Should Apple Give Back Replaced Disks?

theodp writes "As if having to pay $160 to replace a failed 80-GB drive wasn't bad enough, Dave Winer learned to his dismay that Apple had no intention of giving him back the disk he paid them to replace. Since it contained sensitive data like source code and account info, Dave rightly worries about what happens if the drive falls into the wrong hands. Which raises an important question: In an age of identity theft and other confidentiality concerns, is it time for Apple — and other computer manufacturers — to start following the practice of auto mechanics and give you the option of getting back disks that are replaced?"

Comments

Always?

[mastershake_phd]

Do you always get your part back at the mechanic? Aren't some parts "cores" used to make remanufactured parts? Just like PC drives?

Re:Always?

[darkhitman]

Do car parts have your social security number on them? No? Bit different, then.

Curious

[Sorthum]

I was just thinking about this today. I'd expect that this would be the case for a warranty drive repair, but when the customer bought a new drive? The old part should definitely remain the property of the customer...

Re:Curious

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously don't know how to hide a knife properly! (next time, try hiding it in the guard's eye socket. Always works for me)

Option on returned parts?

[taustin]

In most states, the consumer does not have the option to have the old parts returned, they have the right to have the old parts returned. Where laws are properly enforced, it's a rather big deal if the mechanics doesn't do so.

And yes, the laws regarding computer repair should be the same.

Dell Already dose this.

[Forge]

Right there on the "customize your system" page for many (if not all) Dell Machines is the option to keep your defective disks after they have been replaced.

It costs a little extra and coming from the field support arena I know why.

Whenever you replace a part under warranty they take the old one. Not because they have use for it but to make sure you don't. Imagine an unscrupulous person who would call in "My drive is broken" then when the tech replaces the drive, he just turns around and sells the old one (which was fine anyway).

The same logically applies to other components and Dell only makes this special exemption for Hard drives because that's where the data is stored.

Re:Dell Already dose this.

[Tmack]

... Whenever you replace a part under warranty they take the old one. Not because they have use for it but to make sure you don't. Imagine an unscrupulous person who would call in "My drive is broken" then when the tech replaces the drive, he just turns around and sells the old one (which was fine anyway).
...
Right, but if he payed for the new drive, then it was not a warranty replacement, it was a new purchase + install, so the old *dead* part should still be his. Basically, apple is doing what you described, but they are the unscrupulous person in this case, taking your money and the drive, then either getting the warranty $$ from the manufacturer (or more likely credit for another drive), or are simply wiping it and re-using it in the next victim's computer.

I know when I worked in a computer shop, we left the dead parts on top of the computer to give to the user when they came back. Most would just tell us to toss the parts, so we had a big bin full of "dead" stuff, most of which truly was dead. We never kept things unless it actually WAS an issue covered by warranty, and then the customer got the savings passed to them. If this is truly happening, Apple has a nice scam going on.

tm

Re:Dell Already dose this.

[Forge]

Ohh...

Where I come from (Jamaica) that's simple theft. If I bought a new part and payed you to replace it the old part is still mine.

I may choose to have you dispose of it or to sell it to you as reusable scrap. The choice is mine however. And again the reason is simple and has nothing to do with personal data.

If you have a loose IDE cable and I tell you "The drive is dead" then sell you a replacement and keep the old drive, I can then sell that old drive. My profit would be 100% of the sale price.

Screwing over the customer so you can sell his stuff? Most jurisdictions discourage that :)

Absolutely.

[bigstrat2003]

If there's sensitive information on the drive, you have every right to want it back (especially if it wasn't warranty work). Apple deserves the highest possible mark of shame for this disregard for the security of their customers' information, it's absolutely not permissible.

It's an option

[Maeric]

I work as a Tier 1 agent for AppleCare and I can assure you that getting your hard drive back for a mail-in repair is an option; however, most Tier 1 agents do not know how to put this request in so it's not often done correctly. It's definitely not a standard, and if a hard drive is replaced through a mail-in repair the minimum price would be a flat-rate repair which is at least $249 but oftentimes it is more than that.

Re:It's an option

[toddestan]

What kind of flat rate is that?

It's like the Mighty Mouse. Atleast one button, but oftentimes it is more than that.

Re:It's an option

[ColdWetDog]

... the minimum price would be a flat-rate repair which is at least $249 but oftentimes it is more than that.

What kind of flat rate is that?

A Reality Field Distorted flat rate (kind of all curvy, that sort of thing).

Encrypted FS

[Matt Perry]

This is a good reason to use an encrypted filesystem if you can.

Kind of a whiner

[giminy]

From the story, a few things appear evident:

This Macbook was not under warranty, or the hard disk replacement would have been free.
The $160 that the author is scoffing at isn't that outrageous if you consider that he paid for a hard disk and the labor to install it (though if his generation of macbook is anything like mine, replacing the hard drive is a snap. Still, using his auto analogy, mechanics get to charge you $100 labor to install your brake pads, even though it takes them only a few minutes).
If he had demanded the old disk and made a scene, he probably could have gotten it back.

I agree that saying that the old hard disk is theirs is lame as hell, and he's rightfully angry about that. It's probably the only point of the author's that holds water. There are alternatives to the Apple Store for repair, though. CompUSA was one (though it's now going out of business). There are other Apple Authorized Service Shops, like Ikon Solutions, and the old-skool Apple stores (privately owned ones, of which many still exist).

I once decided to have an old iBook's hard disk upgraded. I took it to CompUSA (please don't snicker, the iBook was under warranty, CompUSA is/was apple authorized so it meant saving my warranty, and this was around the year 2000, before Apple Stores were everywhere). When I took it in, I simply asked to keep the old drive and they were happy to put it in a static bag for me.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Wait a second...

[VValdo]

What if the data on the drive can be recovered? What if there are credit card numbers and other personal information on the drive? Source code? Trade secrets? Does Apple really want to treat their customers privacy so shabbily? For what? Don't they already make enough money off the $160 price for the new disk?

Here's another question for ya-- why didn't you use FileVault? Y'know apple throws it in OS X for ya for *free* for a reason...

W

Always Read Before You Sign Anything

[D.A. Zollinger]

I cannot count how many times I have heard this advice, yet it bears out repeating over and over and over again - do not sign ANYTHING without reading it first. This is the person's mistake, and he willingly admits to his mistake. It is a shame that it happened at an Apple store, but to be honest, it could have been anywhere, even an automotive repair shop.

The only reason automobile mechanics must give you a replaced part if you ask for it is so that you can get a second opinion afterwards, thus hoping to reduce fraud that tends to run rampant at some questionable automotive places where either through technician ignorance, negligence, or through purposeful managerial policy, a part is replace that does not need to be replaced.

Apple has a legitimate reason for keeping the drive which is described on the form given to the customer - it believes the drive can be fixed and sold. As a paying customer, you are a part of that economic system. If you do not wish to participate, that is your prerogative, and with standardization of components, you are more than welcome to find an alternative (which ironically the consumer considered and should have pursued).

Re:Always Read Before You Sign Anything

[adolf]

The only reason a mechanic gives you the option of retaining your failed car parts is because they are your property. You own them. You can do whatever you want with them. Make them into paperweights, industrial art projects, second opinions, sell them for scrap - whatever you want. They're still yours. Core charges or not, "Remove and Replace" != "Remove, Replace, Recycle."

When I have my car serviced, I fully expect that all of my old parts are sitting in a pile somewhere, waiting for me to claim/disclaim them. Of course, my mechanic doesn't have me sign anything with annoying fine print on it before he begins work, like it seems that Apple does.

But signed agreement or no, it seems like bad business. When a customer gives me a computer, or a TiVo, or whatever and asks me to fix it, every part (screws, dead fans, hard drives, bulging capacitors, whatever) I remove goes into a box. After the repair is complete, I offer whatever remains in that box back to the customer.

Usually they decide that they don't want it, but until that decision is made then those extra/failed parts remain theirs.

There's a couple of exceptions to this:

Warranty work. Like exchanging a screwdriver at Sears, there's no expectation that one will retain ownership of the old item if it is being replaced under warranty.

Contracts and agreements. In the audio business, years ago, we sometimes sold substantial upgrades to commercial PA systems which weren't at all broken, but which the customer just wanted to have work better or be more flexible. It wasn't uncommon to have verbiage in the quotation which would permit us to remove and dispose of all upgraded/displaced equipment in a manner we saw fit. The potential to re-sell (or re-use) some of this old gear was definitely a factor in the price of an upgrade, and it would generally save the customer some money if they'd let us keep the old gear. But without being upfront and telling them that it would be part of the deal, taking these old components would have been theft

Re:Always Read Before You Sign Anything

[Kadin2048]

I think you're ignoring the real reason why the mechanic offers you the parts back: it's the law. Not even just general property-law (which it ought to be) but -- in most states, anyway -- part of very specific laws governing automobile repair.

Frankly I think it's time to see this generalized out to include computer repair as well, or at least to devices that can contain data, but I don't expect to see it happen until there are a few more high-profile cases of misuse or abuse of confidential information by technicians (or people further down in the refurbish/refuse cycle).

Re:Always Read Before You Sign Anything

[pimpimpim]

You are totally right with this advice, BUT:

I don't know how fast you can read, but reading through the standard EULA is a hard task for most of us. It also depends on the product. When considering a DSL, server, or mobile phone contract I'll check first to see the rules on ending the contract (because this will be the most expensive part), and if they mention a Fair Use Policy or a way to cap data transfer above a certain limit, not to get into huge costs. The rest of the text I'll leave it for what it is. And the only reason why I read these things is because I had bad experiences in the past, otherwise I wouldn't have known about them.

When consider buying a 8 euro headset, would I read the standard eula? Would you?

Reading EULAs is a time-consuming activity that sometimes doesn't even help you further in knowing what you're up to because of the "encrypted" legal language. And you really need to know what you are looking for. In that respect, it is actually useful to read slashdot and especially forums on the product of your interest and get info on cases like these.

Re:Always Read Before You Sign Anything

[Karl Cocknozzle]

I work in a call center for a bank, and I don't know how many times I tell people that they signed a particular agreement binding us and them to something. And that they should have read it prior to signing but people really don't take the time, usually five minutes, to read anything.

It is possible (even likely) that the customer DIDN'T sign anything binding them to whatever objectionable terms you're referring to... The reason for this is that banks, credit-card issuers, and other financial institutions usually bury a clause in anything signed by any customer that says something to the effect of:

"And we can change these terms any time we see fit, and are only required to inform you after the change has already happened. IF you do not accept the new terms, your only recourse is to cancel your account and stop doing business with us--which also incidentally makes 100% of any amount owed INSTANTLY due for payment. Also, you're agreeing to be bound by those new terms from the date they are implemented until you cancel your account, because by opening the account you're "pre-agreeing" to these terms taht we haven't made up yet."

And that, my friend, makes the agreement meaningless and worthless. If one party can change it AT WILL, you really don't have a contract... You have extortion. It also, literally, means that nobody can read everything... Because even when you GET informed about the changes, they don't send you the modified agreement in its entirety--they send you the changed portion. so unless you made a photocopy of the original, you are being informed of the changes to an original YOU DON'T HAVE. Once, I received an "Amended customer agreement" from a credit-card company that was one page, inded only one SENTENCE long, and it said the following:

On Page 2, Section 1 of the original, paragraph 1 sentence 2, clause 3 is hereby amended to include the phrase "And all others as we see fit."

And before you say "Well, you should have saved a copy" I challenge you to immediately produce for me every copy of every agreement you've ever signed with your creditors. If you can't, you're a rank hypocrite defending an indefensible corporate swindle.

Now, that's not to say that I don't read everything. I do, and I even make an effort to strike through patently objectionable clauses (like the one above) and initial them, but 1) Some companies will not accept modified/amended agreements and 2) I don't always see/grok all the objectionable clauses right away because I AM NOT A LAWYER. Should I really be required to keep an attorney on retainer so I can accomplish something as simple as opening a checking-account? Or getting an oil-change?

When it came time I looked, and read, every single piece of paperwork, and found that my monthly payment had an extra $300 tacked to it. I looked at the paralegal, who just wanted to be done and go home, and told her to call the bank because I didn't agree to that in my original paperwork that I was given.

Unless you are an attorney, you violated the cardinal rule of real-estate... DON'T DO A CLOSING WITHOUT AN ATTORNEY WHO REPRESENTS YOU LOOKING OVER THE PAPERS. That $300 "miscalculation" likely wasn't a "mistake." Mortgage brokers are some of the sleaziest operators around--you will not find a more wretched den of scum and villainy than their annual convention. If a layman like you spotted this "error" there were probably tons of other "junk fees" in there too that you weren't really obligated to pay... I have done about a dozen property closings over the years and I have always gotten more "junk-fees" taken off the tab than I paid the lawyer to do the closing. I have come out like $5k ahead over the last decade doing this.

Further, I'd guess since you work in a call-center, you're not very old/life-experienced just yet... Chances are they saw your DOB on the papers and decided to see how much extra they could screw you out of... Chances are the payment

Re:Always Read Before You Sign Anything

[duffbeer703]

Yeah, I feel for you.

Shocking that consumers who typically don't see the contract until the very end of the purchasing process, and typically receive a copy of their 10-page contract, written in highly technical legal language on a tiny, folded piece of paper in a 3 point font don't know what they're getting into.

And if they read and can understand the contract, they find that the terms are non-negotiable, require that you agree to waive right to sue in court, and allow the vendor to arbitrarily change the contract.

So I hope your customers/victims screw you out of every dime possible.

Im a computer geek so I know better but...

[cyberjock1980]

I'm sure everyone here remembers the geeksquad incident with people looking for porn and trying to compile a collection of all the porn they could. Or the guy this week that got arrested because a rep at CompUSA(I think) found kiddie porn on his computer while looking for pictures to put on a DVD to test the drive they just installed. It is in the nature of some people they are going to spy on other people's drives. Especially so here in the USA. Not sure why but people seem to be addicted with getting into everyone else's personal lives.

Now, just because you got the disk back doesn't mean they didn't look over your data anyway. I always encrypt my drives completely with a FDE program. That way if it does fall into the wrong hands they can't do anything with it anyway. My personal opinion, if you don't want someone going through your drive, you should either:

1. Take it to a repair center and watch them do the repair.
2. Take it to a friend/relative whom you know won't go fishing through your stuff.
3. Learn to fix it yourself.
4. Replace it yourself and use those handy dandy backups(you did do backups right?)
5. Suck it up and accept that some minimum wage freak is gonna go through all your stuff with a fine toothed comb looking for goodies.

Now, #5 might not be a big deal if you have something like source code, they might not know enough about programming to realize what they have and how valuable it is if they wanted to use it against you. In the end, it would be great if the IT industry had some kind of checks and balances to keep everyone honest and separate those who are honest from those who are lying kniving thieves, but this is the world we live in. Until someone can come up with an effective way to keep everyone honest, FDE is needed.

Me personally.. if I had a drive that wasn't encrypted I'd value the data and the cost of the replacement drive. If losing the data to the wrong hands could cost you millions of dollars, a $200 drive isn't too much to throw out yourself and replace. If it has no real value then why not RMA it? The choice is yours, so make it a good one.

You don't get warranty parts back

[mrmeval]

for consumer electronics. I worked at a warranty center for 35 brands and to keep fraud to a dull roar the wanted the parts back. We'd fill out all the paperwork, stick it and the parts in a bin and wait for the field rep to audit them. Then they'd take them back or tell us to dispose of them.

I assume it's similar in other industries. It's way too easy to claim you replaced a set of brake pads or that microprocessor and not do it but get the money for the part.

Since the party paying is the manufacturer then they get the old parts back.

Let's put this in perspective

[Matt Perry]

Quoting the article:

He got his supervisor. She insisted that the drive belonged to Apple, even though I had paid an inflated price to buy a new one. She showed me the language on the reverse side of the form I signed. It was even worse than she had said. There was no guarantee that the drive they had just put in my Mac was new! It might have been someone else's defective drive.

I just can't sympathize with this guy. It's always important to read and understand the things you sign. He says "I think they should tell you up front, before they do the work, that you're not getting the old drive back." yet they did tell him up front. He didn't choose to listen, or in this case read. Who in their right mind signs a legal contract without understanding, or even knowing, what they are agreeing to? My parents taught me a lot of life lessons and two that come to mind here are:

1. If you don't have an agreement in writing, you don't really have an agreement.
2. Never sign anything without having read and understood what you are signing.

Making excuses about "fine print" is just a way for lazy people to justify their laziness when it comes to reading a contract. This guy has no one to blame but himself.

Mod parent up

[mr_matticus]

With the small, truck-sized caveat that axiom number 1 is entirely untrue, this is good advice.

Number 1 should be rephrased to say "If you want to secure an agreement, do it in writing." As written, the converse is not true--an agreement without writing does indeed exist and has consequences all the time. It's like the mythical "it's not a contract unless I signed it" that also isn't true but will never die.

Still, unless he requested the part back up front, that drive became Apple's property as soon as the replacement was installed. Also, unless it was requested and required that the drive be returned, there's likely no way it can be recovered. It got binned with the other bad drives.

This is a simple case of whining because the customer didn't really know what the hell he was doing, when all he needed to know was right in front of him the whole time, not bound in some dusty, obscure location in an archaic form of legalese.

Re:What?

[EvanED]

This is standard practice in the industry; components replaced under warranty have to be replaced...

Except that this was replaced beyond the warranty; it cost him $160. At that price I would expect to actually be buying a drive, not trading in an old one. 80 GB laptop drives on Newegg range from $55 to $88, which means that, at $160, installation is between $72 and $105. That's already fairly high, but I'm willing to grant Apple that they have to worry about breaking more, and need to have a profit too. But that price plus the old drive? That's voluntary highway robbery!

It's his loss for signing the contract without reading it, but that doesn't mean that we can't sit back here and berate Apple for being stupid.

No meeting of the minds

[etymxris]

Contracts require "meeting of the minds". And again, there was a reasonable expectation that he would be able to keep his old drive, given that he was paying way over retail for the new one. You can't impose any condition you please just by burying it under 10 pages of fine print. Imagine buying a new car and getting ready to drive off when the salesman says, "Oh yeah, the ten page contract you signed stipulates that we get to keep your old car," when nothing of the sort was mentioned before. While it is typical to get trade in value for a car you are replacing, no one is going to accept such a trade in unless it is explicitly mentioned and negotiated beforehand. Maybe you had planned to give the car to your son, or sell it yourself.

Similarly, it is typical that the trade in value of the old drive factors into the price of replacement and repair, but it must be made explicit. The exception is when replacing a drive under warranty. It is generally understood that a warranty guarantees you a working set of components, and so it would be expected that in replacing a component, the warranter keeps the broken unit to recover any possible remaining value and to discourage warranty fraud. However, this did not happen under warranty. The price for repair was much greater than the cost of typical drive, so there is no way that the customer could have reasonably expected that the $160 was based on the store keeping his old drive. I think the customer could easily win this in small claims court. He'd get his old drive and money back, and the store would get the replacement drive back. He could then his laptop to another store and renegotiate the repair of his laptop.

Re:Remember kids.

[pelorus]

Actually for a smart guy, Dave Winer (and Robert Scoble) seem to have terrible judgement.

First off, with going direct to Apple - retaining your disk is but a phone call away and a credit card charge. Really. Speak to Customer Services.

If you decide to go to an Apple Authorised Service Provider (disclosure: I own one) then it's entirely at the discretion of the Service Provider. They can withhold the disk and ask you to pay for the charge Apple might levy for an "official Apple part" or you can go for a "third party" disk (cos, yes, they're all third party!) and get a new disk, at retail prices AND keep your disk!

This isn't so much as a YRO item as a "Why didn't you ask for your disk back when you handed over the machine" item? Shouldn't Slashdot have a Bozo Alert category?

Re:This happened to me. But...

[timeOday]

I'll bet that magnet didn't do a thing.

How I handled my MacBook drive replacement

[DTemp]

I'm entering this conversation late, but here it is, how I handled it when my MacBook's 80GB drive died:

I sat down for my appointment at the Genius Bar. I asked him if I would get to keep the drive, since I was worried about my data. He said no, since they have to return the dead drive to the manufacturer. Fine, I agreed with that, so I asked if he could certify that the drive was indeed "dead" and worthy of replacement, so I could take it home and sandpaper the platters. He said that was fine; I didn't take his word for it, and made sure the manager was okay with it, in case his shift ended and there was no record that my drive was officially declared under warranty repair.

So I went home, and completely took out the platters, and put back together the case of the drive (sans platters) and took it back to the Apple store.

They put a new drive in my MacBook without fuss, and took the old drive's metal shell to give back to the manufacturer. I don't know if this scenario is officially endorsed by the corporate office, but it worked at the Cambridge, MA Apple store.