Have you ever had to re-regionalize a printer? No? Count yourself lucky and go give yours a kiss.
I am currently involved in a long and winding e-mail correspondence with a Hewlett Packard customer support technician called Kenny (and possibly another guy who refuses to be named, or Kenny again screwing with my brain by claiming to be someone else).
Dear Extranjera,
"We regionalize in order to better meet specific local customer needs", but we would actually just like some more money out of you. Since you printed 20 pages using cartridges from Mexico you, without your knowledge, synched your printer to only accept cartridges purchased from Mexico. This is a nifty little invention that ensures us that you won't be able to shop around for the best deal, because we, sort of, would like you pay through the nose please. Come on, we know you can afford it. We won't tell you about this regionalization business though, because it would be nice if you bought those slightly cheaper cartridges you found in Taiwan anyway, and only found out upon your return home that they don't actually work. We make them look exactly the same on purpose.
"I would like to you perform the statement that is mentioned below", as my intention is to confuse you thoroughly as to what you should do and what exactly it is that I am referring to, because we're also kind of hoping that you'll buy a new printer, and that's why I'm using our best weapon, Google translate, to translate my emails from Hebrew into English. It's like a fun game and it lets me practice my Hebrew.
"I would utilize the best of available resources to answer your query", but I won't because then you would be able to change the regionalization, and we would much rather you just went out and bought a new printer.
"Before providing the steps to troubleshoot the issue let me educate you about the concept of regionalization" because I won't actually provide any steps in this mail, but perhaps my spiel about this regionalization thing we're implementing to piss you off and make your life more difficult will confuse you into thinking that you are just too stupid to follow exact steps on how to solve the problem. I wish you would just go out and get a new printer.
"Let me inform you that to resolve the issue, it may take a few more email exchanges. Your patience is appreciated. I seek your cooperation", because it will be me answering all of your subsequent emails all asking the same exact question, but I will pretend like I'm someone else and give you the exact same spiel as the last one until you go out and get that new printer.
"We appreciate you for giving us the opportunity to assist you with superior customer service", but we do hope you would just fuck off already. It's our coffee break and we have a game of dominoes going on.
Sincerely,
Kenny
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
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13 comments:
OMG! we had to regionalize an HP printer last year. it was a NIGHTMARE OF EPIC PROPORTIONS!! especially because it involved doing a scan of a sheet from said printer/scanner and we could neither print nor scan, nor make the technician (we actually spoke to one on the phone) understand that!!! come to think of it, his name might have been kenny...arrgh! i'm having flashbacks just writing this comment.
i think i'll go lie down now.
good luck. it might be better just to venture out of the compound and buy a new printer. because regionalization of the printers is about monopolies on print cartridges.
...which you already knew (how did i post that before i was finished?) (wait, i know this one! it's because of my obsessive collection of WV words, which means the first thing i do is type them in the blank below, and copy/paste them into my giant pages document of WV words, which contains, as of this moment, 643 WV words which i will probably never get around to making up definitions for).
anyway...i'll ask my sister if she remembers what we did, because it actually wasn't that complicated. if i recall. which i probably don't. those people at HP just don't care very much about the health and safety of their support personnel, because i'm sure there are hitmen after lots of those guys...heck, i know some armenians, if you're looking...
Seriously! No way!!!
Please ask her because they keep sending me the same mail over and over again, and I keep asking the specifics of how to do the first step (which is to give some command, but how?)
I'm also so educated about the regionalization issue right now that I'm pretty ready to rip someone's head (possibly my own, if I wasn't unsure about getting a replacement since heads might be regionalized too) clean off.
Will also go lie down if the maid hasn't sucked the bed into the vacuum cleaner (sounded like it, just now).
That's hilarious. I think Kenny it is Kenny claiming to be the second person as well. I once pretended to be my own twin sister on vacation. It was fun.
Before you throw the printer against the wall in frustration, step back a few paces. Those suckers will bounce.
i've sent her a mail, but it's pretty early there, so it could be a couple of hours. she's actually pretty good at remembering such things.
iasa - seems to be getting less and less hilarious the more emails with the exact same non-instructions i keep getting, signed with different names...
julochka - I'm willing to wait, since I'm unable to scan and that's what they want me to do, so it's sort of a standstill anyways... I have sent a rip your head off email now though and am waiting for some sort of response.
I am thinking this guy might be the same character as in South Park? It certainly seems wacky enough...
I probably would have slammed back @ Kenny with a vicious email by now - but, that's just me.
Maybe you could buy a bunch more HP MX cartriges (for now)?
Or I read that HP needs to generate a number based on your serial number, which you can enter by doing ctrl-double click HP logo, hte bottom left corner in the "Printing preferences" driver dialog. I wonder if Kenny would be kind enough to quit b*llsh!ting and give you the number
update from younger sister with much better memory due to not being quite as gin-soaked as my own...she said it took multiple phone calls and, as P&P said, some kind of code thingie from the guy, who we'll just call kenny (oh my god, they killed kenny)...don't let them wear you down!!!
we can always send them to the snedfarm (WV word). it sounds nasty.
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/01/18/explanation-for-regi.html
You are right.....it's all about the money.
oh no. i am so glad i didn't get a printer when in mexico but ... i did buy a M.F. laptop. now it's all in spanish and somehow even though it has a mexican keyboard, i set the keyboard to "english", so none of the stuff really matches up
and my microsoft office is in spanish, which is ok because i understand it but nobody else can really use my computer
Kenny is definitely messing with you. It's the only fun he gets in his boring job.
Seriously, I find this outrageous. How come nobody knows about this regionalization thing?
Suecae Sounds - I'm starting to get the same feeling (now he's calloing himself Vishti instead)
P&P - I read about the number thing too, but now there's a new glitch, it doesn't work like that if you are using safari instead of a windows based operating system... the saga continues
julochka - thanks so much! I'll probably have to go and borrow a dell or something (see above) or wait until the all powerful (technically) hubby returns
corticoWhat - You are so right!
miss. chief. - I went as far as to get my mac from the states when we were in MX to avoid your kinds of problems, but I figured a printer would be safe enough...
B - I know!! Well, now at least maybe about 50 people know?
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