Usually I offload any home IT problems to the kids. Last night though I spotted one of them carrying the (wireless) printer into the living room. Omg wtf I thought (the kids will probably read this).
Turns out the printer is knackered. Print head stays stuck in place. The lad in question was moving it into a brighter room to try and get a better look. He is a good lad. There was of course nothing obvious so we plugged it back in. Still didn’t work & came up with an error code.
I searched online and found that this type of error, if it didn’t fix itself, needed a return to base to fix. Ah well. That’s why I took out the insurance policy – I do this for printers only because they are notoriously unreliable (assuming I can find the bumpf though usually PC World are good at keeping a record).
In one of my searches for the error code I came across “justanswer.com” which seemed to show promise. At first I thought it was a Kodak support site and filled in the online engagement box with the details of the problem. Next think I know the details of an advisor came up highlighting his technical background and suggesting that the assistance might be worth £21 but giving you the opportunity to suggest another figure.
Very innovative. Being tight I moved off the page. After all I had already determined that the printer would either fix itself or need sending back. It seems like a good model for the total novice though. It is reasonable to pay someone for their expertise.
I rebooted the printer one last time and hey presto, it worked! Deep satisfaction…
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5 replies on “IT problems, printers and online support models”
Not sure I would (well I am sure – I wouldn’t!) give my credit card details to a random website.
As you mentioned, you believed it to be a Kodak support site initially.
This doesn’t seem too far behind the ‘phoning on behalf of Microsoft’ type operation if the website wasn’t for real.
Might just be me? 🙂
Get Satisfaction.com is pretty good for some support, and free. I understand the need for everyone to earn a living but there is so much info out there already that a little searching often comes up with an answer in a community forum or similar. Personally, I normally just chuck printers away, regularly in fact, as they frequently aren’t worth the bother and we live in such a throw away society, you can pick a new one up for mere pennies. Which actually bothers me because it means we put old IT kit into open skips at the tip where they get rained on and become unusable even for the make do and mend societies abroad who we ship everything else recyclable to.
I get your point HmmmUK and indeed I didn’t pursue the offer but people would do well to heed the warning.
I’m not chucking this one. It’s a Kodak Hero 7.1 and cost about £130. That’s why I got the insurance. It’s a great printer btw. V user friendly normally. I was a bit concerned about the fact that Kodak was in financial trouble and the PC World insurance removed this as a problem as they would replace it with a different brand had that turned out to be necessary.
Many sites on the internet are available which provides the solution regarding the support. You can also go for tech support forums. You can find a lot of solutions of one problem.