Do Not Call your ISP for technical support

This happens so often that I felt a need to speak on the subject.  For various reasons your Internet is not working.  Typically it is malware or some other problem not related to your actual Internet connection to your house.   I recently had a customer who called their ISP (starts with a X and used to start with Com...).  They told her that her Operating system needed to be updated.  So she calls Dell who promptly sells her a copy of Windows 8.1 at a price that is higher than retail.  She finally calls me after all this as she does not know what to do with the DVD and her previous files, etc.   I get the computer (thinking she had Windows XP, thus the recommendation to upgrade).  Take it to the lab turn on and to my surprise, no serious issue other than garden variety malware.  She is running Windows Vista, thus no dire need to update the operating system.

Lesson to be learned:  When you call your ISP, they are only concerned with verifying that the Internet connection from there to your home is properly working.  Once that is established to be working (within a minute usually), any problem that they attempt to figure out beyond that is pure speculation from the customer service rep on the phone.   Additionally, they have no obligation or responsibility to troubleshoot or fix any other problem(s), that you may have.  They typically have no insight as to what may be the issue or how to fix it.    Too many people get malware and mistakenly think it is their internet connection and call the ISP.  You get bad advice because the person giving it is not qualified to help you.

The worst service call is one over the phone.  You can't fix it if you cannot see it.  Just some advice for those who like to call their ISP when they have any problem.