Taking bets: will I or won't I get a call back from Symantec Tech Support?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I need to upgrade my OS from XP Home to XP Pro. Having worked with Microsoft OS’s for many a year, I am hesitant about how this is going to go. Several people have assured me that it’s pretty easy.

Still, I’d feel better if I had a full backup, so I buy Norton Ghost - a software application whose box touts “backs up all your stuff!” Well, great, since I need to “back up all my stuff!” I have an empty USB hard drive all ready to go to do this.

I place the order on Monday; this morning, the UPS man brings my copy of Ghost. Woohoo! I’m ready to go.

I install it, which goes smoothly. It wants to reboot. Fine, I reboot. It comes up with the wizard that will oh-so-easily allow me to do a complete backup of my hard drive. Easy as pie!

Except… it doesn’t like my USB Hard drive. I poke around some more. It doesn’t like any of my drives, including the one it’s running on. The dialog that’s supposed to list all my drives is blank.

Hmmm.

I uninstall and reinstall. Same thing. I run LiveUpdate to get the lastest & greatest. Same problem. I give in, and I call Tech Support.

I talk to Tom, a strange name for someone with a thick accent. Still, Tom is helpful. He runs me through a few checks, then tells me to open the window that’s supposed to list all my drives. They’re still not there. Tom tells me to choose the drive I want to back up. Um, Tom, it’s not there. That’s my problem. I have multiple drives, none of them are listed.

“Huh?” says Tom, only it comes out more like “eugh?”

I tell him again: no drives. “I’ll have to put you on hold” says Tom.

I sit on hold for about 5 minutes. Tom comes back. “I will have to do more investigation on this issue. I will call you back in 1.5 hours.”

I’m a savvy tech support user. I know this means “We have no idea what your problem is and we will never call you back.”

I say as much to Tom. He insists he will call me back.

I get a case number, though Tom tells me it’s unnecessary, as he will call me back in 1.5 hours.

That was 3 hours ago. In the meantime, I’ve reinstalled Norton Ghost (again), tried the previous version of Norton Ghost (which recognizes my primary drive but doesn’t support my flavor of USB drive) and finally figured out that I’ve spent more time trying to back up my system than it would take me to reinstall everything if the upgrade blows up.

I decide to live on the edge, and install my XP Pro upgrade without a backup. If this works, I’m going to remove the tags from my matresses next.

I can’t get it out of my head, though, how insistent Tom was about calling me back. Even when I said “you will never call me back” he assured me he would. He seemed sincere.

There is nothing left to do but take bets. Will Tom call me back? How long will it take?

Place your bets below. Whoever comes closest I will heretofor refer to as the “SDMB Tech Support Callback Oracle.”

2

Tom probably meant 1.5 days. :rolleyes:

I’m guessing they will call back sooner or later, since they typically don’t like to leave tickets open. Tom might be off-shift now (that may have been his plan), so a call back and reference the case ID might be in order.

Good luck.

3

Oh but Tom specifically said that I would not HAVE to call back, because he would call me back in 1.5 hours! Several times he said that.

And at this point, I don’t need the software, as I’m leaping in to the upgrade sans-backup. Yes, I do indeed live on the edge!

I’m just wondering if I will ever get an actual callback, since never before in the past - not even once - have I gotten a callback from free tech support, from any company.

4

Tom will go home, put on his silk bikini underwear and his silk shorty robe, make a scotch neat, then call you up and say, “Hey Baby, I got yer “tech support” right here!”

Or, he’ll call you from work on Thursday at 2:30 p.m.

5

Tomorrow, 9:56 AM.
You will be in the bathroom.

6

Don’t forget these are Indian hours… sooo… well, never. You will never be called back.

7

I have faith in human nature, I say he calls you back in 1.45 hours. According to my clock, you still have about 20 minutes to wait.

But I could be wrong.

8

It’s now almost 4 hours since he said he’d call me back. The phone has not stirred.

On the plus side, my bareback XP Pro upgrade has gone well, and everything appears to be working. By God, everyone was right! It is an easy upgrade.

Tom, meanwhile, is probably sipping tea at a Bangalore cafe and chuckling at how gullible tech support customers are. “Ha!” he thinks, “She fell for it when I insisted I would call her back!”

Four years from now, I will recieve a call at precisely 4:28 AM, and Tom will cackle while he tells me that Norton Ghost 10.0 does not now and will never recognize my hard drives.

9

Nah! Tom is waiting for you to get jusssttt out hearing range of your phone. He will let it ring precisely 20 seconds then hang up, secure in the knowledge that at least he tried (not the he had any real answer for you.) At precisely 21 seconds, you will have come back into hearing range of the phone, none the wiser.

Well, I’m glad things are working out fine after all.

10

1.5 Bangalorean hours? You are *SO * screwed.

Call 'em back, and you’ll probably get another person coincidentally named Tom.