Sky News Samples 6 Computer Repair Shops in London: Guess How Many Tried to Scam Them?
July 26th, 2009
A recent Sky News exposé gives PC repair shops a bad name. A really, really bad name. Sky News conducted a test of 6 repair shops in London. They intentionally broke a laptop by loosening a memory chip – a problem whose solution is just the reverse: put it back firmly in place. Then they installed monitoring tools on the laptop to see what technicians would do with the computer. By the way, those of you in London, DO NOT HAVE YOUR COMPUTER REPAIRED BY THIS GUY:
The results of the exposé are frightening: of the 6 repair shops, only Pix 4 in Shepherds Bush fixed the problem while the Sky News agent waited. The Pix 4 technician didn’t even ask for payment. The other 5 shops did all sorts of jackassery: nearly all of them informed Sky News that the laptop’s motherboard had to be replaced, a false and expensive diagnosis. Worse, the technicians at Laptop Revival in Hammersmith and Digitech in Putney perused the contents of the laptop – Sky News intentionally placed pictures of women in swimwear as well as fake bank details – and copied what they liked. The technician at Laptop Revival even tried to access the fake bank account. Here’s the report:
As the PC Pro article says, please please please back up your data and remove anything sensitive from your computer before sending them in for repairs. And try to get other people’s opinion about a repair shop before entrusting them with your computer, because you never know what’s going to happen if it falls into the hands of jerks like these.
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Categories: Computing Hacks + Mods Technology
Tags: computer england laptop london privacy repair shops scam
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HAHAHA OH WOW.
That is crazy. I can’t believe those people will do that. If you are a PC repair Technician you should have the ethics to do the job right.
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http://www.hobbyistparadise.com
This is the first time I have actually seen this video, but I saw this story on some other websites too. I can’t believe that only one shop found the problem right away. I work for IT support for a local college, and I actually have access to the files that every student, faculty, staff member, and even administrators create. The only information that I don’t have full access to is the critical personal info (like SSN numbers). I would never dream of rooting through peoples files unless I had to for my job.
Oh and one more note, I would have fixed that problem within a minute of looking at it. Re-seating the RAM is always my first thing to check when a computer doesn’t boot. There should have been a beep code too from the motherboard too that would have pointed to a RAM problem too.
we should all mention Pix4 in our blogs/tweets/forums whatever so that they have more links to them than the other stores. Lets stick up for the honest guy!!
Good point.
What software did they use to track these guys down?
The source article mentioned Spector Pro (an event logger) and Digiwatcher (covertly activates a computer’s webcam).
Those are not engineers, those are PC Repair technicians.
Come off of your high horse. What, Mommy and Daddy bought you an Ivy League diploma so you can lord it over the rest of us peons? Fuck off.
I suppose you call a plumber a “fluid dynamic engineer” do you?
worse yet, that pic above is photoshopped!
Uhh…if by photoshopped you mean it’s been resized then yeah. Did you even watch the video? That guy is in the first few seconds.
from now on, i will always take my harddrive off my laptop before take it to a repairshop
And what good will that do? the technician is just going to say your problem is no hard drive….Sigh…..
Being a pc repair technician myself It is reprehensible and totally unethical doing that.
As an addition to the PC pro article: Its no good just backing up your data and removing it. Don’t just use those silly auto back up tools and then delete the material as the deleted files are easily recoverable with free software. Cut and Paste the data to the back up drive as this will physically move the data and leave no trace behind.
BTW If those idiots really knew what they were doing – they’d remove the drive and slave it to go poking around – the little spy progs would be useless then heh heh heh
You are a PC repair technician, and you think cutting and pasting data to another hard-drive magically erases it from the source drive? That’s a big negative. That just does the same thing as a delete: marks the sectors on the hard-drive as free. To actually erase the data from a hard-drive the sectors must be overwritten. This is the same reason why you can recover data from a deleted partition. All you did was delete the entry from the MBR. The data is still there, and you must use a tool like DBAN to overwrite all of the data with scrap.
“Cut and Paste the data to the back up drive as this will physically move the data and leave no trace behind.”
It will leave exactly the same trace behind as just deleting it – the data will be recoverable with free software (or by anyone with computing knowledge). To really leave no trace the data needs to be overwritten in place multiple times using something like DoD rotation where each byte is written 7 or more times with random data.
It scares me that people with so little knowledge can call themselves ‘technicians’.
There was a similar investigation performed in America (I think by Dateline), where they simply disconnected the IDE cable from a computer’s hard-drive. All of the tech support shops they visited (including Geek Squad, I believe) claimed the problem would need to be fixed by all sort of expensive options, such as replacing a motherboard, new hard-drive, etc. Only one small shop took one look, plugged the IDE cable back in, and sent them on their way free of charge.
Friend works for Geek Squad. He copies the contents of every hard drive to back up the data just in case but after the fact proceeds to copy all explicit pics and movies for himself then searches for music. After reading this I asked him if he found any bank info and he told me he does all the time but wouldnt touch it or use it. Kinda blurs that fine line. After speaking with a few others I found that this is more common than you may think. I have done the technician thing for 20 years now and am usually too busy to fudge around on someones PC looking for ways to waste my time.
lol I fixed a few pcs for family and friends and i have to say i always rummage around a little. Its so interesting what you can find out. I would never ever mention anything i do find however i have stopped speaking to one person after fixing his pc with some rather disgusting porn on it.
I mean, if you work on a machine that has nude pictures (in thumbnails) on the desktop, the wallpaper is porn, and even if you come across a suspicious hidden folder called “temp” and accidentally stumble across a porn stash, I am fine with that.
It’s intentionally looking for porn or other personal information and copying it off the computer that’s unacceptable.
This is not really anything new, though. I can recall, years ago, when I worked at Circuit City… The techs in our Customer Service section would always seem to find tapes in video cameras and programs on PCs that they would copy and share. Rarely did any of them pique my interest except the one where a guy was video taping him self dodging in and out of traffic at high speed on his motorcycle and hitting a car.
One good thing that came of their actions was they found child porn on one guys machine and they called the police out. Not sure what happened after that, so I guess there is SOME good that can come from snooping…but it is a fine line there.
It’s very easy to say “just wipe your data before sending it in for repairs”… but most people won’t send a machine in if it boots, anyway – and how are they meant to know how to wipe it if it won’t boot?
Okay, for me it’s 6 screws to take it out, 6 screws into the PC and then a few passes of eraser – but how many non-techie members of the public would?
I run my own PC repair company, and I wholeheartedly agree, they give us a bad rap. I’ll admit to sometimes snooping a little on my clients computers, when they drop them off, but that is all you will ever get out of me. Specifics of what I see is not repeated to anyone, and if I come across something I don’t like, I don’t look there. Simple things like an unseated memory chip, or a loose cable should always be the first things checked. Especially if it is behind an access cover. Personally, I’m glad Geek Squad failed that one.
As far as Geek Squad goes, their employees are threatened with termination if they are caught in the My Documents folder, so that one guy is playing with fire. I was told that by the guy who hired me at the Geek Squad City years ago, so that’s no BS.
Don’t surprise my at all . I’m just wondering how can you get personal info off if the thing don’t work.
Whenever I’ve had to take my laptop in for repair I go change all my important passwords for banking and other websites first. Then when I get it back I change all my system passwords. People call me paranoid but I don’t trust people.
What everyone fails to mention is that these idiots did not even notice the covert software running, aside from fixing the obvious Ram issue if any of this lot were worth the money they charge they would have found the “spyware” running and noted that they were being monitored.
All I have to do is delete my online banking account but theres never more than $5 bucks in there anyway.
kudos to Sky News for naming the names. Some organizations would have joined the scam and covered them up
if you have personal information on your computer and don’t feel like moving it back and forth and you are forced to turn your computer over to a repair shop just encrypt your personal files with TrueCrypt a free utility and fairly simple to use.
Don’t ever trust geek squad, they are just a bunch of zit faced little kids that claim to have A+ certification.
wow, isnt there something called the Hippocratic Oath for computer repair people? When i fix, or try to fix, a friend or relative’s computer, i stay out of their personal stuff. Even my wife’s! Some things are better left unknown….
I am from India and we are all thieves….sadly
Singh thats hilarious..im pretty sure anybody would check lol..hilarious buddy
The guys are clearly Paki
All the PC repair men saying, “I snoop a little, but that’s it!” are just as bad as anyone snooping a lot. Frankly, as someone who is not a PC repair technician, I don’t want any of you nosy mother f*ckers “snooping” whatsoever. You probably wouldn’t want that either. I realize that isn’t going to make you stop, but don’t think snooping a little is somehow okay.
Yeah, I agree.
“I murder a little, but that’s it!”
I wonder if anyone living in the area went into the shop and gave them hell…I would get the boys together and pay those guys a visit..even if just to make fun of them hahahaaha
F*** me! That sucks balls! You know, it’s funny because he looks like a Disney cartoon villain, what with all the black stuff around his eyes.
Shady bastard.
Really good information to help the people who face difficulties to find the computer repair shop.