Major Australian Retailer Accused of Selling Infected Hard Drives

skegg writes "Dick Smith, a major Australian electronics retailer, is being accused of regularly selling used hard drives as new. Particularly disturbing is the claim that at least one drive contained malware-infested pirated movies, causing the unlucky buyer significant data loss. Apparently the Fair Trading Commissioner will be conducting an investigation."

Comments

As a former employee...

[Anonymous Coward]

...this kind of thing was prevalent throughout the company. We would frequently be expected to sell used and returned stock without being given any real freedom in regards to marking it down. This led to a culture of lying to customers, especially in cases where it was not evident that the stock had been used.

Of course, used stock would be sold as new to customers all the time.

It even extended to returns on products that were in sealed packaging, despite having a clearly posted 14 day no questions asked refund policy we would be expected to tell customers that we wouldn't provide a refund, even if it was something that wasn't functioning as the customer expected (although within manufacturers specs).