Being Lied to by Tech Support
Tech support is a difficult and thankless job. Having said that, most people hate dealing with tech support. Non-technical people sometimes blame themselves for this – they feel stupid, and assume that the problem originates with then. As a person who is more technically knowledgeable than the average person, I must make the following report: knowing something about technology does not make interacting with tech support any easier.
Case in point: I have been having difficulties browsing. Some web sites that I like to visit have not been accessible to me. At first, I thought the sites themselves were down, but then the problems just became too frequent. My first guess was that there was a DNS problem. (Notes for the uninitiated: computers that are connected to the Internet all have unique numeric addresses that function much like phone numbers. However, these numbers are not easy for us to use; therefore, the Internet relies on a special network of domain name servers to convert URLS such as http://jimcassidy.ca to Internet addresses such as 66.179.181.182.)
Without a domain name server, it would be impossible for you reach my site by typing http://jimcassidy.ca in the address bar of your browser. Instead, you would need to know the IP address. You can discover the IP address of any site by using this tool: dnswatch site. By using this service, I found the sites I could not reach were reachable using the IP address – seems like a DNS problem to me.
You would think it would be easy to get a resolution from Bell Sympatico tech support. Think again. I do not want to fault individuals, but here is what happened. I send two emails outlining the problem, and I received no reply. Then, I contacted a representative who could not help me beyond suggesting that I empty my cache. The representative was not willing to stick with me until the problem was solved, but she did thank me for choosing Bell Sympatico.
Today, I contacted a tech support person who was more knowledgeable, and she walked me through the process of recreating my connection on my Windows machine. DHCP was not working on my Windows machine, and she helped address this problem. So far so good.
Of course, I did explain that 90% of the time I am running Linux and I use a router. When I asked her if other people were having the same problem navigating to sites using URLs, she cut the call short and closed my ticket. Again, she had no suggestions, and she was not aware of the problem.
I get the feeling that Bell Sympatico is not prepared to admit that there is a problem. I also get the feeling that Bell Sympatico has instituted a policy of not opening tickets for this issue. Although I asked directly if the two representatives were aware of DNS problems, neither admitted that they had heard of any such problem. The fact that I was able to find multiple references to a Sympatico DNS problem on the Internet leaves me feeling that I was being lied too. As both representatives told me, the call may be monitored – perhaps they were instructed not to admit to the problem.
Sympatico did offer to send me a new and more powerful modem for free if I agreed to continue my contract for at least another year – otherwise, there would be a fee of about $75. I see that as an attempt to lock me in, especially since I was considering finding another supplier.
Being knowledgeable has not helped me. I feel that I was not listened to, and that Sympatico could not admit that there was a problem. In the end, I searched the web for a solution to the problem. Many other people are having the same problem with Sympatico. Basically, I am now bypassing the Sympatico DNS servers and using a public DNS server at 4.2.2.1. Problem solved.
Still, I get the same feeling that many people get: tech support is not there to help me. In the end, tech support represents and serves the company. No honest attempt was made to help me with my main problem, and, frankly, no attempt was made to be honest. I cannot believe that these two representatives are unaware of the problem. I am unimpressed by the fact that my two emails received no reply. I will stay with Sympatico because I am lazy, but the company has lost my loyalty. I am ripe for the picking if Rogers, or any other supplier, wants to call with a special offer.