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"Or do you get someone in India that can't help you and just gives you the run around because they don't know any better"

I get plenty of that from my fellow Americans.

I have worked extensively in tech-support call centers. The reason they went to India is because the people working at the ones here generally knew nothing and cared even less. Turnover was MASSIVE.

We had a consutant come in to evaluate the employees when we were changing insurance companies. They were thinking about instituting drug testing. The consultant advised against it because in his estimation 80% of the work force couldn't pass a drug test.

You think you can't undrstand people in India? Try getting Shinequa in Memphis to explain TCP/IP to you.

You can blame India, but it is American youth that killed tech support in America.

"You can blame India, but it is American youth that killed tech support in America."

Well, you do have a point. But there are oases of fine technical support that still exist. IBM/Lenovo still has good phone support for its laptops; National Instruments has absolutely superb support folks; Luxsci.com and Speakeasy excel for support in the IT fields... while we all bash the bad ones, it's even more important to praise the good ones, and give them our business.

I do not believe it is the American youth that killed tech support but the hiring manager(s). When you hire incompetent, untrained personnel and put them in a job they cannot handle guess what, the jobs get outsourced. It is not the American worker in most instances but the almighty dollar which dictates which jobs stay in the states and which jobs leave. My experience with calling help centers is not very good and I use the internet forums for specific topics. I oftentimes get an answer via email which solves my problem. Of course if you purchased a new Dell PC, etc. and have to call for warranty service you are caught holding the proverbial bag. Please don't blame American youth for the shortcoming of corporate greed and mismanagement. I speak from experience and not from the hip! I have seen it happen with many corporations (technology, banking, etc.). What's wrong with having a conversation with someone you cannot understand, isn't even an American citizen and doesn't have the answers even if you could understand them. /sarcasm (well maybe)

I am not speaking only of IT support centers, but outsourcing in general along with the fact that we has so many others coming to America and opening businesses. I work in the hotel industry as a general manager, because they do not want to hire proper help, I am forced to be General Manager, Head of Maintenance, Payroll, Head of Housekeeping, etc..etc..(where there used to be employees to handle those things).Every Indian owned hotel I've seen is like this. If the pilot is loading luggage, serving drinks, tending to passengers and so forth...who the hell is flying the plane?

I know Shaniqua working in an IT center isn't great either, especially when she want's to AXE you a question instead of ASK you...but that's a topic about American ghetto's and how the youth who live there don't want to break with "the hood"

You can blame India, but it is American youth that killed tech support in America.

In desperate need of a job, I worked in an inbound call center about ten years ago. It was exactly as you say.

Everybody who bitches about call center jobs going overseas should first consider whether or not these are a.) jobs worth keeping, since b.) you can't seem to pay Americans enough to do the job well -- even though wages are well above minimum wage and the job is anything but taxing.

And, if the Indians are unintelligible and incompent, they certainly offer a less expensive brand of incompetency.

Finally, there's this: if a company saw a drop in its bottom line profits because they had outsourced tech support, they would immediately return the jobs to the USA. And that doesn't seem to be happenin'...