On 9/22/2015 3:04 PM, Muggles wrote:
On 9/22/2015 3:35 PM, Don Y wrote:
On 9/22/2015 1:09 PM, wrote:
From their point of view, how do they know you were qualified to
diagnose
the piece of equipment (it could just as easily have been the DISH
tuner box with which you were tinkering!) was, in fact, 'defective'?
And, that you are even remotely qualified to disassemble (without
breaking),
repair *and* reassemble it?

Given that they have to come up with a policy that addresses customers
who may well be ROCKET SCIENTISTS as well as COMPLETE IDIOTS, it seems
like the only logical choice is the one they made.

So what, they simply send you another one anyway. It was already
broke!

They don't *know* that it was broke. The *receiver* could have been
broke. The batteries could have been dead; you may have installed
replacement batteries *backwards*, etc. All they know is the
remote function *appeared* not to work -- ACCORDING TO YOU!

Do you know how many items are returned as "broken" that, in fact,
are NOT broken? I.e., consumers are not good diagnosticians.
How do they know *your* capabilities? They mail you another remote
and your problem may or may NOT go away.

OTOH, you tinkering with their equipment leaves them at *your* mercy.

I design electronic products. I repair most electronic products
that I purchase. That doesn't mean I don't make mistakes when
performing those diagnostics/repairs. The difference is, I do
those repairs when I no longer have the recourse of a warranty
to exploit. I.e., it's broken; I MAY be able to fix it -- or,
I may break it *more*! But, *I* am assuming the risk for my
actions -- not expecting the manufacturer to pick up the
pieces if/when I screw up!

A warranty repair/replace costs *more* than the original product
cost (the manufacturer). They don't want to be fixing things
that *you* may have broken -- or, that you may have *changed*
the failure mode through your unfamiliarity with the device.

["Yeah, that's failure type XYZ001 -- replace module 23, verify
operation and ship it back to the customer" suddenly becomes
"Cripes! Who was poking around in here? Nothing is where it
should be! Just scrap the entire item..."]

Me fooling with it was not going to make it worse.
In fact, cleaning it bought them a few months and a few extra payments
into the maintenance kitty. I really won't be making money on that
maintenance plan until lightning blows up both of my sat boxes.



My daughter used to work for Dish Network as a tech. Some of the calls
she describes to me are hysterical.

"Ma'am, is the receiver plugged in?"

"uh, what's a plug?"

"You know that chord on the back of the receiver that goes into the wall
to get power?"

"yeah. Is that the plug?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

....

"My satellite isn't working!! I can't get anything on the TV!"

"Is your TV turned on?"

"No. The power's been out for a couple of hours now."

....

Those were REAL discussions she had with a couple of customers.

It's not that people are "stupid". But, most aren't analytical
thinkers. They don't have the mindset, skillset or inclination
to sit down and sort out the exact nature of a problem.

Now, they're in a frustrating situation (whatever isn't working
for some reason) *and* you want them to be calm and logical in
thinking about the source of their frustration?? :

This is one of the main reasons why brand new (obviously working!)
items are returned for refunds: the user is unnecessarily intimidated
by a device that doesn't work the way he *hopes* it will work!

I get frustrated when vendors/manufacturers assume *all* users are
inept and reduce a "problem" to a bogus error code (analogous to
an idiot light!). Why not indicate what you were *trying* to do
and what UNEXPECTED condition was detected? That way, instead of
conveying an error code to a support person -- and waiting for them
to look it up in The Big Book of Error Codes -- I can possibly
check some of the things that YOUR message *suggests* -- either
explicitly in the text of the message or *implicitly* as I ponder
what the message might mean?!

I had a recent piece of software crash miserably during installation
simply because a network cable was not plugged into the network jack
on the computer! The software didn't care if the network was
accessible -- just that the network *interface* was "up"! Had
the error message included the characters "n e t w o r k" in it
ANYWHERE, I would have explored this option immediately! :-/
Instead, I look at the software as "of poor quality".