I've always advocated being kind to tech support people. They have a tough job, it's not their fault you have a problem, and they spend all day dealing with abuse from people who act like it is their fault.
Well, yesterday, for the first time in my life, I cursed out a phone support rep. I'm not proud of it, but in my defense, I'd been talking to support for 90 minutes by that point, and the last 30 of that had been a conversation where this tier-2 rep talked in circles, blamed me for problems with their server, repeatedly said she couldn't help me, refused to listen to my explanations of the problem, and acted like a condescending ass.
Seriously, this is the worst tech support experience I have ever had. Beating out the previous record-holder, the guy who told me that my burned-out power supply wasn't really burned-out, I was probably experiencing a software issue. After I told him there were burn marks on the power connector.
At least that one was funny. The conversation I had with Cox yesterday wasn't funny, just infuriating.
Here's what happened: on Monday evening, when I tried to send an E-Mail, I started getting this error:
An error occurred while sending mail: The mail server sent an incorrect greeting:
fed1rmimpo306.cox.net cox connection refused from [my IP address].
I tried unplugging the modem to see if I'd get a new IP assigned. No luck. I tried turning the computer off and then on again. No luck. I tried sending mail from other devices. Same result.
So on Tuesday afternoon, I pulled up Cox's live support chat to ask for some help.
The rep eventually told me he'd escalate, and that the issue should be fixed within 24 hours.
Just shy of 27 hours later, I pulled up Cox's live support chat again, to ask what the problem was.
The rep -- a different one this time -- quoted me this feedback from the ticket:
Good afternoon, the log below shows the username can send on our servers. This may be a software, device or network issue. Please review the notes and contact the customer.
In other words, they'd tested the wrong thing. The mail server was rejecting my connection, based on my IP address, before my mail client sent my username and password. And Cox's solution to this was...to confirm that my username and password were working.
I explained this to the rep, over the course of 75 excruciating minutes. I demonstrated by disconnecting my phone from my wifi network and sending an E-Mail while connected to my wireless carrier. It worked when I connected to Cox's SMTP server over LTE; the same mail app on the same phone failed when connected to my wifi.
I explained that the mail server was blocking connections from my IP address, and that they needed to either make it stop blocking my IP address or assign me a different IP address.
The rep told me that was impossible, that residential accounts use DHCP, which assigns IP addresses at random.
I told him that I know what DHCP is, and that I wasn't asking for a static IP address, I was just asking for someone to revoke my DHCP lease and assign my modem a new IP address from the DHCP pool.
He told me that the only way to get a new IP address is to disconnect your modem for 24 hours.
I told him that was unacceptable, and I asked if there was anyone else I could talk to.
He gave me a number to call.
The person who answered the phone said she'd escalate to a tier-2 tech. I said, pointedly, that I did not understand why nobody had thought to do that in the preceding 75 minutes.
As it turns out, tier-2 techs are worse than tier-1 techs. Tier-1 techs at least know that they don't know everything, and are willing to ask for help from people who know more than they do. Tier-2 techs think they do know everything, will not ask for help from someone who knows more than they do, and certainly will not listen to a customer who knows more than they do.
Well, probably not all of them. But that was sure as hell my experience with the tier-2 tech I got stuck with.
First, she had the sheer gall to tell me my modem wasn't connected to the Internet.
I told her I could connect to websites, I could receive E-Mail, and that the error message on sending mail was not a timeout, it was a Connection Refused. I added that I was doing this from a computer that was connected to my router by a cable, that I had not accidentally jumped on somebody else's wifi.
She would have none of it. She insisted "We can't see your connection here, so you're not connected." Repeatedly. When I told her that I was clearly connected to the Internet, she just kept telling me that no, I wasn't.
Finally she told me to bypass my router and plug my desktop directly into my modem. I told her that this wouldn't fix anything, because this was happening from multiple devices that all had Internet access. She got huffy and standoffish and told me she couldn't help me if I wasn't willing to do what she asked.
So I did it. I climbed back behind my computer, traced the cable to the router, and swapped it with the one coming from the modem.
Absolutely nothing changed. Except that she said. "Oh. You're running a Linux computer? We don't support Linux."
I responded, "The operating system I am using is not relevant to whether your server is accepting connections from my IP address."
But some reps aren't interested in helping. They're only interested in finding an excuse for why they don't have to help you.
I asked her if there was any way she could determine why my IP was being blocked. I noted that it seemed to be on some sort of blacklist.
She asked if I'd checked whether it was on any public blacklist. I responded that I had, and that it had an expired listing on SORBS from 2013 -- well before it was my IP address; I've only lived in this house since 2014 --, that I hadn't found it in any other blacklist, and that a SORBS listing from over two years ago should not result in my suddenly losing the ability to connect to SMTP two days ago.
She said that if I was on a blacklist, those were handled by third parties and it was my responsibility to get de-listed. I explained that I did not see my IP on any currently-active blacklists, and asked if she could look up what was causing the rejection. She said she couldn't.
I asked if she could reset my IP. She said that the only way to do it would be to shut down my modem for 25 hours. (Already I had somehow lost another hour!)
I told her that was unacceptable, and asked how I could get it reset remotely.
She told me that was impossible, that residential accounts use DHCP, which assigns IP addresses at random, and that the only way to get a new DHCP address is to disconnect your modem for 25 hours.
I told her that it is not impossible, that the same router that provides DHCP leases is capable of revoking them, and that I needed somebody to do that for me.
We went round and round like this for awhile.
At one point, she said, "We can't do that; it's done automatically."
I responded that anything a computer does automatically can also be done manually, and that there is certainly someone in Cox who has the account access to log into the router that is assigning IP addresses and revoke a lease.
She started to explain DHCP to me again -- it was about the fifth time at this point -- and I snapped.
I shouted, "I know how DHCP works; I ran an ISP, for fuck's sake!"
I feel kinda bad about that.
I finally got pushed over to a supervisor -- another twenty minutes on hold -- who tried to tell me that Cox can't help me because they don't support third-party programs like what I'm using, and that if I could send messages from webmail, that's what I should do.
I said, "Are you seriously telling me that Cox does not support sending E-Mail from phones or tablets?"
The supervisor backed off that claim and said that she didn't really understand the technical stuff, that she could send me back to tier 2.
I responded that it had been two hours and I didn't think it was in anyone's best interest for me to continue this conversation, but that if I decided to call back tomorrow, what could I do to get some service?
She said to ask for tier 2 again, and this time ask for a manager.
I'm debating whether I really want to deal with that kind of aggravation, or if I'd be happier just abandoning the Cox E-Mail address that I've been using for fifteen fucking years.
Incidentally, Cox just jacked its prices up by $7 a month. Why is it that every time the cost goes up, the quality of service goes down? I remember the first time they hiked my bill, they dropped Usenet service.
That was in 2009. Since then my bill's gone up $27. My service sucks; several times a day my connection just stops working and I have to restart the modem.
And of course I can't switch to another ISP, because there isn't one available at my address. My "choices", such as they are, are as follows:
- Pay $74 a month for Cox
- Steal wifi from a neighbor who's paying for Cox
- See how far I can get using only my phone's data plan for Internet access
I'm pretty much fucked, like most Americans are on broadband access.
And the hell of it is, even if there were another provider available, all the alternatives seem to be even worse.
I mean, Christ, at least I don't have Time Warner or Comcast.