User Charged With Taking ISP Tech Hostage 327
User AttheCoalFac pointed us to an interesting tech support story from Canada. Halifax actress and playwright Carol Sinclair was arrested and is now facing criminal charges after a repairman says she threatened to hold him hostage until he fixed her Internet connection. Mrs. Sinclair denies the allegations and says that she merely stated, 'I don't want to hold you hostage, but would you mind hanging around until the other technician arrives so that the two of you can sort it out.' She was arraigned in Halifax Provincial Court Friday and is now free on conditions including that she have no contact with the repairman or any employee from her ISP. Having a lot of experience on both sides of this issue, I'm not sure who I'm cheering for.
Re:Misleading title (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Misleading title (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, that is the common mis-quotation.
The correct quotation of William Congreve is "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned / Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."
Re:Even if she was serious, the threat was not (Score:1, Informative)
Huh? (Score:3, Informative)
Huh?
I've never heard that statement used in conversation, in any context.
Re:Counter-suit (Score:3, Informative)
Considering how badly some people deal with women up here? It's not a bad plan. Especially the number of times that I've had the nice old lady, grandmother, cousin, GF, get the run around by a various company until you act as the S/O, brother, etc, because they have a pair of ovaries instead of a pair of balls. This isn't a all companies are bad, rah-rah burn them down. It sure makes me wonder if they want their business still, but then I remember...that in most cases they're the only business in town.
And it happens in nearly every business day in day out. From car shops, computer stores, ISP's to your utilities and right down to basic services. And it shouldn't.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Informative)
I've heard it a lot. But I'm in the USA. Maybe the Canadians never use it enough for most people to know about it.
Re:Misleading title (Score:4, Informative)
On your other note: go to prefs and sections and just disable 'idle' from the main page, simple as that.
Re:Seems to me (Score:2, Informative)
Having been an on_site customer of a DSL company, I can assure you that on-site techs do think that they are paid to show up and aren't actually there to make sure the services their employers sells to me are working. Here are how I view the ways they've tried to just end the call/go away without fixing anything :
1. "Explain that the issue is elsewhere and that preventing me from leaving will only prolong their outage." : "Elsewhere" WHERE?If the problem is not here, you can still call your colleagues, who will fix the thing wherever elsewhere is and you can stay where you are to make sure you actually fixed my problem. THAT is your job.
2. "Show that the problem is with their own equipment, and that I'm not responsible for it." Always a good one : if there was no powersurge (a UPS works wonder to avoid losing equipment to those), no changes in the configuration nor the equipment, and everything has been rebooted and checked just ffs, and it still doesn't work, then saying that it's my equipment is pure BS. Like #1, all you do is push the responsability on someone else. As there is nobody besides me (the customer) and your employer ( which you are paid to represent), there is noone to take the blame, no matter how hard you try.
3. That's called blackmailing, and might result in a lawsuit against you and your employer.
4. and I might offer to have your head on a plate and your job down the drain .. depending on how good a customer I am (for your employer)
The key in getting some sort of service from ISPs is to ask to speak with superiors until you get someone who can't do anything for you directly but will get pissed at his subordinates for passing the call up.