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But I still say Norton is a bigger drain on systems since it runs all the time. The final bill was over $550 for our tech's efforts.ĪOL is pretty bad stuff.
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We ended up sending a tech out the following day, and it required a full factory restore of the customer's Dell machine (the machine was fine, it was the AOL that pooched it, obviously). The dispatch supervisor walked over, asked what the situation was, and after I ran it off in a breath or two, he smirked, shook his head and walked away.
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I tried to maintain that professional attitude but it just wasn't happening. I put him on hold and burst out laughing. Me: "Hang on a second sir, I'll be right back."
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Then you whipped out the 7, installed it on top of that pile, it failed and wouldn't uninstall so you tried 6 the same way, then 5, and now the PC won't even turn on?" So then you tried to get rid of the 9 mess, along with the 8 mess, and that stopped cold. You installed 9, it failed, so you tried to uninstall 9, that failed too, then you installed 8 on top of the failed 9 install/uninstall, which failed. I tried 6, then 5, and now it's totally dead, it won't even boot." I tried to uninstall that new installation of 8.0 and had problems, so I rolled back to 7.0. So I reinstalled 8.0 at that point, but it didn't work either. Also, I'll need to ask some questions about the AOL situation."Ĭustomer: "Well I installed 9.0 on top of 8.0, and when it didn't work, I tried to uninstall 9.0, but that failed too. I need to get some information from you about your address, phone number, etc. Me: "Ok sir, we can get someone out to you to resolve those issues. I installed AOL 9.0 and now it's simply not working anymore." What can I do for you today?"Ĭustomer: "I have some problems with my computer. One of the best calls I ever got went something like this: I worked for an onsite technical support company a few years ago, in their call service and dispatching center.
It would be really funny at this point to say she was having trouble with her AOL software, but you're expecting that, right? Well, it is funny because that's exactly why she was coming in, but she didn't purchase the computer from that shop so they were actually taking it in for "repair" but I'm sure they reamed her good for the cost of the work. As I was laughing a customer came in with her mini-tower asking for help with some problems she was having. It was absolutely brilliant, I have to admit.
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But if you install AOL on it, you're on your own, don't bother calling us." The guy was telling his customers "We'll sell you a computer and give you a warranty against defects and other issues. I saw that, giggled, and it just snowballed into a good belly laugh. We will not be held responsible for your actions or those of AOL's bloated machine destroying software.
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IF YOU INSTALL ANY VERSION OF AOL SOFTWARE ON ANY COMPUTER PURCHASED FROM, YOUR WARRANTY IS NULL AND VOID. In BIG BLACK LETTERS on the page, near the bottom just above the area where I was about to sign the receipt, it said: but anyway, I end up getting him down to $40, which was a losing deal for me but I needed a hard drive so it didn't matter, but the really funny part was when he handed me the receipt. His rebuttal was of course: "There's the door, sir." So anyway, I'm there haggling with the guy - he wants $60 for a 4 year old 20GB drive, and my argument was "I could drive over to CompUSA and waste $10 in gas and get a brand new retail boxed 40GB drive for $69.95 right now" which was entirely true. I worked as a bench tech off and on for 30 years now, so I know what goes on out of the view of the customer in the back rooms. Of course, every single one of these types of shops has at least one box of old drives in the back they pulled from machines people traded in for better ones, but getting them to admit it or sell one to you instead of the latest and greatest is like pulling fucking teeth. Here's a great story I like to tell since it was firsthand experience and I laughed my head off when it happened.Ī few years ago back in my hometown on the east coast of VA, I dropped into a local "Mom & Pop" PC shop hoping to locate a small capacity hard drive, like a 20GB or so. Norton, followed by AOL, then QuickTime/iTunes, Real (anything), etc.