Office Depot Allegedly Diagnosing Computers With Nonexistent Viruses To Meet Sales Goals (consumerist.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Consumerist: A new report claims that some Office Depot employees are falsely claiming computers are infected with viruses in order to meet sales goals. According to KIRO-TV in Seattle, employees of the office supply retailer allege that pressure to sell protection plans and other services has led store staffers to misdiagnose computers with viruses. To investigate the claims, the station took six computers to various Office Depot stores in Washington and Oregon for PC Health Checks. There technicians determined that four out of the six computers showed symptoms of malware. To fix the issues, the employees attempted to sell services costing up to $200. The only problem? The computers were out of the box new. A second test by a unaffiliated computer security firm found no symptoms of malware and no needs for repair. The employee tells KIRO that workers selling the services are just following corporate mandates. To make matters worse, he says, the company posts sales goals and current employee sales in the break room for all to see. This, he claims, creates more aggressive associates to push harder when selling the protection plans for nonexistent programs.

Comments

Of course they have malware

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes they have malware.
That's part of the package that comes on every new computer.
And that is not counting Win 10 - the king of malware.

Bad job market + impossible sales goals

[rsilvergun]

= completely blameless theft for mega corps. Gotta love it. Don't forget kiddos, coffee is for closers.

Re:Bad job market + impossible sales goals

[rednip]

When you have an entire poltical party claiming 'government is bad; regulation is evil' and winning because of it, why would you expect any other result?

Uhhh...

[the_skywise]

"The only problem? The computers were out of the box new."

That's not a guarantee they were malware free. There are many reports of Malware being installed on new systems - even on Slashdot!

"A second test by a unaffiliated computer security firm found no symptoms of malware and no needs for repair."

But that's proper proof!

Tip of the iceberg

[Tablizer]

I'm pretty sure cheating-to-reach-sales-goals is quite common and inflicts lots of industries. The techniques, psychology, and practices used by Wells Fargo and Office Depot are common to corporations.

Ghost services and their fees have "accidentally" been added to our telecom bills on multiple occasions, for example.

I've even worked for companies that have paid me to lie to clients (not consumers). The body language of managers pushing to do such suggested it was common and expected. It was either really good acting to convince me it's normal and risk-free, or it is indeed common and expected to them. Either of those scenarios is evil.

It's one reason why talk of deregulation makes me nervous. It's not just trickle-down, but slime-down.

In a sane job market,

[Spy Handler]

workers forced into this type of a situation by management would say "F___ you" and walk out. Maybe get a job in manufacturing.

Except we don't have a sane job market, manufacturing jobs have been decimated in the name of profit (management calls it "globalism" and "free trade"). Other manual jobs are equally hard to come by, due to the large scale importation of low-cost laborers (management calls it "open borders" and "dreamers").

Let's be honest here, sales associates at Office Depot or Wells Fargo aren't exactly MIT material. They can't retrain and become doctors or aerospace engineers. Manufacturing used to be one place where non-rocket scientists could go and make a decent living, and now that''s gone.

Not new....

[beheaderaswp]

Wow- again?

The problem is that people think these places have qualified techs. They don't (in my opinion). And they are not forced to have qualified techs because the customer has no idea how their appliances work. So they can get away with it, mostly, and not get caught unless someone actually looks.

The other (big) problem is that these companies engage in price competition so viciously that they cannot make money on what they sell- they have to make money on selling services that are essentially useless.

I saw this going on in the early 90s when CompUSA was petrified that Best Buy would be coming into their markets. First it was price match. Then it was sales goals (for non commissioned employees). Then it was selling extended service. Then is was in-house CompUSA credit.... Then PDAs... and right before they closed- phones....

Of course it didn't work. If you give up the profit on the main thing you sell, you cannot make it up with add-ons. So the company failed.

Best Buy took it to a new art form. Extended warranty, art of the up-sell, credit card sales in the isles, and finally the "Geek Squad". Best Buy is still limping along... not for long. I wonder if they are still doing jumping jacks before the store opening?

And Office Depot.... taking advantage of customers with fictitious computer problems and viruses. I bet they only arrived there after the extended warranty, in house credit-card, in-house tech services failed to make them a profit.

These kinds of happenings are rife in the brick and mortar retail tech industry. There are exceptions... but if all they do is compete on price- eventually add-ons fail to save the company.

Then the company puts pressure on it's staff.... then corruption starts.....it's predictable.

Re:Used to work here, and...

[Anonymous Coward]

You were manning the glory hole in the stalls?

No Jail = Problems [Re: Tip of the iceberg]

[Tablizer]

I worked at a place where a clerk in accounting manipulated the bills to trick customers to send refunds to her own bank. The clerk got away with about $10k (in current dollars) before caught. She lost about the same in pension when fired, but was NOT turned over to law enforcement.

She seemed like a nice person, but grew quiet during the period she was cheating.

A similar crime happened about 2 years later by somebody else in the same accounting department. That's what happens when they are not jailed: you send a message that the risk is small.

It would hurt company stock and reputation to prosecute, so they don't do anything about it. The company deserved the 2nd one.

Mod parent up

[rsilvergun]

this is what happens when you put people in charge of gov't that don't believe gov't can do anything. Christ, it's like people don't even know what NASA and the Post Office are or the miracles they represent.

Re:Mod parent up

[MitchDev]

"this is what happens when you put people in charge of gov't that don't believe gov't can do anything."

Nah, this is what happens when you put people in charge of gov't that don't WANT the gov't to do anything to protect consumers, only increase the wealth of the already wealthy....