A customer called on the phone Monday. Seems that they are experiencing a malware infection of some type and would like to have their system “cleaned up”. I started to recommend that he or I re-install the OS. He cut me off. Seems he did this before at the recommendation of Dell and proceeded to lose all of his data on the machine. That’s too bad, had he taken the system to a competent repair person/center, his data could have been saved and he wouldn’t have this poor attitude about re-installing.
I told him that I could see what I could do, but I made no promises. I did explain that since the HD was is working condition, I could retrieve any data from the drive. He says that he understands, but he would like to just “have the virus removed”. OK!
Next the conversation turns to when would be a good time to drop off the system. I told him that he was welcome to drop the system off anytime. Next he asks how long I thought it would take to clean it up. I tell him that without seeing the system, I couldn’t really be sure. So he asked if it would be ready by Tuesday. I told him that unless it was a really simple infection, it would most likely take much longer that that, unless we did a re-install. No, of course we can’t do that. He then proceeded to tell me that he would bring it by Wednesday morning, because he needed it for an investment club meeting on Tuesday evening. WTF? You have an infected machine and you want to do investment club activities with it? Are you crazy? Evidently he is! He ignored my advice once again and used it Tuesday night.
When he finally brings the system in a 9:00AM Wednesday morning, he proceeds to tell me about the behavior of the machine last night. Well that is interesting and all, but one thing I have learned is that the customers description of a problem is usually just a distraction. You start focusing on what they say and miss things that would normally jump out at you.
Then he says something that I have heard many, many times. “I have Norton’s, why would I get infected?” This is one of those questions that you want to be political with or risk pissing off the customer. Generally, these infections occur when the customer installs the malware themselves. Classic example, a pop-up tells you that you are infected and you need to install this “software” to “fix” the infection. As soon as the customer clicks, “OK”, they are OWNED! However, you really want to say, “You installed it you dumb-ass!”. Why people think that installing some anti-virus program will protect themselves from themselves, I will never know. By the way, do you get diagnosed and purchase you pharmaceuticals from random people on the streets?
