Fergie's Tech Blog

'Destroyed' Hard Drives at Best Buy Find Way to Flea Markets

Ryan Singel writes over on 27 BStroke 6:

Couple goes to Best Buy to get new hard drive, told old drive will be physically destroyed and one year later, Ed from Chicago calls up and says he bought their hard drive for $25 at a flea market.

Couple freaks out since Chicago Ed has their social security numbers, account numbers and more-than-slightly-embarrassing-Yacht-Rock-heavy Napster collection, so they put fraud notification on their credit reports and get the drive back from Ed.

Best Buy says it's looking into whether the idea of having outlet stores in flea markets is a good idea.

Moral of the story for citizens: Always destroy your own hard drive yourself (I personally prefer the 20-pound sledgehammer method to the overwrite 20 times method).

Moral of the story for Best Buy: Never admit anything wrong, instead you should market this is your Web 2.0 backup service.

posted by Fergie @ 6/01/2006 10:20:00 AM