Battling tech support hero Rufus, who became an overnight internet legend for apparently calling one customer a "pain in the butt" and threatening to "server" him "for being mean", has quit his frontline post at Gadspot.com.

After we ran our original story on the outrage, Rufus posted a comment which we intercepted and offered as his right to reply. He claimed he hadn't written the offending emails, so we asked him who had.

It appears Rufus never got that email, as his latest missive shows:

Well... Last time I checked, I didn't receive any emails from The Register.

My comment didn't get posted a few days after I wrote it, so I thought it will never see the light of day. At the same time, Gadspot didn't receive more emails after that week, so I didn't bother to return to the Register. I also didn't check the proboard forum, since if no one read the comment, no one would know about the forum. But today, perhaps out of boredom, I went onto the forum, and to my surprise, there were posts. That's when I realized Rufus did no die on the Register.

I did not write the email. I don't think I would allow myself to send out something saying: "So we refuse the right to server you. For being mean." Any customer service/ tech support rep at Gadspot can use techsupport@gadspot.com to send out emails. So someone simply wrote an email and typed "Rufus" at the bottom. The person probably had nothing against me, but I won't go into the details/reasoning behind that. Sometimes the world is more fun when some of the facts are not known. Instead, let me give you an update, an update about me, the one who did not write the original emails.

2~3 days after you posted your article (and after we received all those emails), I received a long distance call from "the Boss". He called to ask me if I am the person who wrote the email. Of course I told him that it wasn't me. So after hearing my response, instead of unleashing the wrath on me, he asked me to find out the real culprit. Honestly, I really don't care, because I hated working there anyway. Much blame should be put on the "system", it is set up so that the CS/TS reps will lose their patience, will get stressed out and will become angry. I just thought instead of a witch hunt, energy could be better spent improving the "system". Anyway I didn't say much to him, but few days later when he contacted me again, I simply told him I no longer wish to work at Gadspot. It was something I should have done a long time ago. I want to thank the good people at the Register for finally pushing me to make the decision. I am at home now typing this on a weekday. I feel great. But obviously I don't know if I will feel the same way after a few weeks when no more food is on the table.

So there you go, no more Rufus at Gadspot, and if you write to them, they'll probably tell you that the problem has been taken care of. But maybe, yes maybe, if you guys write more to Gadspot, a new/real "hero" will emerge.

Well, that appears to be an end to the matter, apart from one question: if Rufus didn't write the "pain in the butt" emails, then who did and why has he not got his own TV show? ®

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