Burlap and Blues, The Blues Blog

Have you ever needed to contact tech support and wondered who you were talking to? I am going to relay and actual story that occurred with me when I contacted AOL tech support 4 years ago when there was a service outage in my area.

Just to give those of you who do not know me a little background. I have been programming computers since the 1980’s. I programmed computers in high school, while I was in the military, and most recently as a partner in a small software development company. I know a little about computers, and I know when the internet service is not available.

Follow up:

It was a summer evening and there were some storms to our north and shortly after the storms had passed where we were, the internet disappeared. Knowing how flakey AOL is I reset the modem, and restarted the computer, but no internet signal was showing on the DSL. I got out all my information and called the support center to report an outage.

After being on hold for 15 minutes.
AOL:”Thank you for holding how can I help you.”

“Hi I would like to report an outage”

AOL: Sir, where are you located

“Wisconsin”

AOL:”We are not showing an outage in Wisconsin, can you tell me what version of AOL and Windows you are using”

“uhm, I know you are not showing an outage, that’s why I am reporting it”

AOL:”Sir I cannot help you unless you tell me what version of AOL you are using and what version of Windows you are using.”

“I am using AOL for Broadband and XP Pro, but I told you that does not matter, there is a service outage in my area that I am reporting”

AOL:”Sir I understand that your internet is not working, but I show no outages, and I need to make sure that it is not something wrong with your system causing your internet not to work.”

“I can tell you that it is not anything wrong my computer, the service is out”

AOL:”Sir open up your current AOL software and sign in.”

“I can’t there is no service”

AOL:”What does the AOL software tell you”

“I have no internet service”

AOL:”Thank you Sir, Again I apologize that you are not able to access the internet at this time. Can you please make sure that your computer, monitor and modem are all on at this time.”

“My computer is on, you just asked me to open AOL, I can’t do that if my computer is off. The modem is on and the light that says there is internet service is off, because there is no service.”

AOL:”Thank you sir, Please turn off your modem and computer and restart your computer, as this is the cause of your problem. Make sure that you leave your modem and computer off for at least 15 seconds.”

“I have done that already. Your computer does not stay off when you restart it, but you know that right? “

AOL:”Sir, you cannot diagnose AOL on your own, I cannot help you if you do not restart your computer and restart your modem.”

“Okay, that will take a minute”

AOL:”Sir, since you are not completed with that step you will need to hold while I help other AOL customers who are waiting.”

“It takes time to restart (hold music now playing&#8230

..................17 minutes later.

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