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

[Hansoon]

What brand shuts down and codes out?

Don't know about the newer machines but the Minolta CF-9001 did that.

Hans

[Kidaver]

I know Kyocera will....I believe Konica Minolta will as well...if you get that code you have to call tech support and they will send a special someone out....and it won't be fun...

[slimslob]

I guess that changes from manufacturer to manufacturer. All I've seen on my Sharps and Ricohs is a blacked out image, no shutdown or anything. I'm not sure if Canon does, but to my knowledge it's similar with them in that it only blacks out the copies.

What brand shuts down and codes out?

I agree. I work on Ricoh with the Lanier label on them. As soon as they detect something that is illegal to copy, the rest of the page is black.

[Nachoman4life]

When it comes to money, I just tell people its flat out illegal, but you can take all the photographs you want.

[Shadow1]

Some of the original Toshiba Color machines would completely lockout, and you had to call the FBI to come out and reset it... needless to say they were also going to crawl up your butt with a microscope. I think they got tired of that since most people were just trying to do something innocent, and we've also had problems with people copying (or printing) letterhead with an official looking seal on it.

...but do remind the customers that even if you find a way to trick the machine into producing a usable copy (and it is possible on some machines, though I'm not going to mention which or how to do it) that the machine encodes its serial number into the dithering pattern of the yellow toner. It's not visible to the eye, but the feds won't have any problem at all tracing which machine made the copy

[ignacio.cortez]

I'm sure most of you know this trick, but for the newbies or old dogs that havent learned new tricks

If you shine a BLUE light to a Yellow Print, it will stand out quite a bit more,
Its a good trick when you're working on Registration issues and want to make sure you're properly aligning Yellow (at least Kyocera-Mita/Copystar) Will do that, but I'm pretty sure goes across the board

[Venom]

Had a school call a few weeks ago for jamming in the document feeder so I found a ripped corner piece of paper with staple in it stuck inside so I cleaned out and tested 200 originals, all good so I leave.
An hour later get a call, document feeder still not fixed so I went back and ran hundreds through it and could not get it to jam so I asked the secretary to show me exactly what she was copying.
She comes over and places 5 sheets in the document feeder that is stapled in the corner, I said "wait, you need to remove the staple", she says "no, I've always runs stapled paper through the feeder and has always worked for 4 years" so she tried it and jam, pulled it out and tried again and jam, then says "see, it won't work", I said you must remove staple, she says "I have no control over how the originals come to me, stapled or not"...so she reluctantly does remove staple and retries it and voila it works. How do you reason with such stupidity?

[blackcat4866]

Just today I took a call in which the enduser claims that when faxing a 3 page document, it worked the first time but the second time the machine instead makes 445 prints, and never even tries to fax it. I print off the Tx report and find the specific transaction. The phone number ends in ...-6445. I'm pretty sure what happened, but spend some time cleaning to compose my face.

"So is it possible that it was not in the Fax screen, but maybe in the Copy screen? The phone number does end in 6445 ... another name for a print of a scan is copy."
The other gentleman present teased our enduser mercilessly. To give myself a little credit, I did not join in, thinking only of how I felt when I ate that spoiled lunchmeat last week, and keeping a properly sober look upon my face. =^..^=

[emujo]

Had a customer today complain of black copies.
I went out and reset the machine and out came fine copies.
I wasn't 2 blocks away and she called saying it was doing it again.
I walked in the door and you would think I killed her dog or something.
I made some copies and they were fine.
She breaks out a couple of 20's and put them on the glass.
I said, "I am sorry, you can't copy money on a machine with a color scanner."
She yells at me "I don't see why not, on my old machine I could."
I lifted the DF and showed her the sticker next to the glass that states not to copy money.

She told me she wasn't counterfeiting money, just copying it.

I told her that the machine thinks she is, just try folding it in half and you should be ok.
But I need the serial # of the bills.
I threw up my hands and asked to see her boss or should I just call the Dept of the Treasury.

Problem solved.

The KM products have gotten worse, not just money, but any type of financial documents, stocks/bonds, even birth/death certificates have issues. And it's not just printing, scanning is affected. When you try to print something that the mfp detects as prohibited, it can lay down a security pattern, but when you try to scan the same document the MFP can't add anything to prevent you from just printing it at your desktop printer so it won't even allow the scan. Causing some major headaches from a lot of customers who are just trying to do there jobs. Emujo

[HDSB]

Working on a helpdesk I have some good stories to tell..

Yesterday a new customer calls and tells me her brand new Bizhub 554e wont scan double sided. Asked her what was happening, "i select double sided and the page only goes through once, we have another machine and it goes through twice" Ok i thought, so i went to our showroom to confirm exactly how to do a double sided scan on a 554e.

Called her back and she says "im so sorry, i never even checked the scan, it is doubled sided!"

Found out it comes with a single pass feeder as standard.

If i could have put my hand down the phone...