Re: Best Buy - Idiot Consumer Whines -- Reckless mishandling of hard-drive data

From: Ziggi (notfor_at_you.toknow)
Date: 05/29/05 

Date: Sun, 29 May 2005 07:23:27 GMT

On Tue, 05 Apr 2005 04:49:08 GMT, Bob Ward <bobward@verizon.net>
wrote:

>On Mon, 04 Apr 2005 20:02:01 -0500, M.L. <me@privacy.net> wrote:
>
>>
>>>> > When I got it home and booted it up I was happy to find I didn't
>>>need
>>>> > to reload any of my programs or passwords since they were stored on
>>>> > the machine I just purchased.
>>
>>>You should be happy that someone else didn't get a hold of that PC.
>>>Its not Best buys responsibility to protect data you left on a returned
>>>device.
>>
>>What if the hard drive contained a virus or keylogger and was sold to
>>someone else?
>
>Wghat if the moon was really made of green cheese and they served free
>beer at the local saloon? Your question isn't very valid either - but
>mine is more fun.
>

Actually, that question is valid.

Think about it.

Someone could purchase a machine, load a keylogger onto it,
intentionally do something to break it, then return it. If the same
procedure was followed by Best Buy as with this poor guys computer,
then whomever purchased the system would have a keylogger pre-loaded
on his system. Every one of his passwords would be logged and
available from the word go; he wouldn't even have to go do anything
stupid online to get it, and if the original owner (the one who loaded
the keylogger) left things mostly to the factory-settings otherwise,
your average Best Buy shopper wouldn't even think to check anything
like that.

Or how about a debilitating virus that spreads through network shares?
Business purchases a Dell from Best Buy, pops it into their network,
virus goes and spreads all over the damn place and they lose
hours/days of work because of it.

Best Buy could possibly be able to weasel out of any liability for
something like that (if it could even be traced to them) but it's
still very poor business practice. Anyone at the shop I worked for
(cept for one specific salesman.. the shithead) would have shuddered
at just the thought of selling someone a computer that one of our
customers had had his mitts on; customers are, generally speaking,
idiots.

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