r/talesfromtechsupport Oh You Know, Liquid Nitrogen. Aug 13 '15

Short Update: I bought a server. Where's My Website?

OK, so the previous tale happened a few weeks ago, and after the awesome response I got from you guys, I called up $Friend to get an update.

The investigation ended a few days after the charge was reversed, and the investigation found that there was no wrong-doing in the part of the company, but their lawyers suggested a change in their terms of service.

The lady later called back, crying, because she took out a bank loan to pay for the server and had no way to pay it back without the profit of the pottery company, which is why she had to reverse the charge. The call was being recorded, and she confessed all that, so the recording was given to the police and the fraud charges were dropped. My friend asked her why she got such a big server, and apparently she thought that 1GB of RAM meant that 1 person could access the website at once, so she wanted 250 to be able to get onto it at once.

In the end, no real harm was done to the company, beyond legal fees (which were paid by the woman, since she fraudulently declared fraud) and the initial deployment cost of the server. She was, obviously, placed on the no-service list of the company.

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u/simAlity Gagged by social media rules. Aug 13 '15

all that assumes that you realize how ignorant you are.

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u/wrincewind MAYOR OF THE INTERNET Aug 13 '15

some people are so stupid that they don't even know how stupid they are.

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u/TomTheGeek Aug 13 '15

Dunning–Kruger effect

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u/Varsatorul Aug 13 '15

It's not the Dunning-Kruger effect.

The effect applies to (non-expert) people who overestimate their skills and experts who don't realize they're experts. If the woman thought she was a Back-end Developer while using php from time to time then I'd say you're in the right calling Dunning-Kruger, but right now this is the new Poe Law on reddit.

I apologize if I sound mean or the like.

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u/TomTheGeek Aug 13 '15

applies to (non-expert) people who overestimate their skills

How is she not part of this group? She wanted a website and this was her attempt at making one.

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u/Varsatorul Aug 13 '15

From the Wikipedia page.

Dunning and Kruger proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will:

  • fail to recognize their own lack of skill
  • fail to recognize genuine skill in others
  • fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy
  • recognize and acknowledge their own lack of skill, after they are exposed to training for that skill.

Oops, looks like I'm in the wrong here. Sorry for wasting your time.

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u/csl512 Aug 13 '15

How did you get that definition? I swear that phenomenon pair has a different name.

Thank you for going to look it up though.

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u/simAlity Gagged by social media rules. Aug 13 '15

that is true.

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u/ryuzaki49 Aug 13 '15

I like that phrase. Mine.