor the warranty and since I'm a tech I should fix it for her because HP should pay me for warranty work. this went on fr days, keeps calling me and i keep telling her No unless she pays, then finally she decides that she wants to sue me and the former owner of a store I never even heard of. the rampant Stupidity of people is unbelivable sometimes. My lawyer (who's also a personal friend) knows hers and told me that he was trying to get her to drop it because it's just ridiculous! I guess he convinced her since this was almost a year ago.