This is my Complaint About JustAnswer.com

Complaint about Just AnswerThis is long complaint about JustAnswer.com, but if you like a good drama that’s NOT fiction, then read on…

Headquarters: San Francisco, California, United States
CEO: Andy Kurtzig (2003–)
Founder: Andy Kurtzig
Founded: 2003

http://www.justanswer.com

I’m still trying to calm down after the TERRIBLE experience I had last night with one of Just Answer’s “so called” EXPERTS.

To give you a bit of my background, I’ve been dealing with computers since 1984, been online since 1998 and started learning more about computers around the last 5 years.

I don’t call myself a GEEK by any stretch, but I’m definitely NOT a newbie.

I had been having problems with my desktop, and in the last several months, I have hired several geeks to try and get to the bottom of the issues.

In the end, a fairly good geek told me that he just felt my computer wasn’t fast enough. I didn’t have enough memory and I needed Windows 7 instead of XP. You can’t use more memory when you are on XP.

Anyway, I was going to upgrade to Windows 7 and get more memory, when my computer was struck by lightning and then I had no choice but to get a brand new computer.

I got a VERY fast computer with TONS of memory. Now the question was getting someone to help me get it back to the way it was before.

I had to use a laptop during the 3 weeks it took me to get the new computer, and I use Thunderbird (an e-mail client), so I had to somehow merge the old mail from the old desktop with the mail from the laptop and put it on the NEW computer.

I had no one to help me, so I started searching online for experts in Thunderbird.

Just Answer’s website – www.justanswers.com showed up on the first page.

I read over their site and was surprised, but happy, to see that they screen their experts HEAVILY to make sure they know what they are talking about.

They had a 7 day free trial period, so I decided to try them out.

I asked a few questions about many different topics, and was immediately impressed by the hard work one expert did regarding another matter.

As my questions were answered, I realized that some of Just Answer’s experts would just shoot me a quick answer, while others really cared to help, and took their time answering ALL of my questions.

When it came to the Thunderbird issues I couldn’t wait for someone to answer me because I had to work, and I can NOT work without my Thunderbird, so I found instructions online on how to get the profile from the old hard drive over to the new one.

With the help of a friend, we did it ourselves, and it WORKED!!!

But as the week went on, I was having problems with:

  1. I had issues on the other computer with folders being duplicated, and those folders (and other that weren’t duplicated) were showing up with strange characters in them. That only happened on a few folders. On the new computer I saw a LOT more of this happening and I started to get very concerned.
  2. Sometimes when I would go to create a sub folder, Thunderbird would tell me that the folder already existed when it didn’t. This, of course, was a HUGE problem because I needed to work.
  3. When I would remove the characters and try to type in what was there before, Thunderbird would also tell me the folder already existed, when it didn’t.
  4. I wasn’t able to figure out how to get the mail from the laptop onto my desktop without overriding what was already there.

So one of the so called JustAnswer.com experts – Chris – said to use an import export add-on, and I did try to use it after he showed me how to use it. For the most part it did work, but I think after my laptop died, it deleted a lot of e-mails.

I finally gave up on trying to figure out where those missing e-mails were, as it was wasting my time. I went and updated my JustAnswer.com question to say I now ONLY cared now about the characters, duplicate folders and the fact that I couldn’t create sub folders in certain areas.

Chris tried to help me again, but I knew that he wouldn’t be able to solve the problem, as I could already tell he was limited in what he knew.

When he worked on my computer twice, he had at least the decency to admit he didn’t know something, and he exited my computer. I also noticed that he just couldn’t understand me when I talked. I’d explain the situation a couple of times, and it would go right over his head.

Jason from Just AnswersThe JustAnswer.com moderator was trying to find me another “EXPERT” regarding those Thunderbird (TB) issues, when Jason (picture to the left) came onto the scene saying HE could help. On 05-20-17 I found his profile STILL on JustAnswer.com http://www.justanswer.com/computer/expert-jasonjones/ Clearly Just Answer doesn’t care about what happened to me and my computer.

It took a few days to sync up our schedules, but last night (Saturday, August 3, 2013) he said he was available.

He gave me a remote access link.

One thing I DON’T like about Just Answer’s policies, is that they DON’T let you talk to the expert via the phone or Skype. This is TERRIBLE in my opinion.

The extra time it takes to type out complicated conversations, AND the risk of misunderstandings is obvious to me.

I get that JustAnswer.com doesn’t want the experts going off on their own, but hey, we could just e-mail between the 2 of us & then strike a deal solo, so what difference does it make if it’s through remote access or the phone. That’s just not logical in my opinion.

Anyway, almost from the minute Jason from Just Answers got onto my computer I had SERIOUS issues with him.

Chris (the previous so called expert from JustAnswer.com) had used the Join Me remote access tool, and from what I’ve heard, plus his complaints, it was terrible. Jason was using another remote access program called Elsinore. Never heard of it before and I know all the most popular ones.

Here’s the horrific story about what I went through with Jason and why I started this complaint about Just Answer:

  1. He comes onto my computer and barely asks me anything. When I tried to give him detailed answers so he would FULLY understand the situation, he was condescending repeating himself over and over again like this, “I will ask the question again, blah blah blah, (True or False).
  2. Whenever I tried to talk to him (remember I can ONLY (instant message) IM with him because they don’t allow verbal conversation) by using my mouse, he would say, “PLEASE, stop using your mouse, I need to do this.” or something along those lines.After he talked down to me several times I lost my temper and told him he was VERY RUDE. He apologized which I thought would calm him down, but it didn’t.
  3. He was VERY VERY HYPER. He didn’t ask me to show him ANY of the problem areas of Thunderbird. He just wanted to know where the old hard drive was. Where the laptop hard drive was, etc. After a second time when I tried to find out what his plans were, I realized after a little while that he had NO intentions of telling me what his plans were.I could tell that he did NOT understand what I was saying, but he INSISTED that he did even though I told him at least 2-3 times, “I don’t think you understand what I’m saying.”
  4. I finally gave up trying to talk to him because he was SURE he knew what was going on and could fix ALL MY PROBLEMS. My computer would be BETTER than it was before. That’s what he said.So he starts working and when I told him I needed to be done before midnight, he told me he would be done well before midnight, but do you think he was???? NOPE! That was his first lie and YES, by the time I was through with this guy, I knew he was a liar.
  5. I watched what he was doing and I knew he was having problems. He was working SOOOOO fast, there were times I couldn’t even keep up, but I trusted JustAnswer.com to ONLY hire computer technicians who know WHAT THE HELL THEY ARE DOING.
  6. After a while he’d ask me if the Thunderbird was okay now and I would look & say, “no, look at this.” The two drives the mail was pointing to shouldn’t have been in there, it should only show ONE drive.This was the same problem I had when I first copied the profile over and I had to manually go in and remove the C drive and point it to E where all my e-mails are located.Instead of him doing that, he proceeds to do something that I STILL don’t understand.I asked him to explain it to me, but he was unable to. His communicate skills are the WORST I’ve ever encountered with a techie. Basically what he was trying to tell me is that EVEN though he pointed the mail to C drive within Thunderbird itself, it was REALLY pointing to E drive.Make sense???? NOPE. I asked, “so you are cloning it?” He said, “NO.”  But he was unable to explain what he did and WHY. I asked this question about 4 times about why he couldn’t just point the mail to E. I mean if it was going to E, then why the HELL couldn’t he do that within Thunderbird?I did NOT like the way he had set it up, and I told him that several times. I even told him that now when I create a new e-mail account, I won’t even know what to do, do I point it to E, or copy what he did???Not ONCE prior, did he ask me if he could change things to the way he WANTED them done.I did see that he was trying to do a find and replace to change the drive to E through the guts of Thunderbird;  that much I could see. When I changed it 2-3 weeks ago, I did the change through the actual TB interface, and even with my 40-50 e-mail accounts, I corrected the issue within much less time than he did and this guy was BEYOND FAST.
  7. Jason kept arguing with me about everything. Every time I’d ask a question he didn’t like, he would say, “NO, you are saying that.”
  8. I had told Jason SEVERAL times that the mail on the old hard drive was CLEARLY OLD. I had told him that I had copied the profile when I got this new computer which was 2-3 weeks ago. An hour later he kept referring to the “person who didn’t copy the profile over correctly.” He couldn’t even remember that I told him it was MEEEEE.Anyone with half a brain would GET that I’ve done a lot of work since I got the new computer and set up TB, so the ONLY profile that matters now is the one on my NEW computer, but what does he do???He copies the OLD Thunderbird profile to my NEW COMPUTER, so ALL the settings, theme, address book, add-on content, ARE LOST.When I tell him this, he says, “oh I misunderstood what you said.”MISUNDERSTOOD???? I repeated myself OVER and OVER AGAIN.He just didn’t want to listen because he thinks he knows EVERYTHING and he was very hyper (not sure if he’s on drugs or what), and he just wanted to get down to work without asking me ANY questions. Plus remember he wouldn’t let me speak the entire time I was trying to talk with him.I’m very good at figuring out if people understand me by their responses. This is why I knew he didn’t know what I was saying almost from the minute he started, but before I could FULLY determine this, he had already started on the work.
  9. At one point when he wanted to show me what he’d done, he opens Thunderbird and it DOWNLOADS mail.I warn him SEVERAL times NOT to lose that mail. He says HE WON’T!!!
  10. So he backs up the current profile which takes forever, and now he knows I’m ROYALLY PISSED, but I CAN’T boot him from my computer because he’s left me with NO WORKING THUNDERBIRD.I thought this guy was going to be on my computer for 30-60 minutes I could eat my dinner and then start work, but noooooo, that’s NOT what happened. He even shut off the music I had playing so I couldn’t even enjoy that. Granted that may have been slowing down the remote part, but he didn’t even ask if he could or explain why he shut it off.
  11. At this point while we were waiting for the backup, I told him point by point what STILL needed to get done (theme, address book, and merge the e-mails he just downloaded with all the mail that had been there BEFORE he started working on my computer.Now get a load of this…. remember the WHOLE reason he had come onto my computer in the first place????Not ONE word had been mentioned about those issues. Now I was stuck with a Thunderbird that I couldn’t even use.I was FURIOUS & more important, I was scared. I didn’t know if he lost everything or what he had done.
  12. Then what happened next made me realize there was NO WAY I could communicate with this guy, because there was something seriously wrong with his brain. No matter what I said, he couldn’t understand me.He opens Thunderbird up again and BAMM, the new mail that had downloaded 10 minutes earlier was GONE! He starts asking ME where the missing mail went, LOL.I’m like WHAT THE HELL??? This guy doesn’t even know what he did.He tries to prove that I’m lying or I don’t remember what I said by highlighting my text when I said. “I know where one of the e-mail accounts are.”Yes, the default account is what pops up when you load Thunderbird, so that was the only account I knew for sure that had downloaded mail. There’s no way for me to see all 50 accounts at a glance to see which had downloaded mail and which ones hadn’t.Not only that, but he had Xed out of Thunderbird so I couldn’t even check even if I wanted to and TRUST ME, I tried to go look at which accounts had mail in them, but he had already closed TB down.Then again he starts giving me shit about me TRYING to get control of my computer. He said that if I OPENED THUNDERBIRD, I would ruin everything, so I had to sit there and bite my tongue and HOPE that he would fix the problem.Once he asked me again where the mail was and it was clear he was just lost, I said OMG.

    I collected my thoughts and I RUSHED to go copy out entire conversation via the instant messing so I had proof of what had just transpired over the course of almost 3 hours.

    I got the text into a Word doc & I was JUST ABOUT to save it on my computer when he TOOK CONTROL OF MY MOUSE AGAIN and he DELETED the thread I had copied and TOOK OFF.

    If I didn’t make it clear earlier, he had done this SEVERAL times over the last 3 hours. He REFUSED to let me use my OWN computer.

    Honestly people, I’ve never been so violated in my life. I normally ALWAYS talk to the techies first before I let them onto my computer and I’ve had at LEAST close to 10 geeks on my computer in the last several months, and I’ve NEVER EVER had a geek take my control over my computer away from ME and delete what I’m doing. I’ve also NEVER had a geek not tell me what he was planning on doing, lie to me, tell me to basically shut up (he didn’t say that, but that’s what he meant) and talk down to me.

    Whenever I interview an arrogant geek, I just go right on by to the next person. I do NOT put up with their immature egotistical behavior.

    Had Jason actually KNOW WHAT he was doing, that would have been one thing, but HE DIDN’T!!!

It took me several hours to compose myself. I felt totally drained and YES, I was in tears.

Once I was able to start analyzing what the asshole did to my Thunderbird, I was at least happy I had all the mail up until he had ruined everything, but all the mail that downloaded when he kept opening Thunderbird was GONE.

I called my hosting company and because I’m on POP, there’s NO WAY to retrieve that mail.

Here’s what I’ve had to fix because Jason from justanswer.com broke everything. And NOT ONE ISSUE that he was supposed to fix got fixed. He just created more work for me, stole 3 hours of my time and caused me a TON of stress.

  1. The volume on the sound for when I get mail is now VERY VERY loud. I had to readjust that.
  2. My theme was gone. It took me several minutes to find it as I had never written down the name (why would I have to). I had never used this theme until the new computer, so the name wasn’t familiar to me.
  3. My address book was the old one, so all the entries for the last 3 weeks weren’t there.
  4. I have an add-on that I use that allows me to write content in it. ALL the entries for the last 3 weeks GONE.
  5. Folders were missing AND when I went back to go add them in, Thunderbird wouldn’t let me saying they were already there. So he screwed up even MORE of the folders because clearly that Thunderbird bug is a SERIOUS one.
  6. All the passwords I had created when I worked on my laptop were gone. I had had to re-enter them onto the new computer manually.
  7. I had purchased Spam Fighter to help me fight spam, and while it was causing me problems since I purchased it, I had it on Thunderbird. Now it’s GONE and I can’t get it back no matter what I do. I lost at least close to 30 minutes on that issue and it will be an ongoing issue because I have to talk to tech support with Spam Fighter.
  8. Any add-ons I added in the last 3 weeks (can’t even remember what they were) are gone.

So I’ve written to the customer service manager of JustAnswer.com Here’s his info:

Adam Roesel
Customer Support Coordinator
Ph: 415.400.7940
Fax: 415.400.7883
[email protected]

I also called him right after Jason took off and I was in tears leaving him a message on his voice mail.

I’ve been dealing with Adam Rosel and if you want to know why, it’s because I’ve had problems with JustAnswer.com from day one, but because I thought the experts were WAY better than Just Answer the company, I forged ahead because I needed help with my computer.

  1. Their tech support is in the Philippines, and in my opinion, Filipinos NEVER EVER understand me. They speak English, but are terrible at understanding anything that requires brain power. So after talking to 3 different people including a manager, I was given Adam’s contact info and Adam is in the US.
  2. I figured out why there were problems with their site (glad to be of service). I lost at least 6 hours of my time struggling with their site.What was happening, is that every time I’d go to message an expert on their site, it wouldn’t let me, and I’d get an error. This went on for almost a week I think before I figured out that it ONLY happened when I uploaded a file or used an emoticon. AND these were THEIR OWN emoticons in their text editor.Clearly whoever they got to code the site didn’t know what they were doing, and when I saw their site is .asp, that only confirmed my suspicion.I doubt they even fixed the problem, but I haven’t tested it in a while because I didn’t want to waste my time. I’m too busy to work for the company without getting paid for it. I tried to help them for an entire week sending screenshots, talking to Adam, etc.
  3. They lock or close questions without even checking with me. The first time it happened I thought I made a mistake. After it happened 3 more times, I knew it wasn’t me.
  4. They close questions calling it a duplicate when it’s not. I had the SAME issue with Ring Central that is ALSO managed by Filipinos.This means they don’t even read the questions, because if they did, they would know they AREN’T duplicates just because the first paragraph is the same.
  5. When I have e-mailed customer service because Adam wasn’t around, it took them days to respond back. Then there was no e-mail thread, so I had no idea what they were even responding to.They seemed clueless and way behind what was currently going on, meaning if the problem was already resolved, they didn’t know it, PLUS their responses were all canned. Of course it must have been the Filipinos, so it’s no wonder.
  6. Once your free subscription is over, things change on the site and I didn’t understand what was going on. I couldn’t find my questions anymore. I talked to Adam about it, and he said he doesn’t like it either, but clearly it won’t be changed.

Anyway, I will keep you updated on what transpires with Adam, what he plans to do about solving my problem, and how he’s going to handle Jason. I had planned to pay for a month of advice and service down the road, but they just lost me as a customer AND now I will be telling everyone I come across what happened. And what they DON’T know, is that I had already been promoting their service before this happened telling everyone to USE THEM.

I won’t be surprised if justanswer.com does nothing about Jason.

Oh one last thing… When I went to copy the question thread on the site to prove I had provided the problems in great detail, Jason had deleted the ENTIRE THREAD.

I managed to still get a copy from a browser, wasting my precious time even more.

Then I get some e-mail from support about how they are sorry things didn’t work out, if I wanted a refund, etc., etc. LOL I had NOT written to support, ONLY to Adam. So it must be Jason lying about what happened.

REFUND???? This guy RUINED MY COMPUTER and then RAPED ME ON IT.

That’s how I feel.

Even if I had paid the $38 for the month, that would NOT equal even close to everything I went through and am still going through. I lost hours of work because I was too upset to work after that and I had to go to bed.

Even today I’m not feeling well because of all the stress.

It took me another 3 hours before I could even eat because I had to deal with him instead of cooking.

And just to be clear, even though I didn’t pay for the trial, for every expert who did help me, and seemed to be “with it,” I did tip them and they also get paid when you give them a good, very good or excellent rating. There were only 2 that I gave a terrible rating to AND I was unable to do that with Jason because he deleted the entire thread.

So it looks like to me that the experts run the show over there, because you explain to me how an “EXPERT” is allowed to delete ALL the content from a question???

So far there’s no consequences for their actions, but we’ll see what happens.

 

Michelle


3 thoughts on “Complaint about JustAnswer.com”

  1. Just found MORE missing folders because of what Jason did. In fact I can’t even replace the folders even if I try to put the number “2” or something at the end or a dash in between them.

    I also just dealt with another expert I had dealt with before. He was the one who had introduced me to Spam Fighter.

    I wrote telling him how Jason screwed everything up & Spam Fighter is no longer showing up AND they aren’t responding to my e-mails, so if they don’t, I’m just going to call my bank & could he recommend another program.

    He writes me with the following, “Weren’t you using Spam Fighter the one I recommended, why aren’t you using it anymore?”

    I’m like WTF???

    Can’t this guy read what I wrote?

    So I ask him if he read what I wrote & he says, Yes.”

    I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I just said, “then you should have your answer.”

    He removed himself from the question.
    WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE IDIOTS????

    THEY CAN’T READ & UNDERSTAND ENGLISH????

    Things are just getting WORSE & WORSE with Just Answers.

  2. Here’s Adam’s moronic response…

    “Hello Michelle,

    Thank you for getting back in touch with us. I’m sorry for any frustration that you’ve experienced. Can you please send me the conversation that you had with the Expert? I’ll re-list the question and we will work to find you another expert so that you can resolve the issue that you were having with Thunderbird.”

    CLEARLY he didn’t bother to read my e-mail because if he had, he would KNOW that the geek HIGHJACKED my computer & deleted my copy of the instant messaging thread.

    I just went to do a search for complaints against Just Answers & I see that there are TONS. More to do with credit card disputes, but still, had I looked them up BEFORE starting with them, I would have seen how bad they are & NOT even bothered.

    This is what happens when one is desperate to fix their computer.

    I’ll keep you updated as the drama unfolds.

  3. So two times since I relayed what happened to Adam, he didn’t understand what I was saying. That’s also after I was in tears leaving a message on his voice mail. If he thinks a person in tears is JUST inconvenienced, he clearly doesn’t understand human nature.

    He kept saying things like:

    “Hello Michelle,

    Thank you for getting back to me. Once again I’m sorry to hear about any inconvenience that you’ve experienced. We are looking into the matter with the Expert. Experts on the site are not employees of JustAnswer, they are site users much like yourself.

    You had indicated that you had saved part of the conversation; can you send that to us to review? It would be very helpful to have to pass onto the team that Handles Expert issues.

    At this time we have re-listed the questions and will attempt to locate another Expert to work with you on resolving the matter.

    It does appear that one of the moderators has replied to your conversation string asking if you would like further assistance. If you can reply to the conversation and let her know exactly what the issues are that need to be resolve we should be able to find another technician that can assist you.

    Let me know if you need any further assistance.”

    After he called Jason screwing up my computer an “inconvenience” twice, I lost it & screamed at him. THIS WAS NOT AN INCONVENIENCE, the guy RUINED my Thunderbird.

    Their terms say they are NOT responsible for the experts even though that’s one of their selling points, that they SCREEN the experts heavily.

    He also didn’t understand that Jason had deleted my copying of the conversation. I had to repeat myself about that a couple of times until he got it.

    In the end he said they were investigating it & until they were finished the investigation, Jason’s remote access would be revoked, but that meant little to me. Jason shouldn’t even be allowed to step foot on anyone’s computer or even give anyone advice.

    I also told Adama that I do NOT trust anyone on Just Answers after what happened, so clearly no one helped me. I didn’t bother updating that question out of fear that the same similar thing would happen again & I never really heard back from Adam.

    I’m sure Jason will be back touching people’s computers in no time. I haven’t heard anything from Adam regarding any updates since 08-08-13.

    More & more issues crop up with Thunderbird now that Jason made things ever worse. I’m unable to create folders & work properly.

    I even went onto bugzilla (Mozillas bug reporting system) to tell them what happened, & they can clearly see that Jason screwed around with the backend of Thunderbird.

    If I hear anything else, I’ll let you know.

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