Stupid Customer Tricks

[tonerhead]

But the salesman said I should add a full ream at a time. Couldn't figure out why it jams.

[CWP]

Re: Stupid Customer Tricks

But the salesman said I should add a full ream at a time. Couldn't figure out why it jams.

You mean it won't pull it out of the wrapper? It stays fresher that way!
At least they got the "UP" correct, though technically not I guess as the paper flips, so maybe the UP should be pointing down.

[roho]

Re: Stupid Customer Tricks

Had a customer many years ago when the devices were analog and had no touch screen available. She called in saying she could not enlarge any copies and I figured she must have broken the plastic actuator under the key pad as they were all hard keys. When I got there the copy ratio key worked and you could cycle through the complete enlarge and reduction ratio menu. I showed her that it worked and she claimed that the key was in a different spot on the control panel prior and I must have moved it during the previous call, which would be a real engineering feat to carve out a new spot on the c/panel and have it activate the bubble pad underneath, not to mention somehow filling the previous spot seamlessly with the exact color of plastic. I wondered how she got to work everyday.

[fixthecopier]

Re: Stupid Customer Tricks

Doing a military contractnfor 16 years, I have seen it all, I have had the unwrapped ream, customers who would pull the IU out and throw it away when the machine ask for toner. Filling their own toner bottles with other toners, ground charcole and liquids. There is nothing that surprises me anymore.

[tonerhead]

Re: Stupid Customer Tricks

Must have been something with the automatic paper unwrapper or something

ID10TS

[kingarthur]

Re: Stupid Customer Tricks

Had a customer a couple of years ago, they called as the waste toner was full....they said they'd emptied all 4 units & it still was staying the waste toner bottle needed replacing.....they had to pay for 4 imaging units.......

[copyman]

Re: Stupid Customer Tricks

Probably the best (or worse depending how you look at it) was when copier industry was first making the transition from liquid to dry toner. More than once I had customer's pour liquid toner into the dry toner hopper. What a mess.

Also had what the other poster happen a few times, customer's dumping the image units thinking it was waste toner. Expensive mistake that they never do again!

Keep in mind we want the end user to be stupid, keeps us working. After 40 yrs in this business I have seen it all. And the one thing that has never changed is most service calls are related to the end user.

[CraigW]

Re: Stupid Customer Tricks

Some locations make you cringe to leave supplies for them..... they see a message (but don't READ it) and throw in everything minus WHAT it is calling for.

[KenB]

Re: Stupid Customer Tricks

Back in the day when we actually kept supplies in our building, we had more than a few customers place an unneeded service call, asking that we would bring the supplies with us to save them shipping / delivery charges.

We also had a large number of customers just assume that we carried supplies with us.

Nice tries , but "No!"on both.

[roho]

Re: Stupid Customer Tricks

Once had a customer with a second generation digital device printing "dark". It was a reverse of how toner is supposed to act, light areas dark, image light. I inspected the dev and could smell Np 3825 toner as I used to rebuild those in the shop. Some one took the time and effort to feed that toner into the new machine and they had to be spooning it out as there is no way the toner bottle would fit. What time and effort and patience they must have had to do that, certainly more effort and patience then simply reading the manual. They had to pay for a new dev.

Another customer had the same issue, turned out the wharehouse help had added toner from a different manufacturer, and from a different Canon. After I explained to the business owner about the charge for a new dev and why he called in the employee in question. I never did see him there again.

[Phil B.]

Re: Stupid Customer Tricks

Had a customer many years ago when the devices were analog and had no touch screen available. She called in saying she could not enlarge any copies and I figured she must have broken the plastic actuator under the key pad as they were all hard keys. When I got there the copy ratio key worked and you could cycle through the complete enlarge and reduction ratio menu. I showed her that it worked and she claimed that the key was in a different spot on the control panel prior and I must have moved it during the previous call, which would be a real engineering feat to carve out a new spot on the c/panel and have it activate the bubble pad underneath, not to mention somehow filling the previous spot seamlessly with the exact color of plastic. I wondered how she got to work everyday.

bet she worked in the public school system.

[gneebore]

Re: Stupid Customer Tricks

Not a copier topic and also an old recurring weird one. It concerns the old IBM selectric typewriters and the newer wheelwriters and some special calls about wrong letters printing when typing. On the keyboard for the selectrics there were two different upper case characters on some of the numbers key buttons. You actually had to buy a separate element to use them. Can not count the number of times I had service calls for the "wrong letter typing" when they had the special element installed. Along the same lines was the language feature on the wheelwriters. At least once every two weeks there were calls for the "machine is not printing the correct letters" Even got to the point that I would specifically ask over the phone if the "language light is on" Most of the time the answer would be where is that and you need to come and fix this machine now. Then a nice fifteen or twenty minute drive to show the ding-a-ling user how to use the code and x key to turn the feature off. Of course then they had to ask. "Why do they have that silly feature there for?" Answer: some people actually buy these machines and put a Spanish or French lettered printwheel in the machine and they can type in another language without buying a new typewriter. Worked especially well in Canada where the feature could be used as a sales point. Oh and the worst part was this. Most of the language feature calls were on machines where there was no service contract. Had quite a few that refused to pay for the service call until I pointed out they insisted I make the trip to repair the machine. And even after I tried to save them the trouble and expense by trying to tell them how to "fix it" over the phone. Almost as much fun as going out on service calls where inexperienced people could not even follow the directions on the box on how to install a typewriter ribbon.