Annoying Caller Habits, #61; Lying bastards who try to get special treatment by being lying bastards.
Not *quite* a call-centre story, but it does involve me answering the phone at work and speaking to a bell-end, so hopefully it's allowed. I used to work for a lovely small web design company which, because of its micro-size and low prices, attracted more than its fair share of mentals. This meant we hosted a lot of bizarre sites for odd businesses and fruitloop groups.

One customer asked for a website which he would use to provide information to the masses. We built it for him at a bargain price. Once it was online, he asked for the FTP details so that he could change bits himself. For the less-techie reader, this is like selling someone a puppy and then allowing them to deal with fleas themselves by providing them with a hammer. The boss agreed however, taking care to point out that any changes he made would invalidate the warranty.

A month later, the phone rang. The customer had decided to install a forum on his site, made an almighty bum-up of the security settings and was now stuck with a website which included a comprehensive directory of links to WAREZ sites, replica Rolex dealers and cock-pill salesmen. He wanted us to fix it. For free.

"Sorry, but we didn't add that to your site so I can't help" I explained.
"But you built the site!" he argued.
This went on for five minutes, him telling me we were responsible and me explaining that we couldn't just fix any old crap he decided to plop onto his site.
Eventually, he decided to play his persuasion trump card.
"Well, it's a shame you won't help me. And to think I was about to place a big order with you for twenty brand-new top-spec PCs, laser-jet printers, projectors and a network. I suppose I'll have to go somewhere else now"

How foolish I felt. I'd just blown a big-money deal with someone whose website was created to warn you that you should wrap yourself in tinfoil so that the government couldn't read your mind.

On the plus side, it meant we didn't have to try and convince our suppliers to accept payment of three bin-bags of bottle-tops and a handful of warm shit.
(costas, Thu 3 Sep 2009, 17:00, 3 replies)

Hahahaha..
"accept payment of three bin-bags of bottle-tops and a handful of warm shit.."

You get a click, just for that.
(danniekavanagh did nothing constructive on, Fri 4 Sep 2009, 11:30, closed)

That's exactly why I cliked on it too

(massively_optimistic that's terrific!, Fri 4 Sep 2009, 12:00, closed)

Sounds scarily familiar...
Unlike others, my click is for " like selling someone a puppy and then allowing them to deal with fleas themselves by providing them with a hammer."
(DrBurkstrom, Fri 4 Sep 2009, 16:48, closed)