Computer repair rip-offs

Computer repair firms entrusted with a 'faulty' laptop illegally snooped through a customer's personal files and one even tried to hack into her bank account.

An undercover investigation found technicians stealing passwords, overcharging for basic work and nosing through private pictures of the laptop's owner in a bikini.

Investigators wired a new laptop with hidden cameras and spy software that operated without the engineers' knowledge. The laptop had been given an easily identifiable fault: a loose memory chip that stopped the computer from starting. To get it working, the chip simply needed to be popped back into position.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1201483/Undercover-footage-finds-IT-staff-repair-firms-spy-personal-files.html#ixzz0M4xbEjXp

Sky News video
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And people always used to joke about car mechanics ripping people off. These people are giving technicians a bad name, they should be banned from working in IT related jobs due to gross misconduct.

If no one speaks up about being "ripped off" nothing ever comes from it. Universal social law.

"Fripp" wrote:If no one speaks up about being "ripped off" nothing ever comes from it. Universal social law.

Problem being that most people don't know they are being ripped off. If you know enough about computers to diagnose the problem yourself you can probably fix it yourself however if you know nothing about computers you believe what the 'professional' tells you. It's an issue of trust. Plus the dude stealing pictures off the laptop was just a bit wrong.

Investigators wired a new laptop with hidden cameras and spy software that operated without the engineers' knowledge.

That is even more illegal in The Netherlands.

Of course, the guys who repair pc's in this way give others a bad name. But if you are a woman, and you look nice, you can bet your ass that a lot of men in general will try and get a peek. Not good, but a fact nonetheless.

And another thing: many people assume their work computer is "private" or "safe". When its a known fact that a lot of users nowadays run sniffers on company's networks and/or the sysadmins peek in users folders and files for fun, but also because they are instructed to do so by management from time to time and I even know of companies that do it as a standard measure to see what a user has on the PC or is throwing over the network. Also, in NL, this is not by any means allowed. It is being done. Support personnel from mobile phone companies check users text messages too, etc etc. Not to speak of our beloved governments and allied partners that "look" at our data or tap our phones with no reason whatsoever or without anyone's knowledge.

Spying is wrong, m'kay. Not the end of the world though. I bet I can catch guys from the RIAA and MPAA etc. downloading mp3's and movies and games via bittorrent when a keylogger is installed on their computers. People are naturally curious, usually without bad intentions, which does not make it ok, of course.