Posted on 05/08/2005 7:40:41 AM PDT by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
DENVER -- Imagine receiving a phone call from a stranger who knew your most private thoughts, knew what you looked like, knew your Social Security number, and even knew how much you make and where you work.
That happened to a Colorado woman after she took her computer to a major electronics store.
Her situation may be surprising given all the warnings about identity theft. But it's not surprising if you think for a moment about what's on your personal computer. There may be files about your income, business records, taxes, personal e-mails, dirty jokes, pictures and more.
It's all personal information unless you took your computer to a local retailer.
Susan, who asked us to conceal her true identity, did just that.
"I do want the general public to know this information. I want them to be aware that their privacy is not protected when they go into that store," said Susan.
That store is Circuit City.
Last June Susan went to the Circuit City store in Boulder to buy a new computer. She asked to have the files from her old computer saved to a disk.
"Let's just say I had many years of private writings, papers, personal information, pictures," Susan said.
Circuit City employees copied those private writings and papers onto a floor model computer then onto a disk. But they never removed Susan's personal files from that floor model computer. A few days later, that computer was sold.
"That evening I got a call from a strange man that I do not know who told me he purchased a desktop floor model computer which contained all of my personal information," Susan said.
When she finished talking with him, she said she felt "shock and fear and anger and disappointment that this happened."
"I can't even express the deep violation that I feel," she said.
Susan said it got worse. She said she questioned Circuit City and was told it was her fault for having those personal files on her computer and for expecting Circuit City to protect her privacy.
That's when she filed suit.
"I don't believe they have a solid legal argument here," said Howard Bernstein, Susan's attorney.
"They're coming up with some argument that it's not really your personal computer or you can't treat it as your personal computer if you bring it into our store. There is no expectation of privacy," Bernstein said.
7NEWS' hidden cameras found a change at Circuit City stores after Susan filed suit.
Employees now offer to transfer files for a fee and promise to protect your information.
"We don't download anything onto our computers whatsoever because it's a liability for you and it's also a liability for us as well," said a Circuit City employee.
That's a change from what Circuit City is telling Susan in court. The company says it had "no contractual duty" because the transfer was done at no charge and with no promises to protect her privacy.
Susan believes any reasonable customer expects a major computer seller would protect their privacy.
"According to them, I'm the only one who feels this way. I'm the only customer who has a problem with the fact that they don't have any respect for a customer's privacy," Susan said.
The two sides will settle their differences later this month.
Because of the pending litigation, officials with Circuit City denied our request for an on-camera interview.
In court documents, the company admits to a mistake with Susan's information but also believes they were under no legal obligation to protect her privacy since she did not specifically ask for protection.
As for Circuit City, their statement that your privacy means nothing to them tells me that I don't need to shop at their store. If I use my debit or credit card to buy a TV, I can't expect them to keep that info private. I won't do business with them for a stick of gum.
Ive been to circut city, they aren't kidding about the ignorance.
BUMP!
Many are doing jail time.
Right here on FR, we must get two or three such stories a year. And that's just the highest profile cases. Tip of the iceberg.
The woman is to blame, not Circuit City. Enough excusing stupid women for their actions.
Stupid women? Having their info transfered to a new computer is a pretty standard request from customers. Using floor models to transfer is not. Circuit City screwed up.
This is the store chain that fired its top commissioned salesmen because they were making too much money.
OMG! I think it's reasonable to expect that Circuit City would take measures to see that such a thing would be avoided. They're not teenage hackers. They're a major retailer offering the service.
It sounds like Circuit City screwed up, not the woman, so it might well be "stupid men" who blew it.
I was happy the last time I went to our local Digilinks. All the former college kids have been replaced with adults who were polite, informative, and honest.
One of the guys working there told me that they were all former factory workers who went back to school when their shops closed.
The guy who replaced a hard drive for me showed me how to do it and gave me the old one too.
No, she wasn't stupid. She made a request as part of her purchase and the store complied. She provided them with the equipment and her payment, and that completed her part of the transaction.
The transferring of the files from the old pc and the destruction / disposal of the files were the responsibility of circuit city. They did the first part but not the last.
IF you're trying to say "she should have done something" or "it's not circuit cities job" - she did something - hire circuit city - and they failed to do that job.
As for the woman, she needs to take responsibility to backup her data herself. If you can't figure out how much memory your info takes up and burn some CDs to back it up, you have no business owning or using a computer anyway. (I'm sure I'll get flamed for that statement by people whose wives don't know the difference between a CD drive and a cup holder, oh well. I also feel the same way about people at the airport. If you can't find and physically walk to your boarding gate, and have to be taken there on a cart, you are not ready for air travel.)
You and I may be competent or have the time to do it, but it should be possible for consumers and businesses to hire services to migrate data from one machine to another or from one archival format to another. This is absolutely unprofessional behavior from Circuit City.
Well, it should be at least a $7.00 or $8.00 an hour kid.
Its actually pretty simple. Buy a Network cable and connect the two computers through their ethernet cards. Windows XP has a great file transfer utility that will transfer your old data to your new computer.
Didn't mom tell you to never take your disks to town?
---If you can't find and physically walk to your boarding gate, and have to be taken there on a cart, you are not ready for air travel.---
The handicapped don't get to fly?
I think the mistake CC made was to have a sales person using a floor computer to transfer data. This should always be done, for a fee, by a service person, whose equipment is not accessible to the public.
>Back up your info yourself.<
Sometimes, when your computer is BROKE!!!!!!!!!!!, this can be difficult.
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