Fun with idiotic tech support

[Vesayen]

If your interested in the five hour nightmare I just had.....

I talked with "Eric" before this. Eric wasted my time for the better part of an hour. Eric asked me the same asinine questions over and over, my saying "No." and being polite.
Eric had me waiting so long the chat program auto disconnected me for not talking so long.

However Eric soon explained when I re-connected it was not in fact, the same Eric. I am sure Turbine is full of Erics, probably all in east asia and equally incompetent in regards to helping me with my problems.

My favorite part is further down where Eric says a "virus" may be responsible, or when he pastes his copy pasted stupidity, twice, about how he empathizes with my problem. Yeah. Sure.

Eric is so stupid when I earlier requested the IP for the server so I could PROOVE it was not a problem on my end by pinging it, he said to ping the website….. *sigh*. I got the server IP anyway from the turbine forums and pinged it successfully.

Anyway here is the second chat.... I would of included the first chat log, but it closed before I could copy it.



Eric: Thank you for contacting Turbine Technical Support. How can I help you today?
: hi
: we just talked
: you disconected me.
Eric: No, not actually. Are you using windows XP service pack 2?
: If you've forgotten, when I try to log in it says "The Authentication server is unrechable." To also summarize, checking your forums it seems like this is a HUGLEY common problem, which tons of people have and the only solution for them was to wait(as long as 3 days sometimes)
: I wanted to know if there is anything I can *DO* or just, wait.
: yes I am.
Eric: Windows XP service pack 2 has inbuilt firewall and it is possible that you are not aware of it.
: its also, off
Eric: Alright.
Eric: Please wait.
: Thats what i've been doing.
: I'll wait.
Eric: Please check that acclient and aclauncher are in the exceptions list even though its disabled.
: it is
: with the windows firewall off, and zonealarm off, I still get the error. Is it that hard to confirm if this is a problem with turbines servers or not? I have a big suspicion it is.
: I think the chat client auto-booted me before because I waited so long without saying anything.... so just typing this line
Eric: Please let me clarify few things. It seems that something is blocking the connection. Can you please let me know about your ISP?
: optimum online on long island......
Eric: Are you on dialup or cable or DSL?
: Cable.
: I can succesfully ping the server...... that pretty much shows its not a connection problem on my end. I don't mean to be rude, I can empathize, but you do know what that means, right?
Eric: Ok. Are you using any anti spyware or virus scanners?
: mcafee.... I turned it off.
Eric: Any virus scanners?
: McAfee is my virus scanner
: I dont have any spyware running at this exact second.
: I am reading your forums. This seems to be a hugeley common problem in the past.... are you able to confirm if the problem is on turbines servers? All things are pointing to it not be a problem on my end.
: .
Eric: Can you please enable your antivirus?
: Can you answer my question?
Eric: Not sure.
: I have HAD a job exactly like yours before. You have to go down a huge list of problems most people do. I'm a fourth year programming student at my university.
: The forums, the AC forums, say this is a frequent, common problem, which appears to be entirley on turbines server sides.
: Can you confirm if this problem, is one with ACs servers? According to numerous posts on your forum, people have just had to wait a long time and it went away, it being a server side problem.
Eric: There is nothing wrong with our end.
: Okay/
: This is a fresh format of my computer
: its not the firewall, turned it off
: its not a virus..... or spyware.
Eric: It may be possible that your system is effected by virus.
: its not a virus
: a virus is not going to selectivley disable AC when I can ping your server and all other programs work fine
Eric: Alright. I would suggest you to check on the different computer.
: This is the only one I have.
: I could link you to some posts on your forum, for people who had identical problems I had, where it appeared to be your server.
: would that help?
Eric: Yes.
: Beautiful! I am happy to accomidate
: 1 moment
: Take your pick. All seem to be similar problems where people had to wait on the server. http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/sh...ht=unreachable and http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/sh...ht=unreachable and http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/sh...ht=unreachable and http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/sh...ht=unreachable and http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/sh...ht=unreachable
Eric: I would be escalating your issue for review. A senior representative will try to get back to you as soon as possible.
: Beautiful.
: I totaly empathize with your job.
: I just want help heh.
Eric: Alright. Thank you for visiting our Turbine support chat. Take care and have a nice day!
: Yeap.
: I assume he will contact me here, or should I expect an email?
Eric: They will contact you through email very soon.
: *sigh*
: is there any way I can talk to them in a chat box like this?
: As you might imagine, if I have to answer them 1 idea at a time like I did with you, and I know in advance most of them are not the problem, email will take weeks to resolve the problem.
Eric: No, they will contact you very soon.
: Theres no way they can contact me via a chat box? Hell, give me a phone number, I will call them.
: I installed AC and re-activated my account because I am away from my primary computer, for 7 days. I am paying a monthly fee once to basically play, for 7 days.
: If it takes a week to resolve this issue, its not worth it. I suppose its too late to call and get my money back for this month?
Eric: I can understand your feeling. We will try our best from our side.
Eric: Thgey will contact you as soon as possible.
: Later then now, is not soon enough
: I am on the phone now with customer service
Eric: I understand how you feel right now for not being able to use the services and the issue not being getting resolved. I apologize for the inconvenience caused to you.
Eric: I understand how you feel right now for not being able to use the services and the issue not being getting resolved. I apologize for the inconvenience caused to you.
: they refuse to put me on the phone with a tech support who is COMPETANT
: your copy pasted responses show you do NOT know how I feel.
: I am attempting to get my money back.
: and a chat log of this incompetant is going on some of the more popular AC forums.
: good job on accidentaly copy and pasting your pre-written script twice however. I am sure your sole goal is to delight me as a customer, etc.
: Oh I was planning on buying DDO in a month or so.
: With support THIS incompetant, no way.
*The Representative has left the session.*
*Thank you for chatting!*


I called the accounts department again because of course the ONLY part of their support they will let you talk to a human being is when you try to give them money. I told them everything and said I wanted my account canceled immediately AND a refund. They said they needed to put it in review for their manager and I’d need to send an email….. they said I could get the email off their website. There is *NO* billing support email on their website. I said I’d call on Monday to talk to him and asked for the hours he’d be there.

For the hell of it, I also sent this email to the community relations contact on Turbines site, since they have a fear of human contact and had no other emails I could find.




I knew my problem the entire time, some problem on Turbines end with the server, either the authentication server was down or accounts server was not updating me in time. They could of CHECKED on either of these things like I tried to ask about(REPETADLY), but they refused to answer or even acknowledge my input and continued on with line after line of stupidity.

FIVE SECONDS with competant tech support could of resolved my problem. It could of even gone something like this!

Me: Hey.... hey guys. Hows it going? Yeah, I know your busy so let me do this quick. Just re-activated my account and am excited to play but when I try to log in, it says I can't connect to the server. Could this be a problem with my newly activated account, or maybe the server is having temporary problems?
Eric: Hi Seth! Let me just check right up on that, can you hold a moment?
Me: Sure.
Eric: (two minutes later) Well Seth, looks like there is some server problems, sorry about that, you'll have to wait till Monday to play...
Me: Oh... damn, well, thanks, you were very helpfull.

*goes on with life*

Instead it went like this:
Me: Hey.... hey guys. Hows it going? Yeah, I know your busy so let me do this quick. Just re-activated my account and am excited to play but when I try to log in, it says I can't connect to the server. Could this be a problem with my newly activated account, or maybe the server is having temporary problems?
Eric: COMPUTERS ARE FINE!
Me: Er..... I think the problem may be....
Eric: I LIKE WAFFELS! DO YOU LIKE WAFFELS? MAYBE THE PROBLEM WITH YOUR COMPUTER IS YOUR WAFFELS HAVE A VIRUS
Me: ..... maybe the problem is....
Eric: THE PROBLEM IS YOU ARE NOT EATING ENOUGH WAFFELS! MY SUPERVISOR WILL CONTACT YOU SOON ABOUT HOW YOU CAN EAT WAFFELS!
Me: Okay.....
Eric: WAFFELS ARE FUN! MY SUPERVISOR WILL CONTACT YOU ABOUT EATING MORE WAFFELS SOMETIME NEXT MONTH!




The email:

I am a HUGLEY dissatisfied Asherons Call customer. This is ultimately
aimed at the billing department but I could not find their email-pass
this along to them if you don't feel like reading it, ultimately I
want a refund.


I am one of your oldest customers actually. I bought asherons call
when it was originally released. I have been an extremley active
member of some of the major AC sites for years. I had since
de-activated the account and in July tried to re-activate it. I had
since switched credit cards which made it impossible, after a dozen
emails and 4 phone calls it could not be resolved and I gave up.

I decided to try once again today, made a phone call, managed to
contact someone competent and had my account re-activated. That was
only the start of my problems.

I then spent 4 and a half hours trying to resolve a technical problem.
The problem is not, on my end-my suspicion is a problem with your
servers updating my account information but I am not sure.

I spent an hour on your website looking for information and then spent
3 hours using the online chat feature to talk with "Eric". Eric was
beyond incompetent and disconnected me at one point. He took upwards
of 5 to 10 minutes between responses and had absolutely no grasp of my
problem.

FINALLY he admitted the problem was beyond him and said he would
contact a more senior representative to help me. Fantastic. Then he
told me he could not have me contact him via a chat box, or even
through the phone, but email.

To take a few lines from our chat.....

Eric: I would be escalating your issue for review. A senior
representative will try to get back to you as soon as possible.
: Beautiful.
: I totaly empathize with your job.
: I just want help heh.
Eric: Alright. Thank you for visiting our Turbine support chat. Take
care and have a nice day!
: Yeap.
: I assume he will contact me here, or should I expect an email?
Eric: They will contact you through email very soon.
: *sigh*
: is there any way I can talk to them in a chat box like this?
: As you might imagine, if I have to answer them 1 idea at
a time like I did with you, and I know in advance most of them are not
the problem, email will take weeks to resolve the problem.
Eric: No, they will contact you very soon.
: Theres no way they can contact me via a chat box? Hell,
give me a phone number, I will call them.
: I installed AC and re-activated my account because I am
away from my primary computer, for 7 days. I am paying a monthly fee
once to basically play, for 7 days.
: If it takes a week to resolve this issue, its not worth
it. I suppose its too late to call and get my money back for this
month?
Eric: I can understand your feeling. We will try our best from our side.
Eric: Thgey will contact you as soon as possible.
: Later then now, is not soon enough


This was after having devoted hours to just trying to play the game.

I called back the accounts office on the phone and told them
everything that happened. I have had the subscription for less then 5
hours, the majority of that time being filled with frustration trying
to play what I had paid for. I have in total not played a single
moment on my account, nor does it seem like I will be able to. I want
my monthly subscription refunded immediately. Immediately after this
email is sent I am off to cancel the account but I want to be
reimbursed for the month I have paid for and will likely not ever
receive.

On a slight note, I was probably going to buy Dungeons and Dragons
online in a week I got back to my primary computer but after this
nightmare called customer service there is no way I would ever
consider buying another turbine product.

The account connected with this entire mess is .

-An extremely unsatisfied, long time Turbine customer who will never
buy another Turbine product again,

[Sava]

i have no idea what's going on right now





and I'm not even stoned

[joncha]

Eric

[Colonâ„¢]

"competent", not "competant"

[Zopperoni]

HA HA!

Originally posted by Vesayen
If your interested in the five hour nightmare I just had.....

[Az]

ugh.

voice tech support by competent people ( I actually got some of it today!)

[Solver]

As much as I can also get pissed at how some people do their job... you really have to emphatize with how difficult some jobs can be. Tech support guys often seem to have an average level of computer knowledge and are indeed forced to talk by a script they're handed in advance... just remember that they probably understand their job sucks and that they aren't really that useful

[Standup]

Having managed a service desk you have to go through the motions regardless of the level of knowledge/competence claimed by the caller. More often than not they either overstate their knowledge or aren't aware of issue unique to that application/service etc.

For the few that do actually know what they're calling about it can be frustrating but when 40% of calls on a monday are people who have forgotten their password you do get cynical.

[Japher]

summary

[Skanky Burns]

v: I have a problem
eric: Eat more waffles
v: That didn't help. I want a refund

[Japher]

Eric

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by Japher
summary

Outsourcing tech support to India will bring about the death of Western Civilization.

[Japher]

We should just learn to use our own computers

jesjes

vewy good

[Agathon]

https://www.apple.com/macosx

[Agathon]

I was half joking.

Every Mac game publisher I have dealt with has been exemplary. Blizzard are particularly good.

When I called up to suspend my WoW account, the guy I dealt with did not attempt to BS me in any way and admitted that they were having problems.

Add to that the fact that Blizzards Mac Tech support forum has hands down the most employee responses of any of the WoW support forums and it's a pretty good deal. I guess being part of a smaller customer base has its advantages.