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

[ignacio.cortez]

Good Size Physical therapy Chain of Hospitals,

I was called in to a NEW site, End users complain that the Brand New printer is leaving White bands Leading edge to trailing edge, Device, got to site, shook the toner cartridge multiple times, printed about 150 pages, no white bands, closed call. Next day, end user calls again, getting dinged for callback, make it out to customer site and end user again is complaining of the same thing, inquired end user if they have a backup cartridge, they do, open brand new cartridge, still sealed, installed it and ran 200 pages, no white banding, towards the end of the day, I get the message that the issue is happening again. I ordered a replacement toner cartridge next day rush. Make it to customer site as soon as they open, walk in and begin troubleshooting, again, (still with the cartridge installed the day before, after 50+ pages, I start noticing that the white banding is moving, some times it shows on one spot next few pages its in a different spot, and so forth, I take the cartridge, flip it looking for a stuck piece of paper, no paper visible, optics are cleaned, issue remains, I execute a Cleaning cycle, then pulled toner cartridge out, flip it and open the drum flap, Lo-and-behold, half of a cockroach is sticking out between the drum and the plastic guide, juicy too, I show the end user (The branch's CEO) that there is nothing wrong with the printer, they just happen to have a cockroach infestation. Changed the call to T&M and charged them $300 for my time.

[tonerhead]

Having done Both, IT and Printer/Copier Support...…. Technically, you can do DHCP, however, They'd have to set the MAC address on the DHCP Server and add the IP address to the Exceptions to make sure no other device takes that IP address. Interestingly enough, I've been told that's now considered best practices, though I started back in the day, when you assigned IP Addresses to Printers and Servers and leave the DHCP Pool for regular client PCs (Though some of the companies also assigned IP addresses to client PCs) was the norm (Best Practices)

A mac reservation is the best practice right now for sure. However the time savings from IT is minimal. I still consider best practice and most secure is to use static ips for all fixed equipment (copiers and desktops) and only allow dhcp for visiting laptops. In-company laptops connect using mac reservations for dhcp. One company I know of is printing through hostname. They just let copier dhcp. Of course all workers bitch that printing is slow. But what do you expect?

AND REMEMBER .......WSD is our friend, we charge $20 each to fix WSD ports through our helpdesk. Thank you Microsoft.

[gneebore]

Good Size Physical therapy Chain of Hospitals,

I was called in to a NEW site, End users complain that the Brand New printer is leaving White bands Leading edge to trailing edge, Device, got to site, shook the toner cartridge multiple times, printed about 150 pages, no white bands, closed call. Next day, end user calls again, getting dinged for callback, make it out to customer site and end user again is complaining of the same thing, inquired end user if they have a backup cartridge, they do, open brand new cartridge, still sealed, installed it and ran 200 pages, no white banding, towards the end of the day, I get the message that the issue is happening again. I ordered a replacement toner cartridge next day rush. Make it to customer site as soon as they open, walk in and begin troubleshooting, again, (still with the cartridge installed the day before, after 50+ pages, I start noticing that the white banding is moving, some times it shows on one spot next few pages its in a different spot, and so forth, I take the cartridge, flip it looking for a stuck piece of paper, no paper visible, optics are cleaned, issue remains, I execute a Cleaning cycle, then pulled toner cartridge out, flip it and open the drum flap, Lo-and-behold, half of a cockroach is sticking out between the drum and the plastic guide, juicy too, I show the end user (The branch's CEO) that there is nothing wrong with the printer, they just happen to have a cockroach infestation. Changed the call to T&M and charged them $300 for my time.

Had a real similar problem a long time ago with a Canon pc6RE. Customer called and complained there were random dark streaks on the copies. I went three times and everything worked fine. Even though she saved the samples could not find anything wrong in the machine. Then one day I was fortunately two blocks away when the office got me on my cell phone and asked me to stop by there right away as fast as I could. I did and immediately made a copy and there was the black band. Funny though it was two inches closer to the edge of the page than the sample she showed me. I opened the copier took the drum unit out to see if there were any bits of debris in the main charge area . But as I was pulling the drum until out I noticed a bit of movement in the transfer corona assembly. Yeap there was a roach in the bottom of the assembly and there were a few more that escaped when I lifted the machine off of the table top. I used my hemostats to remove the stil living roach and put everything back together. the customer immediately called the building managed and demanded they send out the pest control people again.

[Phil B.]

Had a real similar problem a long time ago with a Canon pc6RE. Customer called and complained there were random dark streaks on the copies. I went three times and everything worked fine. Even though she saved the samples could not find anything wrong in the machine. Then one day I was fortunately two blocks away when the office got me on my cell phone and asked me to stop by there right away as fast as I could. I did and immediately made a copy and there was the black band. Funny though it was two inches closer to the edge of the page than the sample she showed me. I opened the copier took the drum unit out to see if there were any bits of debris in the main charge area . But as I was pulling the drum until out I noticed a bit of movement in the transfer corona assembly. Yeap there was a roach in the bottom of the assembly and there were a few more that escaped when I lifted the machine off of the table top. I used my hemostats to remove the stil living roach and put everything back together. the customer immediately called the building managed and demanded they send out the pest control people again.

I found a mouse running around in a scanner assmy once.
Randomly would produce ' a rat ' on the copy..
Got there shoooo nuff little bugger was scurrying around inside still!

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[gneebore]

I found a mouse running around in a scanner assmy once.
Randomly would produce ' a rat ' on the copy..
Got there shoooo nuff little bugger was scurrying around inside still!

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

Wasn't my call but one of the other techs went out on a call because of random black streaks. He got there and no problem. But he also heard something scratching under the base plate of thew scanner. He had to take the whole scanner apart to get to the problem. Seems there was a mouse under the base plate between the upper scanner lamps and the optics going to the drum. The mouse was injured and was able to move a little bit. More than likely it was moving or rolling into the path of the optics and causing the shadows/streaks in the image path under the base plate. It was an older analog copier with the base plate between the upper and lower optics sections.

[KenB]

Back in the early 90’s, a friend of mine was a television service tech. He worked on a lot of so-called “big screen” TVs, which were nothing more than a small TV built into a large box with a projector. Remember those?

He had a call for a black spot which would move fairly quickly from one side of the screen to the other, in a sweeping motion.

The problem? There was a spider inside the box, doing his best Tarzan imitation, happily swinging from branch to branch, casting a shadow while doing his thing.

We still chuckle about it when reminiscing today.

[FrohnB]

Back in the early 90’s, a friend of mine was a television service tech. He worked on a lot of so-called “big screen” TVs, which were nothing more than a small TV built into a large box with a projector. Remember those?

He had a call for a black spot which would move fairly quickly from one side of the screen to the other, in a sweeping motion.

The problem? There was a spider inside the box, doing his best Tarzan imitation, happily swinging from branch to branch, casting a shadow while doing his thing.

We still chuckle about it when reminiscing today.

Had something similar with my "big screen" projector t.v. Except the spider in mine was not swinging back and forth on it's web. Instead, it was sprawled out on one of the lamps, and when I turned the T.V. on, there was this big Projection of A spider on the screen. Freaked me out! Lamps must've warmed up enough that he moved out of the way. I decided to disassemble and clean the lamps and such (it was time), and never did find that little bastard.

[ignacio.cortez]

A mac reservation is the best practice right now for sure. However the time savings from IT is minimal. I still consider best practice and most secure is to use static ips for all fixed equipment (copiers and desktops) and only allow dhcp for visiting laptops. In-company laptops connect using mac reservations for dhcp. One company I know of is printing through hostname. They just let copier dhcp. Of course all workers bitch that printing is slow. But what do you expect?

AND REMEMBER .......WSD is our friend, we charge $20 each to fix WSD ports through our helpdesk. Thank you Microsoft.

The company I work at now, user PullPrint with Prox Cards (Secure printing (end user prints to a single pullprint queue then walks up to any mfp device and ligns in (taps the employee badge) selects the print job and releases it to the printer for immediate printing) back end needs a little work, but all and all its pretty straight forward

[Bix]

Here in Germany there are small cities that are not very developed and the fax is already science fiction.


A small family company purchases a computer from us, necessary considering the digital age. The owner assured me that she had taken a course on PCs, so I didn't have to worry about explaining how it worked.


A few days later he calls me, accusing me of selling him a faulty keyboard. A led burned out after a few days of use.


I then discovered that he used the uppercase key.