Averatec tech support - who are these guys?

You have to laugh. I got the worst tech support guy I have ever experienced yesterday. I wanted to know if the recovery discs fully format the drive when you run them - I wondered, because the process doesn't seem to include any time for a format as it's installing files the whole time.

And being extremely clueless in the field of drive formatting, I wanted to know how to do this on a laptop that has no floppy to insert a boot disc etc, and I wondered if after a complete format, the CD drive would work since I figured there would at that point be no drivers to drive it, as the hard drive was empty.

So the guy says "no, it will work. Formatting doesn't do anything with the drivers"

Me: "I was under the impression that formatting wipes the drive of everything"

Him: "Yes it does exactly that. Wipes the drive"

Me: "So there will be no drivers after the process"

Him "Yes that is right. But...er....formatting does nothing to the drivers of course, they will still be there"

Me: "You just said formatting wipes the drive"

Him: "Er....yes.....er.....no....er......not exactly....."

Me: "So anyway, how do you format the drive from DOS?"

Him: "Er.....FORMAT.....er....semicolon"

Me: "Semicolon? You don't mean a regular colon?"

Him: "No, a semicolon. Two dots"

Me: "Two dots the same? That's a colon"

Him: "No, a semicolon. Definitely a semicolon. No wait.....a colon. You're right, a colon."

Me: (laughs) "OK, what's next"

Him: "OK...er.....drive C"

Me: "Drive C? Or just the letter?"

Him: "Just the letter"

Me: "Nothing after the letter?"

Him: "No. Er...no wait, yes. One of those arrow thingies, the ones that are laying on their side.....pointing right..."

Me: "A greater than sign?"

Him: "Is that what it is"

Me: "Yes. No now offense, but is it possible to speak to someone who is sure about this stuff? This is quite important"

Him: (very pissed) "OK hold on"

Ten minutes later of complete silence, I'm disconnected.

Couldn't believe that this is what passes for tech support. The guy didn't know what he was talking about and he sounded like a surly teenager who's being made to relate what he did on vacation to his elderly grandparents. Couldn't make out a word of the mumbling half the time. What I've transcriped is but a pip of the whole debacle, which had ten times the comedic value I outlined here.

So I called up again and this time got a more spritely sounding fellow, who spoke with more confidence. I got the formatting stuff out of the way and then described the problems I was having, which involved problems booting and some strange messages before Windows loaded. He told me immediately - "oh that's a hardware problem. You're computer needs repairing. You'll have to send it in"

So obviously I was very pissed. As a last resort, I posted on this forum the contents of the strange screen I was seeing on boot, and immediately a helpful soul tells me I need to adjust the boot settings in my BIOS. Problem solved. The tech guys should have told me this. They had no idea. If I took their advice I'd be without my laptop for 3 weeks, all for nothing.

So anyway, where do they get these guys? My guess is, Averatecs truck drivers have to draw straws at the start of each week........

 

one word:

ROFLMAO

He had absolultely no idea whatsoever what he was talking about. Yes during the format the drivers (and everything else on the drive is pretty much lost, it could be possible to get some info back since restore discs just seem to delete the partition and reinstall the image) would be deleted. But windows XP has many hundreds of drivers included with it which would let the cd rom drive work. And in regards to a boot disc, most recent computers are able to boot from the cd drive.

 

LOl that's great...must have been his first and posssibly last day.

 

Ouch! That stinks..how did they even hire that joker? Must have bribed himself or something to get in. What a loser.

 

Unfortunately, that assumes that management knows about and cares about his incompetency. It's far too common to have clueless reps in level 1 tech support these days, and asking to speak to a supervisor or to level 2 support will likely result in being hung up on.

 

Okay, since no one else asked ... I will ... did he sound as though he was NOT in the USA?

 

Actually, suprisingly enough, he was American.

When I had a Compaq I had my fair share of extreme trauma at the hands of Indian helpline staff. Including one exteremely angry fellow who flew into a rage after I told him I was having real trouble understanding what he was saying. "YOU THINK YOU HAVING TROUBLE", he screamed. "YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO THE WAY YOU SPEAK. HOW ARE WE TO UNDERSTAND YOU.". He then went into one of those manic unending rages during which you periodically hold the phone up into the air for the benefit of those in the room with you. We'd hear the odd word like "colonialism" and the rest was purely unintelligible.

I wish I could have recorded that phone call, it would have served as an irrefutable argument against tech-support outsourcing.

 

Does all outsourced tech support necessarily have to be inferior to American tech support? I guess I support the support jobs going to India as its my home country I suppose...

Besides, you just said that American Averatec tech support guy was horrible as well.

 

No not all out sourced tech is bad - I personally liked the support I recieved from HP while I had my zv6000. My friend is half Indian and half Japanese and his dad owns AnandTech (ironically, my friend's name is Anand), and makes frequent trips to India. They even own a house in Bombay, I think. His dad's always nice to my family and me and we sometimes go over and eat out at his resturant in Beverly Hills. Indian food is actually really good - at first I thought it was gross (no offense). Anyway, getting back from that tanget - outsourced tech isn't always bad is what I'm trying to say

 

Half Japanese Half Indian eh? Interesting mix, haven't seen any of those. No offense to anyone either, but Japanese in my opinion seem to be quite racist and introverted, but I can't blame them, they've been isolated on an island for thousands of years. I'd actually be nervous going to Japan, I'd be afraid of being mocked and shunned because I am Indian.

Wait, actually, I hear that Indians are quite racist too. But this is all besides the point. It seems as though outscourcing is inevitable and I can't blame Americans for being angry at Indians for taking their jobs and having to talk to them as well. It can be quite hard to understand Indian English.

 

ALL the complaints I have heard about outsourced tech support have to do with *understanding* what they say. But I have no trouble understanding since I grew up around a mixed race community.

 

My experience with Averatec phone support reps has been excellent. Easy to understand, polite, courteous and genuinely helpful people.

Unfortunately, the product is of very poor quality and the repair facility is substandard also.

My experience with Avertec has been a nightmare, with the excetion of phone support.

My unit was bad out of the box and phone support cannot remedy hardware fault.

susan

 

My first call to Averatec was pleasant and I got a RMA number quickly, although I cancelled that as I managed to return it to the online store I got the unit form.

My second call to Averatec was hilarious. The customer service staff had no idea what a PCMCIA dummy card is, and its supposed to come with their notebook. He (or was a She?) then asked if I want to RMA my notebook to get a replacement! Oh my goodness. For a PCMCIA dummy card? I just wanted to get them to send the missing card to me, and they suggested for me to Return the whole notebook!

Bummer. Its sad. Averatec makes quite decent notebooks at very affordable price. Too bad, its support and service staffs just don't quite cut it.

 

Stay away from Avertec! Stay away they are the worst notebook notebook maker in the world! There notbooks look nice, but they won't last! Stay away stay away stay away.

 

I am unable to rebut that statement!

susan

 

Too late .... I'm already in.

 

At least we can caution others about this brand.

susan