Original URL: http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/07/09/geek_squad_sting/
Best Buy Geek Squad workers are a caring, sharing, diligent bunch.
In fact some Geek Squaders are so meticulous they will even take a backup of your nudie photos and MP3s while repairing your home PC, without being asked.
According to Consumerist.com, which carried out what it described as a "three-month sting operation", some Geek Squad technicians like nothing more than to take a copy of a customer's personal data, apparently for their own, er, personal use.
As part of the operation to catch a technician stealing files from a customer's computer, consumer-advocate blogger Ben Popken loaded a PC with porn and screen capture software before taking it along to several Geek Squad stores. He then videoed the entire incident (http://consumerist.com/consumer/investigations/video-consumerist-catches-geek-squad-stealing-porn-from-customers-computer-271963.php).
He said, "we captured every cursor movement, every program opened, every file accessed. Everything that the user saw and did, we recorded."
Geek Squad CEO Robert Stephens, said "If this is true, it's an isolated incident and grounds for termination of the agent involved."
However, insiders at the firm have been telling Consumerist a different story.
It claimed that it had reports coming in from all over the US about Geek Squaders filling their boots with porn, music and pictures from customer's computers in California, Virginia, New Jersey, Texas and elsewhere.
Of course, it did take Comsumerist three months to catch a Geek Squader red-handed, and there is nothing to suggest that the same thing couldn't happen at another tech repair centre.
But the best advice is surely, if you're going to take your PC in for repair then it might be an idea to encrpyt those nudie pics of the wife the moment they get uploaded onto the machine. It could just save blushes all round. ®
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