On Thu, May 9, 2013 at 8:05 PM, Gareth France <gareth.fra...@gmail.com> wrote: > I'll bare the ftp advice in mind and I agree you do get what you pay for, > but that doesn't make it any less frustrating, especially when they treat > you like an idiot when you know full well what the problem is.
I don't believe they were treating you like an idiot. You need to understand how frontline customer support, especially for large companies such as Packard Bell, works. The customer support representatives likely have a wide range of IT experience and knowledge. Their training will be focused on headline issues that can be easily solved without wasting too much time on triage. Their strongest experience will likely be limited to Packard Bell products and their supported suppliers parts and software, i.e. Microsoft Windows. They will not expect you to be, nor will they be able to support you as, a power user, geek, technician or whatever you feel elevates your tech chops above your fellow man; their training will be strongly geared around supporting customers who have little to no knowledge of how computers actually work. If you had somehow had your case escalated to a higher tier of support, you would most likely a) have been dealing with native or fluent English speakers in the UK or US, and b) have gained empathy from a fellow, more experienced IT bod as to your woes and any self-performed diagnostics you would have done prior to opening the case. But unfortunately you didn't, so you are treated the same as everyone else: as someone who has an electronic device which normally does stuff, but now doesn't do some or all of the stuff it normally does. They cannot deviate from this, it is how they are trained, and it usually works quite efficiently. Imagine you know "stuff" about how the public telephone network operates, and you phone BT about a problem with your line, and you start talking about crosstalk, line attenuation and SS7 routing. The CS rep's head would likely explode. Just as large companies generally treat customers with kid gloves when they're making support requests, you should do the same in return. By all means try and outline your situation to see what they say in return, but if they are unable to deviate from their scripts, and are unwilling to escalate to a higher tier of support, there's not much point in fighting further. Just comply and get it over with. Or buy a more expensive laptop next time! KIDDING :) -n -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/