Continue reading »]]> The company I worked for discovered that several of our customers were able to view some of our premium channels that they were not paying for. As soon as the error was realized of course it was fixed and the calls started pouring in. Idiots galore began to call in complaining about the loss of these channels. This particular idiot truly shined in the glory of stupidity. He said we played a bate and switch. I tried to explained to him that we didn’t give the channels to anyone intentionally, it was a simple error that we fixed as soon as it was discovered. Our company is not in the business of giving away these channels for free. He responds with, “How dare you give me these channels free for almost a month so that I would get hooked on them. Now you take them away and want me to pay for them!” I state, “I am glad to hear you enjoyed watching these channels for free. If you liked them so much then what are you complaining about. Either pay for them like everyone else that wants them or sorry you cannot continue to have them for free.” He responds with, “Do I need to call the cops? Do I need to call the cops? What are you going to do to compensate me?!” This is amazing so I counter with, “You go right ahead and call the cops and explain to them how you want something for free and we won’t give it to you. You go right ahead and do that and see what happens. This conversation is over with and you have fun with that, bye, bye” and I hung up on him. I really hope he called the cops because I am sure they will not be so nice to him. We are so sorry that we let him have something for free for a while and he has nothing better to do than call and complain about it.

Continue reading »]]> Guy calls in to get help with his cable. States that its broken and we need to get out to fix it. I ask him a few times about the remote he is using. He insisted it was the right one. So we go to his other tv to check it out. That one is broke to. So we do the customary troubleshooting and that turns out to be broke. So we go to the “big tv” Its big because it has HD. So we work with it trying to get it to change channels on the tv itself. So i tell him to Push channel up and down on the tv itself. The same tv that we needed the remote for. We got to the part we were changing the channels and we were able to do that. We get to channel 4 and hes on the wrong setting. We need cable not antenna. So I tell him to press the menu button. No menu comes up. He then states the remote is the wrong one. WTF took you 20 minutes to figure that out?!?!? he looked at the name on the remote and relized that it didnt match the name of the TV. SO we get the right one. He tired to fit AA batteries in a AAA remote. DUH! Holy shit if they dont fit then you would think they werent the right batteries for that remote. I sent out a tech to help him out after an hour of being on the phone.

Continue reading »]]> Caller: I want to know why I do not get channels “a, b, and c” anymore.

Me: I am sorry you are not receiving channels “a,b, and c” anymore but you are not signed up for them and have never been signed up to get those channels. You must have been receiving them in error. If you would like to get these…(cuts me off)

Caller: So, you take away some channels and still are charging me the same price. This is ridiculous. Are you going to lower my price since you took away some of my channels.

Me: Sir, the channels that you are not getting you were not suppose to have had in the first place. You were never paying for them and were not suppose to be getting them. We did not take away any channels, you are no longer getting channels that you were not suppose to have to begin with because you were never paying for them.

Caller: He says something indiscernible and hangs up.

Continue reading »]]> [I work for a cable company]
Caller: I am tired of you people showing the same shit all the time. I am going to have to change companies if you do not do anything about it.
Me: (Cable Company) does not choose the programming. That is decided by the networks.
Caller: Well, if you don’t do something to change what is on then I will just have to go elsewhere. (Cable Channel) shows the same shows over and over again. Do I have to go to (Other cable company name)?
Me: Miss, the same shows are on the channel no matter what cable company you have. What is on (Cable Channel) with us is the same shows that are on (Cable Channel) if you had (Other cable company).
Caller: Obviously you are not taking me serious. I will have to call (Other Cable Company) and sign up with them so I can watch something new for a change.
Me: Even if you get service through them it will be the same exact programming.
Caller: I don’t think so, I had them years ago and they had better programming! (Click)

Continue reading »]]> [I work for a cable internet and phone company.]

A customer calls in about an issue with not being able to pay her bill online. She has done this online before but forgot where to go. I gave her the web site where to go and she comes back to me all confused as to what I just gave her. Our web site is such that a 2nd grader could spell it. I had to slowly spell it out. Okay we finally got to the web site in 5 min. Yippie record time?

She insisted that she is already logged in so I tell her were to go. Ten min later we figure out she is not logged in. She couldn’t see the box that says LOGIN. Really not hard to miss since she was reading everything else on the screen to me and this is one of the biggest things (it’s 1/2 the width of the screen!). Somehow she was able to locate the very small, not so noticeable, log in link at the bottom. So, I have her click on that.

I was really puzzled that she needed to be prompted to go to the user name box then be told to type in her username (common sense ???) then to put the cursor in the password field, then again told to type in her password (what the???? you don’t know that you gotta type it in yourself???). After 5 min of her exclaming things and it sounded like she was getting it in there we figure out she can’t find the password and doesn’t remember it. I reset it. Again repeat everything.

She at this point finally says that she has no idea what she is doing. She isn’t clicking on the right thing. She is clicking on new user and not log in. I told her to click log in 3 times. AHHHHHHH!?!?! I told her to get help from someone that is familiar with websites and how to log into them and ended the call.

[End Rant]

Continue reading »]]> [I work for a cable company and do over the phone trouble shooting for video service problems.]

The customer called in complaining that the interactive guide was no longer providing information and just stated NO DATA in all the spaces. After all the initial trouble shooting steps it became necessary to reboot the satelite box. I asked him if he could unplug the power to the cable box, wait 15 seconds and plug it back in. He asked me to hold while he did this and a minute later he comes back and asks, “Which one is the power cable, the one that screws on?”

Idiot, that is all I got to say!

Continue reading »]]> [I work for a phone company. Often I get customers that call in with problems that they think are our fault and they refuse to realize it is not.]

The customer proceeds to explain that there is a strange hissing sound on the phone now all the time. She states that it has been going on for a few weeks now. Note: The customer has had our service for several years already.

I ask if it does it on all the phones and she says yes right away. I ask if it is a cordless or corded phone. She lets me know it is a cordless phone, so I inquire if it gets worse as she walks around the house and she says yes. I can hear the noise she is referring to on my side of the phone, so I asked her if she has any corded phones in the house and if she could switch to that one. She says yes but she doesn’t use that phone very often and eventually she changes to the corded phone.

Right away the hissing sound is gone and the call is perfectly clear. I point this out to her and she asks what I did to fix it. I tell her nothing, the problem is not with the phone service it is a problem with her cordless phone. She then begins to argue with me stating that it was not doing this before, the cordless phone is not that old, doesn’t know why I will not help her. I suggest that she try moving the base to the cordless phone, check for new sources of interference such as other wireless or cordless devices, and see if there is an option to change the channel on the cordless phone. She refused to believe that it was her cordless phone even after I pointed out again that it sounds fine on the corded phone. She just replied that she doesn’t use that phone and she wants the other one to work right.

I then advised her for more help with her problem she needs to call the manufacturer of the cordless phone. She said she would. This made me think she finally understood, but I was wrong, because when I asked if there was anything else I could help her with she said I had not helped her at all and then she hung up.

Continue reading »]]> Me: I’m sorry there is a problem with your bill. What is the problem please?
Caller: I sent you a payment for $150 on January 24th. You should have it by now and you are still showing me past due and are threatening to shut off my services! Why are you not posting my payments?!
Me: We did receive your payment of $150 on February 1st but the bill you have had already been sent out on January 22nd, so that is why it is not reflecting your payment. Your account is current and…
Caller interrupts yelling: Then why are you threatening to shut off my services. That is no way to treat a customer!
Me: Once again the bill was sent out before you even sent out your payment to us, so at the time it was sent, the account was 35 days past due. I am sorry for any confusion this may have caused you, but you were past due when the bill was sent.
Caller: Well your company better get its’ @!*-$ together and quit making mistakes like this!
Me: There was no mistake. When we sent the bill to you, you had not even sent the payment so the bill was accurate at the time we sent it. We would have no idea you would send us a payment 2 days later. You said you sent the payment on January 24th right?
Caller: Yes!
Me: If you look at the date on the bill it was sent out on January 22nd, two days before you even sent us the check. This is why it says you are past due. Understand?
Caller: But you said that you got my payment on February 1st and I just got the bill today. (Note: It is February 4th) Why don’t you show the payment on here? You are not making any sense. I want to speak with your supervisor!
Me: I am sorry for any confusion. I will get a supervisor on the line for you. Can you please hold?
Caller: Yes!