I really don't care who I piss off with this rant!

[Maddy McCall]

But if I buy a printer from an US-based company, then I want to talk to someone who can at least speak a semblance of English when I have a problem.

I have an HP deskjet printer, and HP has issued a recall on the power cord to the printer. I found the phone number to call on the HP website, so I called it.

Obviously, HP has moved its customer service to India, because I couldn't understand a word the customer service rep said. I had to ask him to repeat EVERYTHING he said, and he got huffed with me. Then, he asked for my phone number. I told him, "Sorry, but my number is unlisted, and I am not about to divulge it to anyone I don't know." He said something like, "Then I won't fill this order for you." :grr:

So I made up a phone number, and had to repeat it four times to him. I had to spell my very simple first name to him at least five times.

A call that should have taken five minutes took thirty minutes. I won't ever buy from HP again just because when I need customer service, I won't to be able to communicate with someone who can communicate with me. If I buy a printer from an India-based company, then I won't complain if I have to talk to someone in India.

But, dammit, if I buy something from a country based in the US, who is marketing to US citizens, then by god I want to talk to someone who can speak decent English if I have a problem.

Call me whatever you want, but this has nothing to do with race. This has everything to do with corporations cutting expenses by cutting jobs that used to be provided to Americans, just so they can increase profits. That pisses me off the most.

End rant.

Edited to add: My physician is an Indian, and we have no problem communicating. How does that figure into this, I don't know.

[ronnykmarshall]

1. Thanks for the warning.

I'm in market for a new printer. HP is not my list anymore.

[bergamot]

19. Canon

I owned two HP printers and hated both of them, for mechanical (not support) reasons.

I now own a Canon S600. It's a little slow, but prints very nicely, and never breaks.

[Maddy McCall]

23. Plus the print cartridges are cheaper...

I'm going with canon next time. I have a great canon digicam--I even tripped and fell on top of it--and it still works like a charm.

Yep, I'm soon to trash this HP and get a Canon. (If their customer service is US-based. Do you know?)

:-)

[Sparkle]

2. You should send that rant to HP headquarters.

That's funny, though. My niece was just complaining about the same thing yesterday. But it was MS and she said the operator had an accent.

[Maddy McCall]

5. Well, this is different.

If a US citizen-consumer has a problem understanding a regional accent, then that's something that the consumer should correct.

[eleonora]

3. Good luck

All tech companies' customer services moved to India or are in the process of moving to India.

[Orangepeel]

15. I hear that the country de jour is the Phillipines

still cheap labor, with lighter accents

:shrug:

[Elidor]

4. I'm on a personal boycott of HP

Their CEO is outspoken in support of outsourcing, and a republican donor.

And their products SUCK. Fuck HP.

[bif]

11. Well I'm personally boycotting Epson

I bought a printer from them a couple years ago. I've since converted my Mac to OSX, only to find out Epson doesn't provide a OSX driver for their printer. WSo I had to buy a new, cheapie HP. Fuck Epson. And the one time I had to call HP for tech support (a couple months ago) I got a young American woman on the line who was very helpful.

[murray hill farm]

6. Absolutely!

Last month i called a bank to inquire about services...and got a woman in India. At that second, this bank was no longer an option..but i did have fun talking to her..asked her about the weather in india..how she got her job..learned english, etc. That was fun.

[dean_dem]

7. My last experience with HP Customer Support...

...I ended up getting a guy with a thick Irish accent. I could understand him fine, I was just a little confused because I thought they were outsourcing to India, not Ireland.

Either way, as a long-time owner of an HP Printer, I can attest to their suckiness. Computers aren't bad though.

[EVDebs]

8. Nation's immigrants account for bulk of labor force growth since 2000

Companies aren't hiring native-born citizens when those with visas (H1B, L1, etc) can come and work for less. Plus, they can leave the country with 'call center' jobs and this is all subsidized by the US taxpayers (note, corporations can write this all off as an expense). So Sen Kerry was right and the Bush administration wants to keep this up.

See
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-01/nu-nia010804.php

[Radio_Lady]

9. MCI "Local" call from Portland, Oregon...clearly outsourced...

ended up in Manila, the Philippines! The man was very cordial about our request, but I couldn't understand his labored English. I turned him over to my husband, who made out a little bit better.

The number to get the information on our new telephone service is:

1-800-MCI-LOCAL (Believe it or not!)

[musette_sf]

10. Any time I call any tech support any more

for a consumer product, anyway, it's in India. And most of the time, it's hard to understand them, and you cannot speak quickly or use colloquial American English with them, because they have no clue what you are saying. And what should be a 15 minute call turns into 90 minutes.

I am an IT project manager and I have lots of people of many nationalities in my group, so I guess I have somewhat of an advantage when I am on these support calls. But it's still quite an inconvenience to not be able to cut to the chase.

Latest offender = Network Associates (McAfee). Too many goddam "undocumented upgrade procedures".

[Ian David]

12. I hate outsourced tech support

One guy from my cellular company tried to tell me not to be concerned if none of the features on my phone worked, because, "You have no problem making or receiving calls, right?"

So, I guess all that fancy camera phone and text messaging stuff has nothing to do with why people buy the phones?

And when I needed help with my palmtop, the tech guy got very upset that I didn't have a tech support department at my company-- I told him it was for my personal use.

They hate it when you own something that would cost them two months sallary.

Hence a key problem: You have these guys working ungodly hours supporting services that they could never afford in a million years.

How can someone who has never been on an airplane relate to an angry executive who is stranded in an airport for a whole hour between flights and furious that he has to travel coach when he clearly ordered first class?

Oh, and don't get me started on AOL's tech support. They were bad enough when they were all from Texas.

[Maddy McCall]

17. Hey! I am having the same problem with my cell phone!

Can you tell me how you resolved it? I can't send or receive text messages, nor can I receive voice mail. Their customer service, based in Atlanta, said the SAME THING to me--that I can send and receive calls, so I shouldn't think that I can get out of my contract.

How did it work out for you?

[Ian David]

29. Keep calling and complaining

They don't charge airtime to call tech support.

[Maddy McCall]

33. Today, the tech support woman said that I am indeed on a digital...

tower. I said, you're wrong, I'm showing analog on my phone right now.

She said that she would call the owners of the tower to see what the problem is. I've been waiting all evening, still haven't heard from her.

I do know that I was on a digital tower when I am at home when I first got my phone, because I was able to use those neat little features. Then, about a month after my grace period in which I could return my phone and cancel my account without penalty expired, I started only picking up on an analog tower.

If this doesn't get better, I'm going to contact our Public Services Commissioner and see what he can do. I'm sick of it.

[blondeatlast]

28. My hubby's a sysad from India. Even HE can't understand some

of the people he's required to deal with anymore, and he was born in New Delhi and raised in Bangalore.

He's also worried that HIS job might get outsourced...

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

13. Your physician LIVES in the US. He buys and pays taxes there.

Totally different.

[Kahuna]

20. She knows. She was pointing out that her bias is not against Indian..

people. Only Indian people in other countries who are taking our jobs and giving lousy service.

I feel the same way. My doctor is Indian and I love him to pieces. I never fail to flirt whenever I see him. :D But this outsourcing of good American jobs, I'm not crazy about either.

[Reverend_Smitty]

14. Don't bother with Dell tech support either....

I accidentally deleted something to do with the internet connection when I was trying to get rid of spyware on my aunt's computer so I had to call tech support for help. Well a 5 minute solution turned into a 40 min ordeal. Same thing happened to my roommate when she had a virus on her computer. I couldn't understand her English and she couldn't understand mine. It's a frustrating situation to have things go wrong with your computer in the first place coupled with communication problems with the person who is supposed to help. It's a headache to say the least!

[complain jane]

16. My sister got stuck in an elevator at work in NJ, and when she called the

"Emergency" phone # posted in the elevator it was IN INDIA. The procedure was then for the phone staff in India to contact someone in the US to let them know about the "emergency". Someone then had to drive from somewhere else to come and fix the elevator and get my sister out. Three hours later, my sister was out.

This happened at one of the biggest insurance companies in the US.

Lucky she has a sense of humor.

[Maddy McCall]

18. I have one word for her.

Lawsuit.

[tmooses]

21. I had the same problem with my isp. Not only the accent,but the extra

time (if only in milliseconds) to hear the other person (the same with cell phones) always throws me off. You never know if they've already started talking and you can't hear them or if they're thinking and haven't said anything yet. Then when you can't wait and start talking, they answer the last question you had.

[blondeatlast]

22. "Susan Smith."

This DOES NOT piss me off, even though my husband is Asian Indian.

Reminds me of my story.

I call tech support a while ago (cell phone), and who answers the phone? "Susan Smith," whose accent is decidedly thickly Indian, although I could tell she'd had some classes.

After I finished laughing hysterically (I couldn't help it, I tried to refrain, I swear), I told her why her fake name might not be such a good one to use..

[Maddy McCall]

26. Yes, this guy's name was "Andrew"

LOL!

Like I said, my doctor is from India. He has an accent, but we have NO PROBLEM communicating. He is the best doctor I have ever had...he seems to almost instinctually diagnose me when I have a problem.

He found that I have a prolapsed valve in my heart. My other doctors before him had missed it for 35 years.

My son's physician is Indian too. When he had an intestinal problem several years ago, a rare problem, all the other doctors were perplexed--one even said he had the flu!--but she diagnosed it immediately. She saved his life.

[txaslftist]

24. I have a Compaq computer and had the same problem...

If you are going to outsource customer service, use someone who speaks English as a first language, please. At least have someone handy who does.

[Red State Rebel]

25. HP tech support is as useless as tits on a bull

I just went thru the same thing this week trying to get help. What cracks me up is when they come on the line they introduce themselves with an American sounding name. I'm just wondering how many people in India are named Bill or Ann.

[bobweaver]

27. Your mistake was assuming that HP cares a rat's ass about you.

[Maddy McCall]

32. Your mistake is assuming that I assumed that.

HP told their customers to call and request a new cord, because the other one was defective.

I didn't call for tender, loving care. I called expecting to be able to give my address to someone who could communicate with me.

[6th Borough]

30. I feel the same way...from the opposite side. (long rant/post)

I worked for a 3rd party tech-support company (in the US) that handled a number of large accounts (Compaq especially, also IBM, HP, Erickson, etc.).

We weren't the ONLY call center for these various companies, but we handled a good deal of their most significant work (at least in the Compaq division, where I worked). Corporate calls, case management, especially open research (this is when there was no known fix to a specific bug/problem; we had the only group in the country who's single job was to spend as long as it took to figure out a solution which had not previously been addressed...no matter how long it took).

Oh, and it paid great. In fact, we were the highest paid call center out of the 9 or so that Compaq either directly operated or had a 3rd party deal with. I had co-workers, with no college education, making upwards of $60,000 a year.

Just in case you're curious, I dealt specifically with small to mid sized business level networking...though if the calls overflowed, I handled anything. I was also thrown into...guess...HP printer support (Compaq sold HP printers) when I was "off" the phone.

It was truly a job that someone could use to pay their way through college, if they chose that path. Every single one of my coworkers, save some of the "team leaders", were exceptionally bright as well. Hell, I still wonder what happened to my friend whom I haven't spoken to since I worked there back in '98-2000 is doing. He was 23, recently married, with child; no formal college education. I try not to think of it.

The jobs are all in India now, of course.:nopity:

Oh, just a P.S., I'm 25; my experience with computers began at age 2 with a TRS-80....I was programming at age 5 on a Commodore-64...just in case you wondered why a formal education wasn't required.

[LoZoccolo]

31. Hear hear!

Problem is, if you shoot 'em off an email saying you're not going to deal with them next time because of this, it could very well be picked up in India by someone scanning it for key words in order to give you a canned reply.

FUCK I HATE THIS BULLSHIT CUSTOMER SERVICE SHIT! First it was the fucken call them up and wander through the maze of touch-tone options, then it was wander through some touch-tone procedure that has nothing to do with your problem but they make everyone do it just to make sure they don't have to bother with you in case you have that problem, now it's this shit they do to you or the canned reply thing. I bought a DVD/VCR combo from Sony and asked them if they had a firmware upgrade for it (NOT UNCOMMON AMONGST DVD MANFACTURERS) and they shot me back an email that has a few canned sentences in it based on the stuff I wrote, basically saying beyond that you have to go to a service center we don't want to talk to you anymore fuck you very much. That's bullshit, fuck 'em. Bad enough we have high school kids selling us our appliances now that know jack shit about their product, now we gotta deal with companies that don't know jack shit about their product.