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The original was posted on /r/talesfromtechsupport by /u/scribeawoken on 2025-01-19 06:52:57+00:00.

So this is another story from my time in cable internet provider call center tech support hell, one that I probably wouldn’t share normally since the actual technical side of it isn’t that interesting and the ending is fairly anticlimactic, but there’s one moment that is just seared into my brain.

This story comes from back in June of 2023. Since the events of my previous story, I had moved from second to first shift. This story came fairly late in my shift - after 3 PM, since the second shift folks were filtering in. This will be relevant later.

I get a call, and it’s a fairly typical call - someone who’s been having issues with slow internet service who’s been calling about it multiple times. Turns out that I’m the 7th or 8th person he’s spoken to about this, and basically all of them have blown him off because he’s using his own router.

Now, I went through my usual troubleshooting procedures to see if there’s anything that the last 8 people missed. The detail about 8 people blowing him off because he used his own router gave me a hunch that there was, because part of our troubleshooting script was bypassing third-party routers to try to verify whether the issue was with the equipment we provided or with the customer’s third-party networking equipment. That told me that the last few people were probably just ignoring procedure in favor of trying to get customers off the phone as fast as possible while sending out as few technicians as possible.

Everything looked fine in our monitoring tools, so I mentioned that there’s one more test that I wanted to run that would require a bit of finagling on his end, since he had his own router. He seemingly just heard the part about him having his own router and he immediately went on a rant about how he demanded that we send a technician out immediately and he wasn’t going to put up with me trying to upsell him again like the last 6 or 7 people did.

Over the course of this rant, he mentioned that he can’t use the routers the ISP rents out because they’re missing several security features that are a requirement for any remote work for the defense contractor he works for, brought up the fact that he used to work call center tech support for a different cable internet provider 15 years ago and “knows all the tricks”, and said the last two people he spoke with told him that he had exceeded his data cap and his speeds were throttled because of it, and demanded that we remove the data cap and the throttle.

The second is that the ISP I worked for doesn’t have data caps. They do for their mobile service, but not their home internet service. Legally, they weren’t even allowed to at the time he first started calling in because of an agreement with either the FCC or the FTC in exchange for approval of a large merger 7 years prior (which might give away who I worked for).

So, I tried to explain to him that we’re not throttling his speeds and that we don’t have data caps for our home internet service, and this guy’s response is, verbatim:

“Yeah, and Epstein killed himself.”

I just sat there in shocked silence for a good minute, just because I knew that if I opened my mouth, the only thing that’s going to come out is “what the actual fuck,” and I wasn’t about to say that on a recorded line.

Eventually I regained my composure, and somehow got him to actually listen to me - I legitimately don’t remember how - and explained that there was one more troubleshooting step I wanted to take that would let us determine whether the source of his issue was an issue with the ISP-provided cable modem or if it was an issue with his router.

All he had to do was disconnect his router and hook up a laptop, a desktop computer, a game console or something else with an ethernet port and web browsing capability directly to his modem, and run a speed test. If the result was still less than what he was paying for, I’d set up an appointment for one of our repair technicians to come out. If it was within the range he was paying for, then that meant that his router was in fact the source of the problem.

It turns out that the only device he owned with an ethernet port was his work laptop… which he could not connect directly to his modem thanks to his employer’s aforementioned security requirements. Meanwhile his personal laptop was a macbook, and his only other device with networking capabilities was his phone.

I recommended getting an ethernet to USB adapter and calling back if the result was still slow with his macbook hooked up to the modem via adapter, and he said he was looking for an excuse to get a new personal laptop anyways and said he would call back if things are still slow with the new laptop hooked up directly to the modem.

As a post-script to the story: I ended up going on my last break of the day right after that call, right as the guy who sat to my right, who worked second shift was going on his first break. Turns out he had overheard the call, and that he was one of those 6 or 7 people who blew him off and told him to either call his router’s manufacturer or switch to the ISP’s in-house router. I probably should’ve lodged a complaint with his supervisor, but unfortunately I did not end up doing that.

I also took a look at the customer’s account again a month later, and I saw that he still hadn’t called back, and it looked like he also had the same modem, so either he gave up on getting his issue fixed, or it was in fact an issue with his router.