Acer Tech Support is a Joke

Last week I managed to brick my iPod touch when I tried to restore it from my netbook. For some reason somewhere between iTunes and the iPod, anything I try to transfer is getting corrupted.

Now, Apple's tech support and customer service was absolutely outstanding. I can't praise them enough. I went to the support site, was told I could schedule a phone call, clicked the option to call immediately and my phone rang ten seconds later. I picked up, was on hold for the grand total of fifteen seconds and went straight to talking to someone who, amazingly, didn't have a thick Indian accent.

The tech didn't make me go through a hundred bullshit procedures, just asked me my problem, how I thought it happened and if the iPod had any obvious physical damage. When I explained it was bricked, she apologized that she couldn't help me over the phone and I'd have to return it to them. Then she said she could either send me a pre-paid box to ship it in, or I could take it to the local UPS store and they'd pack and ship it free of charge.

I took it to the UPS store with my repair number, and six days later a brand new iPod turned up in the mail. It didn't cost me a cent, I didn't need to include receipts, proof of purchase or anything else.

Unfortunately, when I plugged in the new one, I was getting the same problem with my netbook. All the iTunes diagnostics said everything was working perfectly, but anything I tried to sync arrived on the iPod corrupted. Given that everything works perfectly on our other computer, it has to be the netbook…so I went o the acer support site.

Acer's online knowledge base can be summed up in a single sentence: "Turn it off and on again and then do a full system restore if that doesn't work." Seriously. Running a bit slow? Complete wipe and reinstall. Device not working? Complete wipe and reinstall. Won't recognize your wireless mouse? Complete wipe and install.

So I emailed Acer support explaining my problem and asking if they had any ideas or known issues. I got an email back the next day.

Can you guess what they suggested I did?

Yup, do a complete wipe and reinstall. Even better, they included instructions on how to do this, explaining how to use my 'recovery discs'…which would be awesome if the netbook even had an optical drive.

Then I got a nice little message explaining that if wiping and reinstalling windows didn't help, I could use their amazing pay support service where for just a fuckton of money per minute I can be put through to a call center in India…where someone will probably tell me to do a complete wipe and reinstall.

I'd say that Apple's level of customer service left Acer's wanting, but to be completely honest, I didn't need the comparison to show me how shitty Acer's service was. Technically, they don't have customer service.