TWO Support Technicians Gave Up On Us - Secret Shopper 4 Part 3

[Plouffe]

It's time for tech support, and this season it was a doozy... we laughed, we cringed, we even almost cried as support technicians succeed and failed to fix our problem: an unseated GPU.

 

 

[iLikeBananas]

So with the HP one, I am with "kateson". She gave the wrong code, but it's in my opinion on her fault. HP picked this system, and it is their fault if customers are overwhelmed with it. I wish we had those mainboards again that give a number code to see what's wrong.

[swimtome]

Dell: Why are we not roasting them more about not asking for any info about the POST code?  And sorry I wouldve liked to see the Dell technician...

Maingear: Overall awesome just my gosh just tell them to turn off PC sooner I think lol.    

CyberPower:  Linus mentioning if she's comfy poking around, but no mention about this by maingear.  (Could be he did ask).  Video is soooo close to perfect....

If that was a 3 from Ms Ketson then Dell should be a 2.

HP:  POST codes finally being used !  So underrated and the tech didnt double check them!  I beyond disagree with Linus/Plouffe here -- its not completely on the user especially when its an easy thing to double check OR verify yourself.  And jeez the RAM ripping....  that was terrible.  AND AND just call back again next day with RAM 'solved' at least.

IBUYPOWER:  Tech support being aware of call was great.  VIDEO MAKE A DANG SHORTLINK SO YOU CAN CHANGE IT IN FUTURE.   Video call yet again only 1 person bothers.  Why dont more people do this???  

Starforge:  jeez get a chat.   You can link to the articles.  But the 'i dont need this' comment highlights a potential issue in future where the person knows what might happen.  I would throw in a consideration -- either a couple novice users OR random issues and the user doesnt know which issue per computer.  

 

 

**Really need them grading or at least adjusting AFTER everyone**

[swimtome]

17 minutes ago, iLikeBananas said:

So with the HP one, I am with "kateson". She gave the wrong code, but it's in my opinion on her fault. HP picked this system, and it is their fault if customers are overwhelmed with it. I wish we had those mainboards again that give a number code to see what's wrong.

 

not?

[atxcyclist]

I am so pleased Big Nerd Gaming has become a shirt design.

[iLikeBananas]

On 5/13/2025 at 8:56 PM, swimtome said:

 

not?

yes, my mistake. I wanted to say that it is not her fault, in my opinion. Customers can make mistakes, and as a company it should be in your interest to reduces this risk. 

[UnawareBlaire]

I think attaching video and using the phone camera to assist are really helpful and while Maingear did an excellent job, I could see alternate scenarios where for example, the graphics card gets pulled out along with the PCIe tab due to poor over-the-phone instructions, which we saw a decent amount of in the video.

 

I liked CyberPowerPC's support, I just think their video needs to be comprehensive enough to account for cases having additional stuff to take off.

[smcoakley]

2 hours ago, iLikeBananas said:

So with the HP one, I am with "kateson". She gave the wrong code, but it's in my opinion on her fault. HP picked this system, and it is their fault if customers are overwhelmed with it. I wish we had those mainboards again that give a number code to see what's wrong.

Yeah they really should have walked through with her more on how to interpret the beeps. She gave a response way too quickly with "I think" and I would have been doubtful of her answer if I were the tech support.

[Roaming Vagabond]

I feel so bad for HP. Nothing you can do against user error.

 

At some point, you can't blame the company anymore when it's the fault of the user. It's like, you can't blame the car manufacturer for a broken car when the user puts in diesel into a gasoline engine.

 

Oh, what is that? You can't follow basic instruction? You can't do simple beep counting? You can't do a simple wait before destroying your ram? To which point the user may as well deserve a broken computer.

[drybloxman]

I'm surprised to see how well everyone mostly did, particularly Maingear. Unfortunate circumstances with HP, but this is definitely the highlight of the series so far in terms of positive performances from all the technicians.

[CogadhTaibhse]

11 hours ago, Roaming Vagabond said:

I feel so bad for HP. Nothing you can do against user error.

I don't agree with this completely. While yes, Kateson could've listened more intently to the beeps, I can guarantee she is not the only one calling support that has never had to deal with the beeps and doesn't know what to do with them. I know most of my non-techie family members would get this "beep test" wrong as it can be quite overwhelming trying to follow instructions from support while your PC is constantly beeping in your face at the same time. As someone else pointed out, number codes would have been a lot clearer for Kateson to deal with.

Either way, nearly every other support technician was able to diagnose the issue without the beep codes or light codes, Starforge even managed to do it over email! I think the majority of the blame lies on HP in this instance.

 

11 hours ago, Roaming Vagabond said:

You can't do a simple wait before destroying your ram?

The support technician waited way too long to tell her about the ram clips, that should be something you mention immediately when telling someone inexperienced to remove the ram. Even from the edited video Kateson seemed like she had been trying to pull the ram out for a while before the technician mentioned the clips