Gerbus, a 77-year-old retiree, was alarmed. He knew the old hard drive was loaded with his personal information -- his Social Security number, account numbers and details of his retirement investments. But that's not all. The computer also included data on his wife, Roma, and their children and grandchildren, including some of their Social Security numbers.
In June 2005, when Gerbus took his computer to Best Buy for repairs after a hard drive crash, he knew the drive was a potential hot potato. So when a clerk there told him it had to be replaced, he asked for the damaged hardware back.
No dice. The replacement was done for free, under warranty, and Gerbus was told the old drive had to be sent to a repair center in Chicago to fulfill warranty terms.
...
Gerbus has asked Best Buy to pay for identity theft insurance for him and his family. He says the firm so far has offered him only a $250 Best Buy gift card as compensation.[/quote]
This is complete bullshit on the part of Best Buy. If I were Mr. Gerbus I would sue the pants off of Best Buy, and sue the Geek Squad people in civil court that handled his hard drive. BB's response of giving the man a $250 gift card is insane. BB should pay for that man to get new social security numbers for his family and to pay for Credit Check Blocks, so people can't open up new credit cards in his name.
BB could have come out looking very good if they would've done that. Mistakes happen when people don't follow the rules, which was the fault of the Geek Squad guys, but BB really screwed up.
This can happen with any computer company when they won't give back your hard drive. If you have to get your computer turned in for service the best thing to get is a free "incinerator" program or a program called "Wipe Drive" that will overwrite files many times.
Linux has it, it's called "shred" and files can be overwritten up to 25 times (anything past 10 overwrites is up to Dept of Defense/CIA/FBI standards for erasure) for Windows there's software called "System Mechanic" that has a program called "Incinerator" that does the same thing.
Most people in the computer industry are pretty ethical, but you have to prepare yourself for the bad apples.
If you turn your comptuer over to someone else, REMOVE/DELETE the stuff you don't want seen by someone else.It's just that simple.
If your comptuer is that screwed up, call up a friend you trust to remove your important stuff, then see if you can reinstlal Windows before you drop it off to Geek Squad.
-Jesse