Undercover Cameras Catch PC Repair Scams, Privacy Violations 665
Barence writes "With help from readers of PC Pro, Sky News in the UK launched an undercover investigation into rogue PC repair shops. As a result, Sky's cameras caught technicians scouring through private photos, stealing passwords and over-charging for basic repairs. It was a simple enough job: 'To create the fault, we simply loosened one of the memory chips so Windows wouldn't load. To get things working again, one needs only push the chip back into the slot and reboot the machine. Any half-way competent engineers should fix it in minutes.' But these technicians had other ideas, stealing photos and documents, as well as login details for email and bank accounts."
No wonder my honeymoon photos are all over 4chan (Score:4, Funny)
Stupid geek squad!
Re:Halfway Competent (Score:5, Funny)
Fully competent engineers make the best PC repairmen.
Halfway competent engineers should stick to engineering.
Re:No wonder my honeymoon photos are all over 4cha (Score:2, Funny)
...only in the chubby threads...
-- Ethanol-fueled. Captcha: conquered
How to get back at them (Score:5, Funny)
1) Collect images of goatse, lemonparty, etc
2) Move to folder marked "Private"
3) Loosen memory chip
4) Bring computer to snoopy repair shop.
5) Laugh as crooked tech's scream "Augghh, my eyes!"
(there is no ???, but there also is no profit. Sorry)
PC Work (Score:3, Funny)
I don't like to do PC work for people that I work with. Just to keep things professional. So I sent some work to a friend of mine who was looking for some work. Initially he did a great job, and several people started spreading the word and got him a few more jobs. After a year or so, I started hearing complaints. Jobs not being done right or slowly, couldn't contact him, or couldn't get their machine back. One person at work ended up taking him to small claims court to get their computer back.
I found out later he was addicted to WOW and that was what was causing him to be a knob.
Re:Not just in UK. (Score:5, Funny)
I think I will google for "cantopop" first...
Re:Deliberately breaking the motherboard? (Score:3, Funny)
them: Oy! wtf!? Why have you been doing your own soldering work on your laptop?
customer: Why have I been doing what? huh?
them: Soldering! This - right here - why would you do that to your own machine?
customer:
Re:Halfway Competent (Score:3, Funny)
Current impressions of the job market aside, why would someone qualified for a profession who can earn upwards of $100,000 per year, work in PC repair, where even the better management jobs pay less than half that?
Because they get to steal photos and documents, as well as login details for email and bank accounts...
I'm pretty sure they don't report the revenue from those activities either, so it's like an untaxed bonus.
Education alone does not insure honesty or integrity.
Re:Surprising? (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Surprising? (Score:5, Funny)
Old story that illustrates your point: (Score:5, Funny)
Back in the days when all computers were mainframes, a company's computer stopped working, so they hired a consultant to fix it. The consultant walked in, took out a small hammer and tapped the computer, which started working. He billed the company $1000.
The CEO was outraged, and demanded that a detailed bill be sent. The bill came back:
Tapping computer with small hammer - $1
Knowing where to tap - $999
Re:My experience in China (Score:5, Funny)
"A lot" is two words. You wouldn't say "alittle", would you?
iwould
Re:!surprising (Score:4, Funny)
"Anecdotally, the first laptop I ever owned was a Dell, and I had to send it in for service after it was damaged in a car accident."
Those Dell laptops, always speeding, weaving through traffic, flipping you the bird if you're going too slow. Its only a matter of time before they get into an accident. The shame little Latitude or Inspiron must feel when their parents Optiplex and Precision watch the video of their children failing a roadside field sobriety test.
Re:Surprising? (Score:5, Funny)
"$7.25/hr isn't a sane amount of money for a computer technician in the US."
That's why you need a tip jar.
Let's see what tips I've got, being a tech in a computer store....
1) $10 every four or five months,
2) $20 maybe once a year,
3) repeated offers to get in on a pyramid scheme,
4) an offer to witness me convert religions and, when I declined, a promise that the offerer would pray that I would see the light, as I might die tomorrow and be cast into the firey pit with all the other unsaved,
5) an offer to go to a certain motel at a certain time to meet some people for a reason the person wasn't willing to entirely clarify beyond "It's easy money!",
6) a suggestion that the customer's Eastern European niece was a real nice girl and I should e-mail her, maybe start a relationship,
7) and a dude who said I could burn a copy of his 'barely legal cheerleaders being spanked' porn collection.
Re:Big deal (Score:5, Funny)
the time I would spend fixing my aunt virus infected computer
Perhaps you should consider some auntie virus software... Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week. Try the veal!
Re:Steal passwords (Score:5, Funny)
So if you see my Slashdot account start going crazy and posting nonsense, it's not me.
HAHAHA DISREGARD THAT, I SUCK COCKS
Re:Problem fixation, or diagnosing sabotage (Score:2, Funny)
Turns out the guy had installed a 3rd party fan for his CPU, except the connector on it was different than the one his previous fan had, and his mobo didn't have the proper connection.
This apparantly led him to believe the proper thing to do would be cut the connector off, strip the end of the wire, and (how do i describe this accurately?) poke the bare wire in through the back of a power connector hooked up the hard drive.
After having a good laugh and fixing the issue, he then tried to accuse me of being the one to do such a thing to his comp, and tried to get out of paying the bench fee.
Customer FAIL.
Re:Halfway Competent (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Halfway Competent (Score:1, Funny)
lmao.. she tells you that there are naked pics of her on her computer and then gives you the computer and you *dont* look? lmao