one of those urban legends that is actually true!

[twitchfetish.livejournal.com]

This came back into my mind because i was explaining the incident to a friend, so i thought i'd post it here too...

A few years ago not long after i started working for The Company That Shall Not Be Named's helldesk (hardware remote support), a colleague asked me to take a look at a case he'd just worked on.

A customer wanted to sue us.

"oh ffs" methinks. typical (l)user. probably can't turn the thing on...

oh no...that would be too simple. every word of this is true. i swear it. i saw the logs myself and confirmed with a TL who listened to the recording of the conversation.

turns out this feeb had, contrary to the popular "coffee cup holder" thang going around (yes i've actually seen the tray used like that too), decided that he could find a better use for the CD tray. He had a pet chihuahua whom he liked to keep around him at all times, so when he was using the computer, he'd eject the CD tray to give little Jose somewhere to sit. yes i'm serious.

Now. What happened is that one day little Hernandez or whatever was sitting on his little tray, and slipped. his rear leg fell through the hole in the tray, and due to the way a dogs leg is hinged, it tapped the close button.

Poor little Chico had his leg broken by the drive mechanism, Brain Donor screams and watches the vet bill mount, and calls us to complain and sue us for damages.

the tech laughed in his face. so he asked for it to be escalated. The supervisor laughed in his face too, so he demanded a manager. The manager laughed in his face and told him to go ahead if he wanted to make a fool of himself in court.

we never heard from him again.

IV

Comments

[canthlian.livejournal.com]

I... he...

God, didn't he even cover over the GAPING HOLE in the tray?

With that sort of idiocy, I'm surprised he didn't break his own leg in the CD tray.

[twitchfetish.livejournal.com]

i know.

his excuse for sueing us was because we didn't explicitly state what the tray was and was not to be used for.

we pointed to the user manual.

IV

[wyldthyng.livejournal.com]

~gasp~ poor puppy :( some people do NOT deserve to have pets. :(

I think that moron should have his nuts similarly worked on, so that he can never procreate.

Jebus.

[twitchfetish.livejournal.com]

amen :P

IV

[bassgirl.livejournal.com]

Wow.
After a year and a half in a web cafe I thought I'd seen some pretty dumb stuff, but NOTHING come close to that story.


Poor poor dog. But as long as he only has dogs, and never children...

[tmercenary.livejournal.com]

If I was your companies CEO, I would countersue, and hire lawyers good enough to stack the jury with PETA members.

[jahbulon.livejournal.com]

By that logic I could force feed my dog a lawnmower and then sue the manufacturer because it didn't say "not dog food" on it.

[cyrus7.livejournal.com]

Wow. Time to add another warning message to CD-ROM drives.
WARNING: Drive tray is not a pet-holder. Your pet may be seriously injured if drive is used as such.

[catfewd.livejournal.com]

ROFL. I needed that one.

I had someone DUMPED a toner cartridge on my desk when I walked into my office and I was fuming. The substance was everywhere!

[taleya.livejournal.com]

God damn boy, I choked on my hash browns.

Too fucking funny. That tops the previous dipshit record I had from my workplace - the customer faxing a five page rant and threats to sue because he was getting repeated alerts and OMFG HACK ATTEMPTS!!!ONEONEOEN...

..from 127.0.0.1

[geekgrrl-ca.livejournal.com]

I miss my old contract where when they threatened to sue I was obligated to give them the corporate HQ info and then terminate the call, no take backs allowed once those four words were out of their mouth. Then I would appologise because "I was sure I could have fixed their system in the next 5 minutes but company policy prevents me from providing any more technical support and they will have to wait the two business day turn arround time after they contact corporate (9-5 central time only)".

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

My top legal threat to date came from a moron just yesterday: idiot tried to pay for her mother's cell phone, which had been blocked from payment through our service because of a previous unauthorized credit card payment. Of course, not only does Idiot scream at me about her "poor bedridden mom" when I tell her that the cardholder requested that this phone number be blocked, but tries to get me to take a payment anyway...with the same stolen credit card number. When I told her that she wouldn't be able to pay anyway, seeing as how that older charge was unauthorized, she then proceeds to scream about how "when my mom dies because I couldn't get in touch with her, I'll sue your ass! How do you like that?" and then hangs up.

My take on the matter is that Idiot was probably going to follow in her mother's footsteps. Of course, seeing as how Idiot was probably conceived when Mom's brother told her to "put out or get out" on the way back from the Klan rally, I think her battle with the forces of Darwinian natural selection is going to end badly.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Sweep it up and dump it back on theirs.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Gasp! You're right! I'll need a dog, a lawnmower and a lawyer - off to WalMart!

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see a global disclaimer on everything - "Product must not be used for any purpose or action not explicitly stated as safe in the user manual. Doing so may result in undesirable results including surprise, inconvenience, pain, injury and/or death."

No user manual = can't sue
User manual with nothing stated as safe = can't sue

[sigurther.livejournal.com]

Let's hope that when he gets his first DVDRW, he forgets the CD drive incedent and decides it's a nice place to rest his balls (oooh the warm air coming out of the computer feels soo good on these cold winter days!) and effectively removes himself from the genepool via a slip of the nut. *CHOP*