How scary is this nightmare?  Monster Mash (not scary)  The theme from The Exorcist (somewhat scary)  Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits (very scary)    View results

Odds are when you call tech support for a product that is sold in the United States and marketed in English and that came with support documents written in English, you'll end up talking to someone at a call center halfway across the globe. Sometimes, that techie has a slight accent and a great mind for problem solving. Other times, you can't understand a word. A transcontinental phone connection, a nonnative English speaker, and a complicated computing problem can be a formula for disaster. But keep in mind that even if your techie speaks the King's English, he or she might not be a technical savant.

1. Hang up and call back so that you can talk to a different technician. There's no guarantee that you'll have a better experience, but it's worth a shot. You may, however, have to go through the same rigmarole of providing your name, serial number, and other details before they will help you.

2. Try chat support if your vendor offers that option. Though you may still have to deal with someone whose grasp of written English rivals that of Boris Karloff's Frankenstein, you can avoid the heavy accent and the bad phone connection, and they will usually e-mail you a transcript you can refer to later.

3. Go to the next level. Nine times out of 10, the flunky who answered the phone is just reading answers off a screen. If he or she seems stumped, ask to speak to a level two technician and/or a supervisor. These are the real geeks in the operation. You may have to wait for a callback or encounter a techie who refuses to forward your issue, but it can't hurt to ask.