Online "support" from companies & possible XSS attacks from the "chat support"?

I recently wanted to ask the manufacturer of a computer product a very simple question so I found their support page and clicked the "live support" option. The then asked for detailed information (required), almost as much as if I was filling out an application for a credit card. This was for a $75 computer mouse. They also asked me to state the details of my question, limited to about 250 characters (which is fine, I kept it short and sweet with about 110 characters that explained the question fully).

After about 2 hours of the screen telling me "agents are busy" I signed up for their online forum and posted the question there (had to create an account there as well), this took about 3-4 mins after the account was created (they needed email verification to open the account as well).

When I finally heard the chirp from the "live support" I had already written a review on 2 sites about the current product I had - a long detailed explanation of the problems I was having and had done a lot of other work and figured I'd never get the "live" support.

When the agent got online she said she was "so sorry to hear about the problems I have been having" which is strange b/c I never said I had a problem in my chat request, just a simple functionality question for the product. It was clear that she never read the 110 character "explaination" for the chat session. This seems industry standard as every time (on every site) they never know what is going on before they enter the chat session. Had she read it, she could have looked up the answer to asked a person in their tech support dept and come ready with the answer.

So I had to explain it again, short simple sentences like "Can I use the old receiver for my XXXX mouse with the new YYYY mouse since they use the same sharing software" (both mice are from same company). After 10 minutes of waiting I asked if she was still there, no response. 5-6 minutes latter I said "Hello??" nothing. I then wrote "do you understand the question" in 15 of the most common languages wondering if there was a language barrier. I then wrote that those were asking "do you understand" in different languages - so she didn't think I was cursing her or something.

As a response I was "reprimanded" by her telling me that "this is the North American division and would I please use the proper (English) language!" (I even asked in Spanish!!! gasp!).

Well she proceded to give me instructions on turning the device on and off and seeing if that works. Then if it doesn't unplug them, plug back in and turn it back on and then uninstall the software and re-install it. It was COMPLETELY clear I was asking about a product I was interested in buying and this had nothing to do with the question. At this point almost 30 mins had gone by, 97% of the time waiting for her to type.

At the end, she said it "should work" and gave more options about re-installing and disconnecting it again. So I still have no idea if it will.

I asked if she worked in a "call center" or was allowed to work from home, told her I do similar work for a company and they allow us to work from home doing this (thought it might put her at ease answering). She said she wasn't allowed to answer where they were located but they weren't allowed to work from home. I thought maybe she was watching "NBA housewives" or some other Must See TV while responding to my question.

The kicker is when I tried to save the chat log, I got 3 different warnings from browser plugins saying there was a XSS attack (cross site scripting attack) from this site. I thought it was from another site, so I tried saving it again 2 more times and same thing. I've saved chat's 100's of times and NEVER had an issue like this (XSS). I wonder if the 2 hour wait was because their system was probing my connection for open or ports or exploitable software?

BTW, this company is the biggest mouse/keyboard manufacturer in the world (maybe behind Microsoft, Dell, HP, but this company only does peripherals/input devices...)

There really needs to be a site where people can "shame" these companies publicly and I dont' think Twitter or other social media is the correct place to do it. IDK the best way for this to happen but I know there are a LOT of other people who deal with this on a daily basis, often with Utility companies or cable/TV companies.

You asked them a question in 15 different languages??????? You don't even have the product and you had an esoteric question about how to use it? If it's a $75 item buy it and try it. You certainly used up $75 of your time, and you certainly used up $75 of theirs. "Customer support" is not the sales department. That's not their job. That's why no one wants to work customer support. Customers are idiots.

Red flags shot right up for me when I start to read/hear things like there being a requirement for a "place to shame" these companies.

This sounds like life. Most people just go back to their daily lives. You probably have it easy compared to the agent anyways.

The entire "live chat" was not set up for the consumer's benefit . The benefit goes to the company that outsourced their support to a country where English is not the first language. They use chat translator software. Thus the long period of time between the question and their answer at times.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

Google chromes more recent releases, I think since chrome 61 maybe, the browser has been hard on CSP for inline scripts. I doubt there was any legitimate attack. Probably not a malicious xss or csrf but a script loaded via an inline frame after a csp nonce in the main site. In regards to the left hand knowing what the right is doing, I would guess a supercookie was involved.

I hit PrtScr and then ctrl+v in an open image editor when all else fails to copy.

But yeah I'm with schuyler. Customer support is not there for your kind of inquiry regardless on the quality of that service.
You want a sales person.

These customer support people have a script of possible errors the companies products may suffer and how to fix them.
That is all they have and are trained to do. Anything outside of that scope you'll hit a wall. Especially if there is a language barrier on top.


They're usually not very tech literate every day joes in these jobs, because you're not going to find a University trained engineer working for what such a job would pay, especially in many of the countries these companies outsource these services too.

So sure, complain about the response times, and maybe the quality of the service.
But don't complain that you didn't get the answers you wanted because you asked them in the wrong place and don't complain that you chose to wait 2 or more hours for a response.

I would of moved to an email or forums after 30 minutes if those options existed. But hey that's just me and how I roll.

Gotta love Logitech support.

* I've had the same level of help from their support, my webcam which is rated as full 1080p HD will do 1080p at 10-15fps and not the 30-60 as stated.. and if I use it at 720p it's fine, but no better than the one I upgraded from, and for $150 I was told by every support person who continued to respond to my query, to download their bloated gaming software as it contains the drivers. Which I told them I had already done... And on top of that, the software won't even record... I am stuck using OBS...

Then I was banned from their forums.. lol.

a reply to: AtomicKangaroo

Even so, customer support should know, or be able to find out, if the USB dongle will work with a mouse or not.

And in my thinking, not. Because then someone in your office, or living close next door, would be able to control your mouse, and you theirs.

originally posted by: schuyler
You asked them a question in 15 different languages??????? You don't even have the product and you had an esoteric question about how to use it? If it's a $75 item buy it and try it. You certainly used up $75 of your time, and you certainly used up $75 of theirs. "Customer support" is not the sales department. That's not their job. That's why no one wants to work customer support. Customers are idiots.

No that is exactly where I was supposed to ask the question, as directed by their website. It was a tecnical question about backwards compatibility with another of their product.

Just stay out of my threads, you never read them anyway, you are one of the biggest trolls on the board.

originally posted by: SummerRain
Gotta love Logitech support.

* I've had the same level of help from their support, my webcam which is rated as full 1080p HD will do 1080p at 10-15fps and not the 30-60 as stated.. and if I use it at 720p it's fine, but no better than the one I upgraded from, and for $150 I was told by every support person who continued to respond to my query, to download their bloated gaming software as it contains the drivers. Which I told them I had already done... And on top of that, the software won't even record... I am stuck using OBS...

Then I was banned from their forums.. lol.

There really needs to be some kind of consumer protection agency or organization that works. When a company promises XXX and it doesn't provide it, then they need to fix it. When they waste hours of customers time, there should be a way to re-coup that time IF the companyu is at fault. Make it more expensive to sell bad (often untested) products than it is to sell products that work and don't need tech support.

The worst is when companies sell something they know no one will ever call and complain (or talk to tech support) because it costs "more" to do this than it does to buy something else - like if it takes 2 hours waiting for tech support for a $20-30 product, most people make more than that, so does it pay? These things add up.

There needs to be a way to keep track of this for each product and each customer makes a "notarized" statement complete with proof of purchase and when enough complaints are collected, the company is sued and if the company looses, they pay out a large settlement. Basically a class action that is set up for each product and everytime the product doesn't work, the customer fills out the complaint form for the product - the list is public - so others can see what is going on. I guess a problem would be fake complaints, but that could be minimized by making every complaint a legal binding statement.

It's time that these corps get a boot to the throat like they have done for the last 150 years to the public.

You can shame them on hellopeter.

Is it a logitech mouse using a unifying receiver?
The support lady you dealt with works off a script.
She doesn’t know a thing.

Sounds like a totally productive use of ones time.