DIRECT FROM MULDOON: Tangled Up in Tech Support

“I NEED TO RETURN a monitor that’s stopped working,” I told the catalog company’s technical support rep on the other end of the line. “The catalog says the split-second time frame for responsibility to replace or repair it is up, and it listed your phone number.”

“Is the monitor plugged in?” the rep asked.

“Yes,” I said, “but it stubbornly acts the same way it did when I returned it for repair several months ago.”

The person neatly sidestepped that topic, distracting me with “What’s the SJR number?”

“Pardon me?”

“The authorization number you had to ship it back the first time. Plus we’ll need the IFO number, the serial number, your date of birth, when, where and with what the monitor was bought, AAL documentation, hours of usage since purchase, the DDDT number, the catalog model number and the purchase date.”

Silence on my part. Then, “I’ll have to call you back. Is there a number I can use to shorten the 20-minute wait to talk to a real person?”

“No, just don’t call at lunch time; there are only two of us here then. Call back about 4 p.m.” (At the conveniently late hour of 7 p.m. EST.)

Eventually, I unearthed the requested data from my state-of-the-art filing system called nobody-knows-about-it-because-the-person-who-filed-it-isn’t-here-anymore.

At this point, I could automatically dial the service number as easily as that of my closest friend, so I did just that…again and again.

Finally, progress was made and a new monitor would be on its way to me. Well, not just yet. There still were a few more hurdles.

The one being returned had to be packed in a cardboard box no thicker than approximately 2 centimeters and no heavier than 4 ounces. The labels had to be hand-printed in 14-point sans serif type and have authorization codes. I’d have to pay for the return cost.

“This is a monitor that was repaired by a trainee who was trying his luck and is now unemployed – why am I paying for the return?” I asked.

“It’s past the date when we pay for returns,” they replied.

“But you kept the first monitor for months before sending it back.”

“It’s past the date when we pay for returns.”

“Surely someone there actually wants to have repeat purchases at this company.”

“It’s past the date when we pay for returns.”

“Right,” I said. “And then you’ll ship me a new monitor as soon as I send this one to you?”

“Call us with the shipping manifest number, the carrier, date of shipment, your blood type and shoe size and we’ll ship you a replacement.”

Hours later, the monitor was on its way to the company and I was back on the phone again. “Here’s the information. When do I get my monitor?”

“After we receive the one you sent back,” they responded. In other words: “You think we trust you after you ruined two of our monitors?”

“But you said (700th repeat of same old story)…”

“We can take your charge card number, and then your monitor can go out to you right away.” Sure!

“This is a new one, right?” I asked.

“It’s refurbished, but you’ll be happy to know that we now use high school graduates to check the repairs.”

Thrilling. Such progress. “It will go out today, right?”

“Oh no,” they replied. It’s important that we check it carefully, so it may be three or four days before we ship by pony express.”

The good news is that there’d be time enough for me to toss all my electronic items into the river and thus have no need for the monitor.

No, no, I thought. This was just one bad experience. The catalog industry is the king of service. I’ll order something from another company. So I purchased a color printer from a second firm. It arrived the very next day (isn’t it odd how the ordering part always goes so smoothly?)

But I had to call them, too. “I can’t get the printer to work. This is critical – so much so that I paid an extra $3,000 to have it delivered overnight.”

I was then subjected to the catalog rep’s barrage of difficult questions: Did I install the software, plug it in, test the printing without being attached to the computer, etc.? I said “yes” to every one. You could hear the person on the other end thinking: No easy answer for this one.

“Must be the cable. We’ll send you another one,” they said.

It did not arrive as promised.

I called them: “The cable didn’t come. Since there’s obviously no record of what I’ve told the 500 or so people I’ve spoken to before, let me remind you that everything seems to work perfectly – until you actually want to print something. Maybe it’s a connection problem.”

Tech support people often act like many doctors – they become deaf the minute a patient begins to talk. It was as if I hadn’t spoken at all. I got this diagnosis: “Dump everything on your computer and start over again.”

I was eventually able to get the lower half of my mouth off my chest.

“It’s a lot of work,” he admitted. “But there’s a conflict somewhere and that’s the only way to be sure.” I felt like a person sentenced to answering customer service calls for all eternity. I refused to believe that he really wanted me to take every single document, application, etc. off my machine and then reinstall it.

Instead, a quick call to a local techie, 20 minutes of tinkering and the right cable connection solved the problem. P.S. The cable promised for overnight delivery never arrived.