I’m copying below a message I just sent to Vispero tech support with names and other private details omitted. I firmly believe JAWS users need to know not only the strengths of Vispero’s tech support, but also its failings so that we can protect ourselves and our systems.

Hi. My license number is ----.

I encountered two distressing problems with your phone tech support this week. I explained the underlying JAWS defect in my preceding email. The gist is that JAWS has suddenly started interspersing gibberish when I use “say all’ with Chrome on webpages. Here, I I’m hoping I can help spare other JAWS users the experiences I had with tech support.

On Tuesday afternoon, I called for assistance. X listened to my explanation and immediately said he would have the problem escalated. I waited until Friday without getting any follow-up, and so I called again around six o’clock. Z told me he could find no escalation report. That’s one issue. I was a waiting in vain for action that was never going to be taken.

The second issue is far more serious. Unlike X, Z made an attempt to solve the problem. After connecting into my system, he determined that my Intel video driver needed updating, which he did. Unfortunately, it didn’t solve the problem. So he continued to investigate.

At some point, our call got disconnected. I sat at my phone and PC for at least ten minutes, not wanting to interrupt Z’s concentration. Finally I said “Hello,” and on getting no response, I realized we’d lost the connection. I then went to my PC and saw that he’d written a message on Notepad asking me to call back.

By now it was approaching seven o’clock, and I had a social commitment. I finished getting ready before calling back, only to learn at 7:02 that Vispero shuts down at seven.

At this point, I discovered that something was very wrong with my system. Whatever Z had been working on was unfinished, but I couldn’t figure out what he’d been doing. JAWS gave me no information. (Later experience, as you’ll see, makes me think Narrator might have been more help.) I took a risk and rebooted. Thankfully, the computer came back up, but with no speech. I turned on Narrator, at which point I found references to Intel, graphics drivers and some features of the Ease of Access Center. As Narrator spoke, JAWS also suddenly started speaking. I closed Narrator and tried to get JAWS to read what was on the screen, but with no luck. It verbalized only items on the desktop. I tried to restart Narrator, but it wouldn’t come up.

I then attempted to use JAWS to work with email and other programs, but it acted weirdly. Afraid to reboot again, I called my tech support person who said he would get back to me later that night, which suited us both. We got back in touch around 10:30. By midnight, he’d restored my system to the previous restore point, August 9, and began solving various new problems associated with the restore process. For my part, I had to update JAWS again. More work was done this morning, and yet more will be done on Monday.

Here’s what I can’t understand. Z clearly wishes to be helpful, and I believe he is more than competent. However, he left my computer in an exposed, risky state. Although it turns out he’d asked me to call back, he didn’t warn me that Vispero would be closing in less than ten minutes. In fact, he still had access to my system: that connection wasn’t broken. He could at least have completed what he was working on or, failing that, closed up the items he’d opened.

Also, he could have called me. My phone number is surely in your system because I’ve been asked for it in the past. He had my name and license number and could have looked it up.

This is going to be a costly repair job for me thanks to Vispero’s tech support. More than that, if I didn’t have such a conscientious tech person available, things could have got out of hand. I’m reasonably competent with JAWS and I have some understanding of computers, but I’m no techy. My expertise is in other areas. As it is, I spent late last night fixing things with my tech guy, then another hour until one o’clock fixing things on my own, only to resume with my tech guy this morning. It has been very disruptive.

Vispero must train its support staff never to leave a customer in the lurch like this. I’ve had good and bad experiences with JAWS support over the years. Frankly, the bad ones had made me apprehensive about calling again, even though when the experiences were good, they were very good. Now I’m apprehensive all over again. I’m hoping this matter can now be resolved through email and without having a Vispero employee connecting to my system. But above all, I’m hoping Vispero will assure me and other JAWS users that something like this will never occur again.

I’m going to post a version of this complaint, minus individual names, on the JAWS list I subscribe to. People need to know how to safeguard themselves against irresponsible actions by tech support staff.

Please advise.

Adrian Spratt