The help desk phenomenon

Since last Thursday, I've been constantly phoning and e mailing Tom Tom over an issue with one of our sat navs use by a driver all round Europe.

The thing had lost its map and refused to update.

The stream of bullshit solutions I've been fed is frankly disgraceful, mindful of one of the Dilbert cartoons, where the help desk asks if the user has rebooted their computer without moving their mouse to the edge of the mat.

Whilst we have strong wi fi here, I was told that our wi fi probably has restrictions on downloading. Not true I said, as we can download to mobile phones and tablets no problem. This fell on deaf ears.

The alternative was to download the map files onto a micro SD card.

I had one spare and I also bought one. I followed the instructions TO THE LETTER. No dice. Then they said oh now, don't extract the files directly to the SD card, extract on to the laptop and drop them on to the SD card. Precisely what difference this would make I have no idea, but it didn't work.

Then things got weird, when an Indian girl, very charming told me I should be using Tom Tom home software with the device connected to the laptop by USB AND I must be logged in to the account.

In short the exercise failed. I've downloaded the files about 6 times and they are 9 gig apiece. I've formatted SD cards over and over and still the device refuses to read the content of the card.

The girl I'd been talking to appears to have pulled up the wrong account details and kept referring to someone called Dev. Also she got the model number of the device wrong and the promise to get an "expert" to call me on Tuesday was broken.

I called another twice on Tuesday and the first call also went nowhere. Oh and I forgot to tell you that I was told only a Tom Tom USB lead was acceptable. Utter bollocks that one, as the lead I was using was recognising the device. However I shot them down in flames, as the driver just happened to have the original lead in his cab.

Basically, I've spent / wasted about six hours fucking about with this device and doing everything advised short of clicking my ruby slippers together and chanting there's no place like home.

The final call yesterday, resulted in them agreeing to replace the device and take the old one back.

This isn't the first time I've had lunatics posing as help desk technicians. Some years back, a BT helper again in India, had me plugging my desk top and my laptop into the router so she could diagnose a problem. The then announced both items were faulty and needed to be replaced.

I'd only been with BT broadband a few weeks back when it was forty quid a month just for the service. I laid into BT with both barrels and they cancelled the agreement without argument.

I've had similar silliness with Virgin and countless other organisations and the one thing I've noticed, is they don't listen.

They read from a book of the most common problems and give their advice based on that, not on what you are telling them or by listening to what you've done.

Just another example of modern life, where the simple art of communication is lost thanks to the intereference by technology.

When I broke the news to the driver that he wouldn't be getting his sat nav back today, the look on his face was that of a little lad who was promised a trip to the zoo and not taken there.

Bless.