Pluggers by Rick McKee for February 08, 2025

Microsoft support calls me and fixes my computer often. They detect viruses and malware from their headquarters in Kolkata. John Wilson is my main contact there. Easy payments in Walmart gift cards. John gave me a tip about a new crypto coin coming out and he let me buy in. The hot new crypto coin is called $SCAM. Watch for it!

this is a real problem, takes hours to get a solution

My grandson is my tech support for such things, and as skilled and helpful as he is, it seems as if he lives in another world beyond my comprehension.

This one for sure is a “Been There … Done That” ! Yes all companies we customers hate this ;-)

I wonder if they test for English pronunciation.

Someone must have been watching the “IT Crowd”. Great show!

And the tech guy’s name is usually Bob or Fred

Last time I had this problem, it was six repetitions of a 24-digit activation number before the “tech” gave me a return code. Although I did have some trouble understanding a support person in Alabama last year.

Recently, for a friend, I was trying to re-connect a W10 mini PC to a router after a hard reset. Entering the router password failed. Was told that the owner had changed the router PW. But the router wouldn’t accept the changed PW. Called TS and tried the proffered suggestions. No good. Finally discovered that the #### keyboard defaulted to a “canceled” number lock condition. All this would have been avoidable if the “engineers” at MS had allowed one to “un-hide” the PW keystrokes as they were entered in the dialog box. But Noooo … That would make too much sense; so it’s not for US!

The company that I work for has outsourced to an Asian country. All I can say is: “Well blessed their hearts”.

More hidden inflation, and more money for the bottom line. Less and less is pleasing the consumer an issue, as we have fewer and fewer alternatives to turn to.

Yes, I have. Several times. It still isn’t working. Should I get a hammer?

“Uff and awn.” You talking to Ole or Lena?

We live on a hamster wheel. Not sure which computer genius first had the idea that getting a new product out the door first was more important than getting a new product tested, but we’ve been paying for it ever since. Would you buy a car if you didn’t think that all the bells and whistles had been tested at the factory before the car could be sold? But we do that with our technological toys and we are forced to because our old stuff won’t work with newer stuff.

This is why I prefer to do support calls on chat where I can read what they’re saying, and I have a record of the conversation.

A recent tech call scored me a rather good English as a second language person. Very helpful, and I got chuckle when a rooster started crowing. Sounded like it was in the same room as the tech person.

Is it just Pluggers, though? And I’ve noticed the accents have gotten less heavy. I love hearing people speaking English as a second language, beautiful accents and all, but sometimes it was just too much.

It works better if you count to ten before turning it back on.

I’ve often had to ask the CSR to readjust their headset so their mic is in front of their mouth. From personal experience, many snack between calls and forget to do this when your call comes in. Now I can hear you!

When I called, I asked the person, “Where are you located?” If I’m told a foreign county, I asked to be transferred to someone in the USA…and they make the transfer.

called tech support many years ago, and their accent was so thick, I had to ask for another person….

True! maddingly, aggravtingly, excruciatingly TRUE!!

most tech support people are not techs at all, they are reading from a script to people who cant read/comprehend the directions for the product they are calling about

I can totally relate to that. I’m not sure what’s worse, the automated systems or actually talking to someone I cant understand.

Here in the southwest it’s the drive through restaurant ordering that’s the problem. Heavy accents, Mexicans are fast talkers, and terrible speaker sound quality.

“tirning it uff”? Sound like his tech support is from Da Yoopers.

Up until either 486 or Pentium husband would build our computers. He would build one and use it. When he got a new one I got the old one.

What I find terribly odd about him being our computer expert is that in college he used to copy my computer homework as he did not understand what they telling us!

I even still have my early laptops (for work) – good for game playing if nothing else.