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.
I have a similar one! I did house calls. I got called out on a warranty call, someone said a coworker of mine didn’t fix the problem. I look in the notes and the coworker says he did a standard virus removal, suggested virus protection but was turned down.
I get there and sure enough it’s riddled with viruses again. Coworker was legit, notes all in order, I tell the client that this isn’t a warranty issue, the work was done, and it has now been reinfected and will need another removal. He seems fine with this, but his wife flips out and demands I prove it got reinfected.
I suggest that we can check the web history. Since it was popping up ads, we’d see when the pop-ups started, and more importantly we’d see if they had stopped after coworker left. Guy says that’s unnecessary, it definitely got reinfected, and this time he’ll buy an antivirus. Wife is having none of it, says go ahead and check and I’ll see the problem was never fixed. I ask if they’re sure, guy kind of resignedly says to do it.
I’m not one to kink shame, but when all the trans porn site titles came up, the dude was clearly mortified. I didn’t get very far into trying to figure out if I can prove it’s related before the wife says “just fix the damn thing” and stormed out. I hope it wasn’t too bad for him, she seemed a bit difficult to deal with.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I have a similar one! I did house calls. I got called out on a warranty call, someone said a coworker of mine didn’t fix the problem. I look in the notes and the coworker says he did a standard virus removal, suggested virus protection but was turned down.
I get there and sure enough it’s riddled with viruses again. Coworker was legit, notes all in order, I tell the client that this isn’t a warranty issue, the work was done, and it has now been reinfected and will need another removal. He seems fine with this, but his wife flips out and demands I prove it got reinfected.
I suggest that we can check the web history. Since it was popping up ads, we’d see when the pop-ups started, and more importantly we’d see if they had stopped after coworker left. Guy says that’s unnecessary, it definitely got reinfected, and this time he’ll buy an antivirus. Wife is having none of it, says go ahead and check and I’ll see the problem was never fixed. I ask if they’re sure, guy kind of resignedly says to do it.
I’m not one to kink shame, but when all the trans porn site titles came up, the dude was clearly mortified. I didn’t get very far into trying to figure out if I can prove it’s related before the wife says “just fix the damn thing” and stormed out. I hope it wasn’t too bad for him, she seemed a bit difficult to deal with.
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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.
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.
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.