this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2024
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I think my dumbest customer story isn't programming-related but still related to computers. I worked in a small computer repair shop about 3000 years ago, and one day a customer comes in with their family computer that's "not working." It turned out to be full of viruses and malware, and when we started working on it it turned out this was due to somebody visiting shady porn sites and clicking on download buttons left and right. I explain the situation to her and then recommend steps on how to avoid this happening in the future, so how to browse safely, antivirus software etc. She feelt a bit embarrassed and says that it's her son, and that she'll give him a talking-to.
A few weeks later the same customer comes back with the family computer and this time she's visibly annoyed, and curiously she's brought along the keyboard, mouse and monitor. The computer's got viruses again, and it's my fault. Why? Because she'd had a talk with her son who had then sworn up and down that he'll mend his filthy ways. When new viruses cropped up, his explanation was that obviously they're in the keyboard, mouse and monitor too, and since they hadn't been in the shop they were still infected and we were just too incompetent to have known this. Naturally she believed her son over my word, and started demanding that we remove the viruses from all the peripherals. I tried for a very long time to explain that it's just not possible (this was a time when PS/2 connectors were still pretty common and that's what they had so it wasn't even theoretically possible), but she wouldn't budge because her son was a computer whiz (he wasn't) and a Good Boy™ and would never lie, so clearly I was either incompetent or lying.
Finally I just relented and said "OK you got me, it's possible your viruses came from the peripherals but I just didn't want to mention it because removing them is so time-consuming and difficult". I took all their hardware in and had it unfucked in pretty short order, and I looked at the browser history to make sure that it really was a reinfection via the web, which it was (I remember Pamela Anderson featuring in a lot of the searches, which we techs giggled at.)
I kept their hardware at the shop for a couple of weeks; it's a tricky and demanding job to remove viruses from mouses, keyboards and monitors, remember? When writing the bill I charged her double the time I actually put in – she didn't want to pay at all because she felt it was our mistake but at that point my boss, who was a formidable lady, practically put her boot up the customer's ass and made her cough up the money.
She left in a huff never to be seen again, thank the gods.
She was rude ans annoying, but I still don't like that you took advantage of her.
You've never worked retail have you
I have, actually.
A scam is despiccable in my book, no matter how deserving the victim.
what scam? the customer wanted them to work on their computer, so they did, and charged the customer accordingly.
they lied to the customer and charged for work they didn't do
what lie? they told the customer the truth from the beginning, and still agreed to the customer's demands to work on the problem. they agreed to remove all viruses from the peripherals, which they did, because the peripherals were returned to the customer at the end virus-free.
Removing is an action, not an end result. Nothing was removed.
If you have no money, and throw away all of it, you still have no money.
She wouldn't take "fuck off" for an answer. She got charged the special rate for believing whatever she pretended.
The son scammed her. He told her she needed to disinfect peripherals. The tech is just allowing that to happen and charging a not listening to the tech fee.
Yes, the tech, who is also in a position of trust on the matter, is therefore part of said scam. Twist it all you want, the tech lied and benefited.
They wrote in plain text that the customers son's word had been taken over a word of a techie. So it's either pushing more to convince her, refusing service or playing dumb.
Tech tried to tell them it was unnecessary, would take forever, and would be expensive. I'd agree with you if, for a second, the customer sounded like they wanted to drop the matter. No, this was the customer absolutely digging their heels in, and the tech did what they could to get an irate woman out of the store.
At a certain point, you have to just let people make their mistakes, and get out of their way. This is exactly how I interpret the situation.
Sometimes lying is good. Like when a customer wants you to lie to them
It's called the asshole tax, and it's what happens when you believe a child over the person you're paying to fix your/their mistake (again).
Having run my own computer repair side business for a while, I would have (and have) absolutely done the same thing in the situation. I also had repeat fliers that realized their mistakes and didn't try to blame me for their failure, and the nicer ones even got a discount. But the asshole tax is there to make dealing with problem customers more worth it, and potentially to encourage them to find someone else to torment and give money to.
It’s called the asshole tax. Don’t be an asshole and you won’t be charged.
Yeah, I would have told her to get another opinion elsewhere or I can just clean it the same way again
Have to agree, it's a funny story but charging someone a stupidity rate for nonexistent work isn't justified by that person being stupid and a pain in your ass. Unless your circumstances force you, you can always just refuse work from customers like this. So many people downvoting this is disappointing.
Yeah, sometimes you get down voted and realize your take was a bad one. This is not one of those times.