What is the dumbist customer comment/question you've heard?

[fixthecopier]

What do we do for "It seems like it used to be a lot faster"

I actually had that as a service call, and they were correct!
I am watching an old Di520 run and after a few copies it would jam in the finisher. I would watch and it looked like the finisher was running a little slower than the body of the machine. I told myself that is was not possible. I continued to watch and it continued to look like it was slower. I took the covers off and watched again. Still the timing was off. I look closer and there seems to be something on the gears. I touch it and it was sticky. I smell it and it smells sweet. After thinking for a moment, I realized they had spilled a Mellow Yellow down the finisher and the stuff had dried to a thick syrup and was gumming up the works. Hosed it down with WD-40 and it worked fine.

[mjarbar]

A customer called today to cancel a call because the (and I quote) "the machine had a good sleep last night and now seems to be working!"

1 hour later they called back to place the call again

I despair...I truly do.

[HB_AL]

this fair dinkum

a customer rang us up and said they had ran out of paper, they were extremely desperate and could we please fax over a dozen sheets

[mrwho]

- A new customer from the company where I used to work was complaining because, during the explaining of the brand new machine functions, I mentioned that we wouldn't go put the toner inside the machine - and that we should, because she signed a contract telling so. I patiently tried to explain her that the contract only meant that we would be supplying the toner, the machine operator was still responsible for putting the toner on the machine. I then, as an example, said that it would be like going there to fill up the paper tray - and she opened her eyes in disbelief saying "What? You DON'T put the paper on the trays??!?"

- Also some years ago a colleague of mine was happily sitting down while servicing a machine - you know the drill: parts everywhere, machine with doors opened, screws and washers abound, tools all over the place -, and he happened to have the OPC drum on his hands when he noticed the boss of the company owning the machine looking over his shoulder. As my colleague looked back with an inquisitive look (as if saying "can I help?"), the other guy said "Oh, don't mind me! I'm just waiting for a print to come out!"
My colleague looked at him for a couple of seconds, shrugged and said "Ok!" and continued working (he told me that as far as he was concerned, the other guy could very well wait until he was done).
A couple of minutes later, the waiting dude said "Oh, silly me! You're working on the machine! I'll print it elsewhere." and went away.

[fixthecopier]

The call was "changed toner in printer and it still says change the toner.
I arrive and look at the printer. "Who changed the toner?"I asked
"I did" said the Sargent as he walked toward me .
"Show me the box" I said.
He holds up the box for black toner.
"The machine is clearly asking for yellow, why did you put black in it?"
Long pause followed by "You mean there is more than one color in that machine?" to which I responded "Yes that is why it is known as a color printer, do they really let you play with guns?"

[mrwho]

"[...]do they really let you play with guns?"

That one made my day! Thank you!

[KenB]

A few years ago we had an account with an eCopy ScanStation attached to their Canon MFP, where one of the users would frequently scan printed Excel documents as .tif files.

The IT department showed her how to place the .tif into Excel.

She called one day, wondering why the machine wasn't scanning her FORMULAS.

Oi veh...

[rh112]

May not be dumbest thing customer ever asked but this has to be one of the dumbest thing I have ever seen a customer do Last week was working on copier in a state office Around corner I heard a noise and looked to see what was going on customer was trying to put two toner cartridges into an Imagistics copier not sure of model but similar to Sharp ARM350 She was trying to install one of them where developer unit was suppose to be Since this was not my copier I ask my contact if someone should help this lady was informed to not say anything as this lady knew everything and no one could tell her anything

As I was leaving I hear this lady on phone with someone just ranting about how she had ordered toner and they had sent her wrong part Sad part since it is a state office my tax money will be spent for a new developer unit for that machine

[Shadow1]

So, what do you do when massive amounts of stupidity come from an "internal customer"

Our regional Director of Technology Services bought 2 used AF1224c machines. He said "Adorable little machines"

He's no longer with us.

[KenB]

So, what do you do when massive amounts of stupidity come from an "internal customer"

Our regional Director of Technology Services bought 2 used AF1224c machines. He said "Adorable little machines"

He's no longer with us.

Can't imagine why..

[20YRSEXP]

Haven't read all of these, I hope for all our sakes we don't have a lot of repeats lol. We had a customer call complaining of black copies. Upon arriving I asked what she was doing when the black copies came up. She told me she was making copies of checks on the back of the orders so she would have them together. I found out the orders came over the fax. Not sure how she even got the fax paper to feed.... Think she would have called for jamming before she got her thermal paper to feed thru so she could copy the checks onto the back...........

[Shadow1]

Had one person in an office always asking "can you make it go any faster," or threatening to push it out a window, blow it up, etc. Very snooty, very low on their corporate totem pole, and in several cases responsible for broken parts on what was a piece of junk to begin with.

I finally got tired of it, did my best "look around like I'm not supposed to do this and don't want to get caught" routine," grabbed a piece of paper and wrote "9.6 meters per second squared" on top and "Google it" underneath, folded it in half and handed it to her "on the sly."

I turned around without another word and started back working. About 5 minutes later I heard "HEY! That's gravity!"

Make it go faster = acceleration. Gravity will do that...

She didn't get it, but she left me alone.

[mrwho]

Had one person in an office always asking "can you make it go any faster," or threatening to push it out a window, blow it up, etc. Very snooty, very low on their corporate totem pole, and in several cases responsible for broken parts on what was a piece of junk to begin with.

I finally got tired of it, did my best "look around like I'm not supposed to do this and don't want to get caught" routine," grabbed a piece of paper and wrote "9.6 meters per second squared" on top and "Google it" underneath, folded it in half and handed it to her "on the sly."

I turned around without another word and started back working. About 5 minutes later I heard "HEY! That's gravity!"

Make it go faster = acceleration. Gravity will do that...

She didn't get it, but she left me alone.

Very subtle approach - most of my PITA (Pain In The youknowwhere) customers don't go that far.

[duct tape]

stupid

Can we speed this machine up , I would like to make some color copies,can we just put color toner in it. You were just here yesterday, service history shows we haven't been there in 6 months, plus I've never been here before.

[Karsten]

May not be dumbest thing customer ever asked but this has to be one of the dumbest thing I have ever seen a customer do Last week was working on copier in a state office Around corner I heard a noise and looked to see what was going on customer was trying to put two toner cartridges into an Imagistics copier not sure of model but similar to Sharp ARM350 She was trying to install one of them where developer unit was suppose to be Since this was not my copier I ask my contact if someone should help this lady was informed to not say anything as this lady knew everything and no one could tell her anything

As I was leaving I hear this lady on phone with someone just ranting about how she had ordered toner and they had sent her wrong part Sad part since it is a state office my tax money will be spent for a new developer unit for that machine

I've had that. State Office, Sharp AR-M450. They called and said we had sent them the wrong toner. I get over there to check it out and they had taken out the Developer Unit and thrown it away. Despite them being on a service contract they paid for a new unit + labor.
Just last week I had a customer call and say their copier isn't working. They press start and nothing happens. I looked at the dispaly and sure enough it says "load paper"