I've had my fair share....
...of customers from hell. I used to work for a Sheffield based ISP that may or may not sponsor a local team that plays in blue and white.

Now as I worked in one of the Tech Support teams, you could be guaranteed that 99.999% of customers who called were going to be pissed off for one reason or another.

Some examples of the mouth breathing offspring of a retarded mongoose that I had to deal with are as follows:

One guy who calles up and advised that his internet wouldn't work, I went through all of the standard diagnostics and came to the conclusion that the problem was a line fault and needed to be reported to BT, he kindly informed me that this made sense and could it possibly be something to do with the telegraph pole outside of his house that had blown over??

An old lady who was somewhat hard of hearing and kept telling me not to get too technical on her when running through tests, the fact that I was only asking her to advise whether or not the lights on her router were on or off was irrelevent. (It turned out that she didn't have the router plugged in, this was apparently the fault of the company!) Once the issue was resolved she kindly told me to "Go Fuck Myself" before putting the phone down. (Normally I would be offended, but theres something about old people swearing that makes me chuckle!)

Numerous people called up complaining about their internet service, but funnily enough I couldn't find their details on the system. The conversation generally went something along the lines of:

Me - "Are you sure that we are your ISP"
Them - "Of course I'm, bloody sure you idiot, what do you take me for?"

swiftly followed by:
"I've been with BT/Orange/AOL for years!".
Me - "Ah but sir/madam/cocknose, this is P**N**, not BT/Orange/AOL".
Them - "Oh right. Well in that case put me through to BT/Orange/AOL!
Me - ????

My all time favourites were the people who thought that they were the uber god of all technology, whose infinite knowledge of all things technical gave them the right to come across as cocky bags of shite who generally treat us as total bastards. (I used to make up technical sounding terms and talk complete bollocks and they would nod and agree with everything that I said which basically showed them to be the complete Fucktards that they were).

One particular guy that I remember came through to me complaining that he could not access the setup page of his router, he was convinced that the router was faulty and wanted to return it:

Me: What appears to be the problem Sir?

Fucktard: Well this shitty router that you have sent me won't work

Me: In what way sir?

FT: It just won't work, I've tried everything!

Me: Please can you be more specific about the problem? Have you configured the router at all?

FT: No, I just plugged it in and tried to get onto the Internet but it won't let me

Me: Well sir, you need to configure the router before you can connect to the internet

FT: What? Aren't you supposed to do that? I've paid for this and I expect it to work, I work with computers every day, I'm the Managing Director of XYZ computers and I'm a software developer and I've never had to do this before!

Me: (Trying to stay polite) Well sir, I'm unsure of what equipment you have used in the past, but to use this equipment you need to configure it with your username/password etc.

FT: For god's sake! Right, tell me what to do then

Me: Well sir you need to type in the IP address of your router into an Internet Browser

FT: Duh! How the hell can I? I can't connect to the internet!

Me: Sir, you do not need to be connected to the internet to access your router

FT: Ok whatever, so how the hell do I find out what the IP address of the router is?

Me: Well sir, the IP address can be found in the literature that came with the router, but if you can tell me the make I will be able to tell you the default IP address.

FT: It's the grey one that you sent me

Me: Sir you need to be more specific, we supply many different types of router

FT: Fine give me a minute

(5 minutes later)

FT: It's a Belkin

Me: OK sir, the IP address that you need to type in is 192.168.2.1

FT: Is that in upper case or lower case?

Me: Excuse me?

FT: Are you deaf? Is that in U.P.P.E.R C.A.S.E or L.O.W.E.R C.A.S.E!?

Me: Sir, it's a number.

FT: Don't get smart with me, which is it?

Me: Sir, numbers do not have upper and lower cases....

*click*

I never found out whether he got his router setup...I hope not!


Apologies for length - I spent a mind numbingly boring year there dealing with some of the most moronic customers I have ever had the misfortune to encounter before I got away...I'll post the stories from my current job another time!
(Cow_Tipping_Samurai, Wed 10 Sep 2008, 15:35, 8 replies)

*click*
...for the upper case numbers
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Wed 10 Sep 2008, 15:42, closed)

I was just about to say the same thing
Upper and lower case is genius in its stupidity
( flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Wed 10 Sep 2008, 15:56, closed)

^ This
That person should not be allowed on the internets. Period.
(LordMatthius http://www.justgiving.com/marathon-matt2009, Wed 10 Sep 2008, 16:53, closed)

click
Reminds me of the managing director of the first software company that I worked for. He freed up space on his C: drive by moving the Programme Files folder to his new D: drive. "Why isn't Word working?" he was heard to ask.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Wed 10 Sep 2008, 17:43, closed)

Heh
You should've said 'Upper case. That's right, hold down shift while you press the numbers...'
(Stu Moo winner of five nobble piece prizes, Wed 10 Sep 2008, 18:08, closed)

Most shitty IT customer stories bore me
but damn if this didn't make me laugh.
(Guineapiggy Fuzzeh!, Wed 10 Sep 2008, 18:16, closed)

keyboard trouble
Bloke I used to work with had a pink fit once in the office, and I mean pink- his face was the colour of someone being throttled and the language was bluer than a bunch of squaddies taking part in a charity swear-a-thon.

Him "Oi! Oi! OI! Get the f=ck in here, right f=cking now!"
Me "Okaaaayyyy....... what's up?"
Him "Where the f=cking f=ck is the f=cking letter f=cking T on this f=cking keyboard?"

I pointed it out, colour returned to normal and he went back to jabbing away at random letters. His erase key was almost worn out with overuse.

Fat fingered gimp.
(randomstupidname would really like this signature field to be bigge, Wed 10 Sep 2008, 21:15, closed)

*click*
.... for the upper case numbers.

If I could give you another for the cheery "I hope not!", I would. :-D
(5150, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 13:37, closed)