How to confuse Tech Support

[Augomatic]

So I bought a Logitech Harmony universal remote last night. Was a good deal on them, and I was getting tired of 50 remotes for our home theater system.

Its one of those remotes that you plug into your USB port on your PC, then use the PC to set it all up.

I plugged in the remote, installed the software. First thing it does is ask you for your login. I went to the "Create Login" screen, and sure enough, it wants all this personal information.

At this stage, I'm thinking this is pretty ridiculous, all I want to do is setup my remote, and not get on ten million mailing lists. So I start to fill in all the fields with basically the same thing:

asdf

I was actually going to start filling in stuff like "youdontneedmynameidiots" and stuff like that, which it might have been a good thing I didn't as you'll find out later.

Next step is to connect the remote to the PC. So I do that, and the remote says its connected, but the onscreen application is stuck at 0% for updating the remote. I try a few more things, and notice they have a 1-800 support number, so I give it a call.

My call gets answered pretty quick, and I notice pretty quickly it's based in India. Well, the first thing the guy asks for is my login ID.

Uh-oh.

I give it to him, and wait. A few moments later the guy comes back and says:

"Am I speaking with Mr. Asd? Asfff? Asdd...? I'm sorry, I'm not sure how to pronounce your last name."

So I say yes.

Then he comes back and says:

"Can I confirm your calling from... Oh, I think you put your last name in the city field, thats ok"

15 minutes later, with multiple restarts, firewall disabled, anti-virus disabled, Cookies cleared, temp files on the PC cleared, it still won't work. At this stage, I'm wondering whether or not I'm installing a universal remote, or a universal machine of world dominance.

So with the tech support guy frazzled, not knowing what to do...

I get bumped to tier 2 support.

This time it seems I'm in the United States, somewhere in the mid-west by the accent. So she asks me for my login ID. Well, she seemed to catch on a bit quicker, and halfway through asking if she was speaking with Mr. Asdf, she ended up saying "Oh, I guess you didn't want us to know your name".

So anyways, after another 30 minutes, my universal remote finally worked, and another hour later was configured. Seems like a lot of work to not have to use 4 remote controls, but in about 10 years, saving the 15 seconds it takes to use a few remotes will make up for my 2 hours to setup the single one.

[Nilbert500]

nice story, hahaha

[Supreem]

Lol The lesson here is to ask for the the next level of support if you get a tech support guy in India...

"Hold on, let me transfer you to someone who makes more than 12 cents an hour."

[Onatnom]

"Can I confirm your calling from... Oh, I think you put your last name in the city field, thats ok"

I laughed at that