Technology frustrations
#16
(12-20-2020, 07:43 AM)Tyson Rayles Wrote: I never activated Voice mail just to tick off the spammers! The phone will show the number of any calls I missed and that way I can return those that I want without having to clear out a zillion voice mails.

Unfortunately, I've been in a situation the past few years that I had to answer calls that I normally wouldn't and let those that I couldn't answer got to voice mail. Some medical and Hospice personnel that I would need to talk to have numbers that show up as "unavailable" or "private"' What I found is that a lot of spammers would hang up after about three rings, some bots seem to be able to detect voice mail and hang up. If I saw a call from my own exchange, I knew it was a spammer since I don't know anyone else with that exchange number, not even our doctors. One time I looked down and it was me calling me. Icon_e_surprised I should have answered it to see how I sound trying to scam someone. My cell phone is different, I have it only for emergencies and few people I know call me on it.

And while we're still talking about cell phones, why must I have to download an app from the "app store" when I'd like to do something simple like make a grocery list? And why do they keep telling me to text "1234 to 56789", or some other numbers? Haven't a clue what that means, or what it does... Nope
Don (ezdays) Day
Board administrator and
founder of the CANYON STATE RAILROAD
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#17
I have an old school answering machine on my landline and spammers hardly ever leave a message. You really should have answered that call from yourself, it might have been important! Big Grin
Mike

Sent from my pocket calculator using two tin cans and a string
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#18
My biggest issue right now has to do with my firewall. My wife & I bought the Best Buy Total Protection Package two years ago. It defaults to automatic renewel. It did the automatic renewel last fall, and my bank sent me a notice that they consider automatic renewel to be fraud, and so don't allow automatice renewels. If I want to renew, contact my vendor and renew manually. I wanted the Total Protection Package so I called Best Buy and renewed it. I also went through the multiple steps to turn off the automatice renewel for next year. Everything was fine EXCEPT my bank changed their minds and went ahead a processed the automatic renewel, now I have been billed twice for the same item. So I called Best Buy and asked them to refund one of the renewels. Best Buy recognised what happened, and took care of the problem, but now I am getting pop ups everytime I turn on my computer telling me that my Webroot firewall & antivirus software is expired and they will give me a deal to renew right now! I checked with Best Buy and my package including Webroot is good until next Sept. The problem is that the second Webroot which was cancelled when Best Buy cancelled the second Total Protection Package is cancelled and that is triggering the pop ups. The fix is easy, right. I just contact Webroot and have the problem corrected. WRONG!
I contacted Webroot, & they said that since their software is part of the Best Buy Total Protection Package purchased through Best Buy, I need to contact Best Buy. I contacted Best Buy. They said they had no control over Webroot's pop ups! I guess I live with shutting off the Webroot pop up until next September.

The package is worth it because we buy most of our technology from Best Buy and have any problems handled by the Geek Squad. My wife bought a new Del lap top computer last June. The fan bearing started screaming whenever the computer was on in September. We took it to Best Buy, but their package is for software problems only, hardware is handled by the manufacturer. We sent the lap top into Dell. After it was in for a month, they notified us that the part was on back order. After 2 months, my wife complained that she needed her computer for business, and if they can't get the part needed to please replace the computer. Then they told us that the computer had malware on it and they would need to reformat it to get rid of the Malware. Would we give them permission to reformat with the knowledge that all files would be lost forever! My wife told them NO WAY would she give permission for them to reformat a laptop that was sent in for a noisy fan bearing. If they reformatted and lost her files, expect a lawsuit! Two weeks later she received a new lap top with all of he files on it, but the software that ran them was not installed. We sent the laptop into Best Buy because they had installed the Microsoft Office software and they could get permission from Microsoft to install the same software on the new computer since the other one failed in less than 6 months without us having to buy the software all over again. Finally after 3 months, she now has a lap top with her software and files restored! We won't buy another Dell product.

If anyone wonders what the advantage of the tech support package is. It costs $200.00 per year. It protects up to 10 devices and provides antivirus & firewall protection for those 10 devices. It is also considered Best Buy membership which gives discounts on anything we purchase at Best Buy. Installing the software on my wifes new computer would have cost us @ $80-$100.00 without the package, so we saved that cost. I bought a new sterio for my car with back up camera. I got a discount on that + free installation. I don't remember the discount on the sterio, but installation would have been $130.00 with out the protection package, so we have saved over $230.00 so far this year.

This has been kind of long, so I close it for now.
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#19
Yeah Russ, long but informative. I wasn't aware of some of these products offered by Best Buy. Because of my electronic background, I rarely, if ever, take out any kind of extended or "umbrella" warranty on electronics but it's good to know that they are available.  Your grip is typical of the response you get now days, who's responsible to fix your problem, the manufacturer, the seller or the guy you paid to cover any issues? I think that maybe they do that in hopes you give up, and I always have to wonder, what kind of business plan calls for them to get a customer upset enough to walk away... forever?... Do a good job or something nice and you have a customer for life, plus they'll tell their friends. Screw a customer and they'll tell anyone that will listen and you can lose 100 new customers.
Don (ezdays) Day
Board administrator and
founder of the CANYON STATE RAILROAD
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