Banned IP Address? Can we ban customers?

[awarrenfells.livejournal.com]

I recently had a customer call up because she could not access a certain website. Her reason for said inability to access was that her IP address was being blocked.

Pardon?

Ok, sure. So, I ask her what the website was she was being blocked from. Her response?

"None of your damned business."

Fine. Whatever. But she proceeds to tell me that she wants her IP address reset. So, I inform her the only sure fire way is to unplug everything and let it sit for two days. Well, she was not happy about that. I informed her we could try to renew/release the IP address, but I have no promise or guarantee that will do anything. So, when I ask her what OS she is using, she tells me Vista.

So, I am trying to walk her through the start menu to get her to the command prompt. She is not seeing what I am telling her. Ok, so I figure she is in classic view. So, I ask her if she knew off hand if she was in classic view or Vista? She starts yelling at me that she doesn't have vista. *sigh* So you are using XP then. Customer responds with "yeah, sure." So, I once again try to walk her through the start menu. She STILL doesn't see what I am trying to get her to. I ask her if she is SURE she is using XP. Then she proceeds to yell at me saying she is not using XP.

*contemplate some choice words*

So, I ask her if she is using an older OS. She doesn't know. I have her go to her system properties, and she is running XP. I point this out to the customer, and make sure she understands that XP is the OS she is using, for future reference.

A few minutes later I finally get her to release/renew her DHCP Lease [which I am pretty sure did nothing at this point], I ask her to see if she could access the website. Customer then proceeds to start screaming about how she has never had a problem accessing the website, its just that her IP address is being blocked.

After a few obscenities, she finally hangs up.

Seriously. My quota of stupid has been reached for the day. Call someone else. :P

Comments

[reanimated.livejournal.com]

no one can be that crazy without drugs. that's well beyond mere confusion.

[syberghost.livejournal.com]

I've seen similar and worse.

I had one lady who kept getting left-click results when I told her to right-click and right-click results when I told her to left-click. She got angry with me when, after checking settings, I suggested she might have her right and left confused. I finally had to go to her house, where I confirmed that she did in fact have right and left confused. For some reason she stopped being mad then, and said "well I majored in music, I don't have to know right from left". Which of course is ridiculous; unless you're pretty damn ambidextrous learning to play the flute right-handed and then buying a left-handed one by accident would seem likely to cause problems.

Her husband was in the house while all this was going on, BTW. He owned a computer store.

[reanimated.livejournal.com]

"well I majored in music, I don't have to know right from left"

.........yes, because she was a music major in kindergarten! lol wtf?

also, it is useful to know what's what when playing piano or guitar...god forbid you're left-handed and don't buy a lefty guitar...that doesn't work so well. so basically, yeah, what you said. lol.

was he pretending he didn't know her? XD

[awarrenfells.livejournal.com]

I know I would have >.

[reanimated.livejournal.com]

oh god this woman i'm on with now is making me glad tonight is beer night. what the FUCK is she on about? look lady, i don't know how your contract got extended without you knowing, but there it is. o_0

[awarrenfells.livejournal.com]

One lady called me condescending after explaining to her 4 different ways how she needs to connect the Modem ethernet into the modem/internet port on the back of the router.

Why is it so hard to follow directions.... I almost practically drew a picture for you, being as descriptive as possible.

Customer == Clueless

[reanimated.livejournal.com]

i get too many who want you to do everything for them, including thinking logically about the next step. when we're connected via chat, there's only so much i can do. ;p

[awarrenfells.livejournal.com]

Heh... I just had a woman [like 5 minutes ago :P ]that wanted me to help her connect her ipod touch to a her WLAN, which she did not know the WEP key for.

Um....no?

[fallconsmate.livejournal.com]

"was he pretending he didnt know her?"

well...

i know that after a while, there were certain things that my ex husband and i did NOT do together, lest it wreck the marriage. he did not ask for cooking instructions, and i did NOT help him assemble furniture. PERIOD. once we came to those decisions, it made life much better as a couple. i'm sure that he didnt give her computer instructions because he had to live with her. (and i cant tell left from right either. *g*)

[syberghost.livejournal.com]

Having worked for him for a month and a half ten years previous to that incident, I'm not at all surprised she didn't ask him for help. :)

[canray.livejournal.com]

god forbid you're left-handed and don't buy a lefty guitar

Unless your name is Jimi Hendrix. ;-P

[reanimated.livejournal.com]

yes well, how many people are jimi hendrix? ;-)

[jamoche]

My mom had a stroke after which she had trouble with left and right. Made troubleshooting her Mac tough - "No, Mom, the Apple menu is on the *left*. The *other* left." Solved it by pointing a webcam at my screen. "See what I'm doing? Do that". But at least she *knew* she had a problem; she wouldn't have got mad at anyone trying to help her.

(Oddly enough, she gained a sense of direction - she used to get lost in my condo complex, now she doesn't.)

[awarrenfells.livejournal.com]

Sometimes.... I myself wonder.

Though, this one was no where near as bad as some of the ones I have seen wxgeek post.

Oh... I think he knows which one I am talking about. ^_^

[bitterfun.livejournal.com]

Not true, hormonal imbalances can be obtained without drug via menopause, insulin variations, and sheer concentration.

[awarrenfells.livejournal.com]

Insulin variations eh?

Yay. Another excuse I can use when I'm having a bad day. :P

[reanimated.livejournal.com]

i can will my hormones into balance or imbalance!? this must be studied!

[bitterfun.livejournal.com]

Yup, works like magic. I just picture the said person as a nakid Claudia Black and I'm good to hormonially go.

[reanimated.livejournal.com]

see icon.

[mouse-from-marz.livejournal.com]

my favorite quip when someone was being a prick used to be "who spiked your insulin today?" got me plenty of blank stares...

[superbus.livejournal.com]

"Now, see? If you would stop posting furry porn on websites all the time, you wouldn't be getting blocked!"
*gasp* "How did y--"
*CLICK*

[awarrenfells.livejournal.com]

Hehheheh. Damned furries.... cause of ALL our problems. ^_^

[jecook]

Amusing.

*eyes banhammer*

[awarrenfells.livejournal.com]

>.>

<.<

^_^

*Pets jecook*

[mynameisnotreal.livejournal.com]

So, you're friends with Thor, too, eh?



(I'll get it right yet)

[jecook]

That, but with more clothes on.

[canray.livejournal.com]

I thought it was the (l)users that were the cause of all our problems. ;-P

Them, inept co-workers, idiotic policies, uneducated management (No, MBAs don't count!), and shoddy equipment.

[sethb.livejournal.com]

"If the owner of the website has chosen to block your IP address, I am not going to violate the law by helping you evade their block."

[awarrenfells.livejournal.com]

Really? Against the law? Do you haz linky?

[sethb.livejournal.com]

It could be considered access without authorization (the fact that the site owner blocked the luser's IP is rather good evidence the luser is not authorized to use that site).

The DMCA says something about breaking technical means of access control.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Better - "...then they are the only ones who can help you. And no, we don't have their contact details. Good luck."

[awarrenfells.livejournal.com]

I like this answer as well. :-)

[sethb.livejournal.com]

Good point. And of course you don't have their contact details, the luser won't even give you a clue as to who they are.

[mynameisnotreal.livejournal.com]

Just a typical case of someone hearing too many words that we use, then regurgitating them back up at us without knowing the actual meanings. Parrots can do the same thing.

[demented-pants.livejournal.com]

One of my supervisors at work informed me that we could, in fact, ban customers. The procedure for it is to create an incident in our ticket system explaining why we never want to deal with them again (we just had one recently who called back twice, got the same answer (the correct one to the question she asked, but not the question she MEANT), then was rude to the second consultant. "You're WRONG. I DEMAND to speak with a supervisor."

So the second consultant (who was sitting next to me, who got her the first time), gave her to a super and passed an incident on to the area coordinator.

Damn, I love the place I work. We provide a free service - and if the customers are going to abuse that, we're actually allowed some recourse for it.

PS we're hiring.

[taiki.livejournal.com]

What exactly do you guys support?

[demented-pants.livejournal.com]

We're a general purpose team. During the evenings and weekends, when I work, we support all campus "mission critical" systems (our version of Blackboard, e-mail, VPN, etc.) plus we do our best to answer questions about just about any windows program people can't be assed to google themselves, fairly in-depth troubleshooting with windows itself, and we even dabble in mac support, although we tend to refer the more advanced things to the mac team, who are in during the day.

As tech support programs go, I understand from our users who have experienced other universities that we're pretty much the most helpful one ever, and I was told during a staff meeting earlier this year that we take more contacts in a week than most schools do in a whole year.

[spooforbrains.livejournal.com]

windows key-R

So much simpler and quicker than hunting around the start menu.

[seaofdestiny.livejournal.com]

That's assuming you can get them to realise which key you mean with 'windows key', and can get them to press it together with another key.

'Like when you press shift and a letter to get a capital letter?' 'Now I have lots of capital Rs on my screen!' 'No, not Shift+R, Winkey+R.' 'Wait, which one was the windows key again?'

[mouse-from-marz.livejournal.com]

wow.. I am such a noob... I did not know I could do that...

[spooforbrains.livejournal.com]

Yup. Also Windows key-E for explorer (which beats "click on my computer")

and

Windows key-D for Show Desktop

When I'm using Linux I actively miss these keystrokes :) And I curse my Thinkpad's lack of Windows key!

[taiki.livejournal.com]

Good luck with going into administrator priviledge escalated command prompt.

Granted, finding Ctrl-shift isn't hard but...

[benatwork.livejournal.com]

Unless you work in a place with an idiot IT policy that blocks 'run', but leaves the command prompt freely available.

[taiki.livejournal.com]

I hate being on that call.

Mostly because with the service I support(and other similar services), the answer is, "Change your mac address, renew IP. Maybe if you wait a while, when the DHCP lease is up normally you'll get a new IP."

Except if you're dumb enough to be in a situation where you need a new IP and you're calling me, you're either A) idiot, who thinks they're being hacked because "ZoneAlarm says so." B) idiot, who trolled on some board and got IP banned. or C) idiot, of some indeterminate origin. Either way, I'm not telling you anything to get a new IP. Not a damn thing. Live with your "hacking attempt(usually coming from somewhere like our DHCP server doing a DHCP keep-alive request)"/IP ban/(insert reason here, usually paranoid).

[demented-pants.livejournal.com]

Change your MAC address?

I really want to say that to someone, just for the "Bzuh?" I would get.

But then I would either have to explain MAC spoofing or get whined at for using tech jargon.