Stupid tech support

[doctorgonzo]

I just got off the phone with Gateway Tech Support. I have a laptop with a faulty screen that does not come on. I tested it with an external monitor, and it works fine, so the techie agreed that it is probably a backlight issue.

So I give him all the information on where to send the box so I can ship it back to be fixed, and he asks this:

"Do you authorize us to format the hard drive in case we need to do so?"

What?? The drive works just fine. The external monitor shows that Windows is booting up and there are no problems. It's just the laptop display, and I don't think that formatting the drive would really help. Do these techs see a hard drive and immediately want to format it?

Just to be safe, I'm keeping the drive.

[Panama Red]

I think that's one of Gateway's "fix all" ideas. They talked me into a reformat and reinstall with recovery disks many years ago and I haven't forgiven them yet! Wish I knew then the things I've learned since.

[PMich]

This is probably a standard question on their catch all service form. From a business/management perspective the format/reinstall procedure makes a lot of sense, though. Rather than having skilled techs capable of troubleshooting and resolving issues, they train a bunch of people to do reinstall operating systems and that's it. Although format and reinstall may not be the solution for every problem, or the most efficient for most problems, it will more than likely resolve most issues. They leave it the responsibility of the customer to make sure their data is backed up somewhere else so they don't have any responsibility. This results in the company paying minimal amounts for their tech support, thus saving themselves money.

Look at it this way, doctorg, if you weren't one of us geeks, you wouldn't know that a format and reinstall wasn't the right way to fix your problem and that is what the company is counting on.

[doctorgonzo]

True, somebody may not have known that a format would not be necessary, but since this is a business account with Gateway, they should probably assume that the people they are talking to are techs as well, and not clueless home users.

That, and it just was funny that the conversation went along the lines of, "Okay, it sounds like the backlight is faulty. Can we format your hard drive?" It's like calling a plumber and hearing, "Your leaky faucet needs a new washer. We may need to replace your home's foundation, though, so do you authorize us to do that?"

[EzyStvy]

A co-worker sent his Dell lappy in for a new mobo. He was instructed by Dell to pull a harddrive out

[Force Flow]

I remember back in the day before I knew much about computers...I had a PC that I left at a shop to be repaired--the motherboard was shot. So, one of the first things they did was format the drive without informing me that they would do that. I lost a lot of stuff that I'll never be able to get back, thanks to them. So, they lost my business. Ironically, the place went under due to fraud a few months later.