Staples Caught Selling PCs with Old Customer Data
Staples Caught Selling PCs with Old Customer Data
Posted 06/22/2011 at 6:48am
| by Paul Lilly
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Stop! Before reading any further, grab yourself a pair of fuzzy mittens or a helmet with a faceguard. The reason? A Canadian audit of systems resold by Staples and performed by the office of Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart reveals that there's plenty of facepalming to go around. First there's the finding that Staples allegedly ran afoul of Canadian privacy law by not fully wiping customer data from notebooks and storage devices before reselling them. A facepalm is also in order for customers who returned said items without first wiping the data themselves.
According to CBC News, the audit discovered banking information, tax records, social security numbers, and academic transcripts on 54 of 149 tested data storage devices that were to be resold by Staples.
"The position of our office is that if Staples is unable to remove all customer data from a particular manufacturer's device, it is unacceptable to resell that device," said a summary of the findings.
Stoddard's office tested desktops, laptops, USB hard drives, and memory cards that had already been wiped and restored. Nevertheless, personal data popped up and was found on 17 of 20 laptops tested.
For its part, Staples can do nothing but take the findings with a bit of humility and promise to do a better a job. The company said it fully cooperated with the privacy commissioner's office and responded "positively" to all the recommendations, adding that "Staples has implemented changes that exceed current industry practice to remove personal data from returned memory devices."
It's a position Staples is apparently familiar with. According to CBC News, Stoddard's office investigated previous complaints involving returned storage devices in 2004 and 2008, and in both cases Staples promised to do a better job of eradicating customer data.
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ChatterboxChuck
June 23, 2011 at 8:16am
LOL, I can't help but laughing at people who go to Staples, a company known for office supply as their main business, to buy tech gadgets such as PCs and stuff and then complain about their bad service. Best Buy, an actual tech and they store sucks at this, what can you expect from Staples?
These people need to learn to go to places like CompUSA or their equivelent in their State (if they refuse to go online) when they have the urge to purchase PCs and PC components they know nothing about. At least these stores are dedicated to PCs and their components and accesories. The stupidity in our society these days is mind boggling and it's no wonder companies like Apple charge outrageous amounts for their PCs and devices, because these idiot consumers will go to places like Staples to conveniently pick up a pack of paper clips, a pack of No. 2 pencils and an iPhone or a PC.
That's like a person going to Walmart to get a dress for a wedding, diamond earings, a toilet seat and a can of beans, all in one place. Lord have mercy.
allantang
June 23, 2011 at 1:22am
I worked at a Staples in Canada. We had forms that the customers had to sign when they brought back a computer they bought, saying that we were not responsible for the data.
I however being the tech did a full recovery on every machine that did come back. I didnt do a wipe becuase we just didnt have the time for that. Do you know how many machines get returned? and to do a full wipe on the big hard drives, just not practical.
I agree that a lot of people will buy something with the intent of returning it, and you can tell when you ask them why they didnt like it. But within the 14 days its perfectly ok.
Honesty in the end I blame the consumer that they are not careful with their personal data. I mean facebook anyone? Of course its stupid of the Staples stores they tested not to at least do a full recovery before reselling.
dwellman
June 22, 2011 at 2:33pm
I've gotten refurbed devices (media players) with stuff still on from Woot!. A hard drive with a Spanish Windows XP. . . from -- I forget.
I'd say that the percentage of population in the united stats that can properly wipe data is less than those that can run a mile in 12 minutes or less (that's only 5 mph).
Case and point: even Maximum PC fails to mention either ATA Secure Erase or using drive encryption (bitlocker/Windows encryption, PGP or similar) to irrevocably erase data from a drive (encrypt the drive and "forget" the key).
Here's a good write up with some comments by me towards the end
http://storagemojo.com/2007/05/02/secure-erase-data-security-you-already-own/
ShyLinuxGuy
June 22, 2011 at 12:49pm
This is what happens when they have somebody in Corporate (who copied and pasted from Wikipedia, because they know nothing else) writing up these script manuals that you cannot deviate from. We're all thinking CCleaner, DBAN, and all these other solutions, but Corporate won't let you use them. What they have just done is open themselves up to lawsuits due to this kind of thing, because the employee wouldn't and couldn't think "out of the book" and wipe the drive. It sounds efficient to have a script book to follow and stick to, but not when customers start hitting the stores with expensive lawsuits.
@Tomato7: Staples is good for absolutely nothing, except low-priced "leather" office chairs that fall apart after two weeks, and they're not even good for that. When something is cheap at Staples, there's a reason.
tornato7
June 22, 2011 at 11:27am
This isn't too related to the issue, but yesterday I bought a power strip and tried to buy a USB hub at staples. The power strip didn't work, and upon checkout, I realized the USB hub was $49.95! for a 3-port USB hub. Just rediculous. And when looking at their other tech stuff, they have the worst possible deals on RAM, USB drives, and graphics cards. In conclusion, staples is not the new Fry's.
Caboose
June 22, 2011 at 11:57am
Staples is way too expensive. I purchased a 16GB MicroSD card for my Eee Pad Transformer from MemoryExpress up here, and it cost me $25. Staple would have been over double that.
AndrewEgel
June 22, 2011 at 10:18am
I can attest to this. I worked as a staples easy tech. What happens is it stems down to not being allowed to use external tools. We had access to these tools:
-a norton scanner/"remover" tool, and a spyware scanner.
-25k/s downdload internet connection
-A computer to download on (to a flash drive), but not able to save anything to (im serious, couldn't download anything to it).
-A 50 page book with "procedures" on how to perform services.
-Need a hard drive for a data x-fer? Open a box, use it, then re-package it, and re-sell it for full price. (yes another user said this, its TRUE)
-More so we had to re-stock ink cartriges (very in-efficently I might add) in between clicking through menus.
I'm surprised staples has continued offering these services, because they can't train/provide their people with the tools/procedures to do it.
Scatter
June 22, 2011 at 7:37pm
Need a hard drive for a data x-fer? Open a box, use it, then re-package it, and re-sell it for full price. (yes another user said this, its TRUE)
-------------------------------
No offense but if your store was allowing this then your manager was an idiot. You refer to a 50 page procedure manual but you clearly never bothered to read it. All data transfers are supposed to be copied either to the store's diagnostic PC (yes, you can copy and download data to it, you're just limited to the"My Docs" folder) or to an external devide purchased or provided by the customer.
Its really annoying when some rogue store or tech does stupid things that are against company policy and then tries to excuse it by saying that everyone does it. No, all stores do not operate like that.
CHR15x94
June 22, 2011 at 9:14am
Heard about this yesterday on TV. The idiots they get working at electronics stores...
Data theft. That was easy.
Scatter
June 22, 2011 at 7:39pm
But of course lets not put any of the responsibility or blame onto the dumb customers who return these products to the store with their SS numbers, credit card info, pictures, etc.. still on the drives.
Joji
June 22, 2011 at 9:06am
I believe I once got my PC from Staples if I'm not mistakend. And yea, I always encounter those geek techie people when I need tech help. xD Haha lol.
Caboose
June 22, 2011 at 8:04am
As a former Staples employee, and having worked at a few different Staples locations, this doesn't surprise me in the least. The people that they have working there, are not the brightest of the bunch. Sure, you might get the odd intellegent person, but for the most part, they do a good job of acting it.
They'll have the people who kiss the most ass as those that work their tech bench. I've heard sales associates lying to customers about things (I once almost got in to an argument with a guy who was "training" me at the last Staples store that I worked at, over upgrading a laptop. He was 100% convinced that the only thing you can upgrade in a laptop is the CPU, and refused to listen to me).
I've had to deal with customers coming back in to the store with PCs that weren't cleaned, or worse off than before because the "tech" tried to "fix the issue".
The only thing I get from Staples is office supplies (pens, paper, etc), printer ink (sometimes) and office chairs!
sneakystan761
June 22, 2011 at 7:58pm
I have to agree, most of the people I worked with had no prior knowledge of computer hardware. I'd have co-workers trying to sell a computer with a 1 GB AMD 5450 as viable gaming machine. I still have co-workers who try and sell based on GHz too. The instore training I had to do was basically useless, all it showed you how to do was sell overpriced items that had a ton of margin. For most computers, the standard method of wiping was just a factory restore and i can easily see someone just reinstalling windows without wiping the other data. I guess this is what triggered the company to issue software which takes 5-8 hours to wipe a drive now.
Blues22475
June 22, 2011 at 9:09am
+1.
How hard is it to go on the Internet and a wiping utilty? Ccleaner has its own wiping utility that does DoD style wipes. Take the hard drive out stick it onto a machine wipe good to go.
Silver925
June 22, 2011 at 10:06am
Too true, however...
Having worked for Staples, I can tell you, you'll be lucky if you have an external dock provided by the company to do this with. When I was working there they provided next to nothing to do the tech services with. I was directed by my management (on many occasions) to take products off of the shelf, use them, and then re-pack them to be put back on the shelf for sale. (Use an external hard drive for a data transfer, for example)
Granted, it's been years since I worked there, but this story shows things haven't changed much, if at all.
I can even remember wanting to properly wipe returned PCs, but got flack from management due to the time it would take. Think about it. A returned PC is a lost sale (and maybe - heaven forbid - a lost extended warranty sale) the last thing they want to do after a lost sale is spend more time (money) on wiping the system properly.
DDRDiesel
June 22, 2011 at 12:30pm
Technically, you don't need external docks to do the job. A simple $20 adapter (Like this one from Rosewill) will do the job fine. You can even plug the hard drives into the SATA ports (Or to the IDE channels via a 2.5"-3.5" adapter if necessary) and refresh the hardware via the Device Manager. From there, do the wipe, format, and problem solved. What your manager doesn't know, saves him an embarrassing article on MaxPC
aknolidge
June 22, 2011 at 7:07am
HAAAAAAA !!! I've been waiting for this moment. I wouldnt trust Staples, Best Buy, or any other of these companies with a pc after so many stories I've heard.
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