14 DAY TRIAL // While making a movie about the hard rock band called The Angels, a filmmaker from Sydney was shocked after he discovered that his newly purchased Seagate 1.5 terabyte hard drive contained pieces of malware and tons of pirated movies.
According to The Sidney Morning Herald, Darryl Manson purchased an allegedly new hard drive from Dick Smith with the purpose of backing up the footage he had filmed for the documentary.
Manson paid $129 (90 EUR) for the 1.5 terabyte portable unit (according to the label), but when he plugged it in to his computer he realized that in reality he could store only 30 gigabytes, most of which was already filled with pirated movies such as Toy Story.
He immediately started tweeting about what the merchant had done, and after the store’s representatives saw the posts, they sent someone to Manson’s house with a replacement hard drive.
Unfortunately for him, some nasty viruses infected his computer and corrupted some of the video files he was using for the motion picture. He believes that the malware couldn’t have come from somewhere else since the laptop he uses is not connected to the Internet and nothing is ever plugged into it except for his video camera.
Dick Smith admits to selling second hand units as new, but their representatives claim that they have procedures to thoroughly check them before they’re resold. They report that in this specific situation, the hard drive in question was returned by another customer.
The Fair Trading Commissioner plans on conducting an investigation to reveal if the retailer is in the habit of selling used goods as new ones without telling their customers.
"The issue of reconditioned (or returned) goods being sold by electronics retailers is a matter which arises from time to time, and the Minister has asked that the Fair Trading Commissioner investigate this issue and consider any evidence that it may be widespread and systemic," an NSW Fair Trading spokesman told SMH.
After the story was published, a large number of customers and former employees came forward to state that Dick Smith and other retailers practice these unorthodox methods for selling their merchandise.
A former staffer who had worked there for three years said that USB sticks, hard drives and computers were sold in this manner. While there are policies in place to handle used or returned devices, he states they’re rarely followed.