The World Wide Web provides a new arena for computer stupidities. Now users can be stupid to a world wide audience. Fortunately for us, most of them are too confused about what the web is to figure out how to get on it.

I used to do tech support for a company that made computer accessories and video game accessories. We had a pay-for-access web site for one of our products. The site was full of special codes and cheats. One day, a customer called, asking how to access the site.


Tech Support: "Well, just go to [URL]."
Customer: "How do I do that?"
Tech Support: "Type it in in your web browser."
Customer: "Huh?"
Tech Support: "Ok...sir...do you have Internet access?"
Customer: "Huh? No. No Internet. I don't even have a computer."
Tech Support: "Ok, sir, you need a computer and an Internet account to access web sites."
Customer: "Oh. Well, it didn't say that when I mailed in the membership card. I want my money back."
This conversation took place through email.


Customer: "I need something off the web, and I don't have any way to use a browser!"
Tech Support: "There's a browser called 'lynx' that you can use from a shell." (gives a brief description of how to use it)
Customer: "What's lynx? I need a browser!"
Tech Support: (again mentions lynx and says how to use it)
Customer: "I need a browser. If you can't help me, get someone else to answer my emails."
I used to work at the IT Support Desk for a university. A librarian at one of our libraries was surfing the web one day and came across a site that said it was best viewed using the Internet Explorer browser. So she called me and said she needed a "browser" to view this site, and could we install a browser onto her system?

I told her that if she was viewing the site already, she was already using a browser, but, unsatisfied with that answer, she went over my head to the Directory of Libraries and said that we were being uncooperative about providing her with a browser.
While working at the university computer lab one evening, a student came over to ask me why her computer was running so slowly. She said that she was just surfing the Internet. I went over and examined her screen and noticed that she had approximately 230 separate browser windows open in Internet Explorer.

She thought that she could only use each one once.
On a recent commercial airing on U.S. televisions, 10-10-220 advertises a low-cost, long-distance choice without commitment. This one features Emmitt Smith and Elmarie Wendel in the first class section of an airplane.

At the end, ways to find more information on 10-10-220 includes their website, which they promote as simply: www.10-10-220.

I wonder how many people try to reach this and find it's not accessible?
Customer: "What do you mean I have to dial into the Internet every time I want to go to your web site? I thought I only had to do that the first time I used this software!"
A customer, to his ISP:


Customer: "I found this [web] page on [another service] but the name you need to get there is too long. Shorten it."
Many more here:-
Code:
http://rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_web.shtml