Outsourcing Nightmares

I recently bought a new laptop and installed my copy of Dreamweaver. When asked for my serial number to activate it, I entered the correct number. Because this was an upgrade version, the next screen asked me for the serial number of the previous version. I entered the serial number I thought was the previous version, but got no reaction from Dreamweaver.

I spent the next twenty minutes on the phone with a nice young lady in Adobe tech support in India. She could see that I had purchased three versions of Dreamweaver since March of 2004 and that the serial number I was entering as the previous version was, alas, two versions previous. And she couldn't look up the missing serial number.

She transferred me to the customer service department who, she assured me, could look up my missing serial number. Polite Young Man #1 answered the phone and got my e-mail address and phone number and so on. We then went through the history of the account and the two existing serial numbers. We had been on the phone about 10 minutes when he asked me to hold so he could go look up the missing number. And then I was disconnected.

Smart Nice Young Lady had, brilliantly, given me the direct dial number, which I called and got Polite Young Man #2, Roger, somewhere in India. I again told my story and Roger started trying to walk me through the installation and activation. I told him exactly what I needed: I needed him to look up my serial number for Dreamweaver MX 2004. He tried again to walk me through the activation, saying he was going to unlock it. He said "now your screen says . . ." and that was not what my screen was saying. After spending about 25 minutes on the phone with him, and listening to horrible syncopated music on a loop every time he asked, oh so politely, if he could put me on hold, he told me there was nothing he could do and the installation department was closed on the weekend. I would have to call back tomorrow.

He then asked, "Is there anything else I can do for you?" I started to say no, then I said, "Can you just look up that serial number for me?" The very first thing I had asked him 25 minutes earlier. He again put me on hold and came back a few minutes with the serial number, after telling me I had bought a lot of products under a lot of different e-mail addresses over the years. I asked him to hold while I keyed this new serial number in. Voila! It worked.

Why do tech support and customer service people always assume you don't know what you're talking about? Or am I generalizing too much?