[LINK] "Help" desks - today's adventures.

[Peter Bowditch]

I mentioned TPG earlier today. The reason I had been looking at their site 
was that a friend who connects through TPG was having some trouble and 
wanted me to fix it. Apparently I am omnipotent. I found out that they 
connected through TPG by examining headers on some recent emails. I was 
especially taken by the way TPG customers have to fill out a form on TPG's 
web site to tell TPG that they are having trouble connecting to the 
Internet through TPG. There is only one phone number for the whole of 
Australia for all purposes, so it might be possible that my friend is 
still on hold waiting to be transferred to the correct extension.

Then there's Optus. I use Optus mobile broadband when I travel. To report 
a fault to Optus online you have to know your Optus email address, 
something which I do not have because nobody ever told me what it might 
be. They do, however, have a tech support telephone number. The fault I 
wanted to ask about was the disappearance of Usenet newsgroups from 
anywhere in Optus. The person I spoke to knew not of what I spoke and 
didn't know who to ask. She had no idea what I meant by "news". The devil 
made me say "NNTP server", but I thought that I might cause too much 
distress if I asked about Archie and Gopher. Perhaps even Netscape would 
have been a stretch.

She did, however, give me an email address. She even spelled it out for me 
- "pbowditch". Luckily I am a fully-qualified nerd, geek and hacker and it 
only took me a few attempts before I tried "p.bowditch".

Then there is BlueCentral. I tried to connect to their webmail system and 
received a screen telling me that I was using an unsupported browser and 
should upgrade. Versions of Internet Explorer above 5.5 are required, so 
it is no wonder that I have trouble using IE7 with all updates on XP Pro 
SP3 or Vista. I lodged a support ticket (as BlueCentral only do hosting, 
not connection, I will excuse them having a form for support). The answer 
came directed, in a tone not unexpected to tell me that everything is 
working correctly. Not at my place it isn't.

I won't talk about my adventures with Telstra a couple of weeks back 
because I would need to find an all-night chemist to refill my Zoloft. You 
can read about it at 
http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/history/2009/03march.htm#7computers



-- 
Peter Bowditch
The Millenium Project - http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles
Australian Council Against Health Fraud - http://www.acahf.org.au
Australian Skeptics - http://www.skeptics.com.au