No Right to Privacy When Having Computer Repaired
(Image is in the Public Domain)
According to a recent case, you have no right to privacy when having your computer repaired.
Tags: 4th Amendment, Circuit City
According to a recent case, you have no right to privacy when having your computer repaired.
Tags: 4th Amendment, Circuit City
If you've been following the case of Micheal Righi, a man who refused to show his receipt at Circuit City and was soon arrested (because he wouldn't show a police officer his ID), you know that our "security society" is pushing people to take away our rights and pushing others to accept it.
Fortunately, Micheal didn't back down, even when presented with a deal where they would drop all charges in exchange for giving up more of his rights.
I was presented with an offer to have my charges dropped in exchange for signing a document which asked the following of me:
I would not file a Section 1983 civil suit against the Brooklyn police department for infringing on my civil rights.
I would not make any disparaging remarks about the police department, with financial repercussions for doing so.
I would not discuss the details of this agreement.
These conditions were completely unacceptable to me.
Unfortunately, Michael and his family could not afford the time, effort, and money involved with a legal battle with the state. He accepted a deal where he gave up his right to sue them in exchange for immediate dismissal of the charges.
Thankfully, he is not under a gag order and can tell us how this turned out, but it's a shame and a crime that the court system is such that only those with enough money get justice.
Speaking of, people have been complaining to Michael about asking for donations such that he's decided to give away all the money donated even though it's $2000 short of what he's paid in legal fees so far. He says he can afford up to $10,000 to protect his rights and wants to remove all doubts about his intentions.
Let me say it again: it's a shame and a crime that the court system is such that only those with enough money get justice.
Tags: Circuit City, Customer Abuse, Receipt Inspection, Your RightsFirst he refused to show his reciept and the Circuit City people blocked his car. Then when he called for the police and they asked for his driver's license, he refused and was arrested.
I'm going to try and follow this case because this guy says there's no law requiring that he show his reciept and also no law requiring that he present ID to the officer. If that's true, I hope he sues both Circuit City and the police station for all their worth. People who abuse consumers and citizens merely because of their ignorance of their rights is one of the main reasons I began this website.
Oh, and in case you don't see the problem, check out this nicely put comment from Slashdot.org:
That bag contained his private property that he had just purchased. He gave them money for it, it's his, not theirs.
Should he be able to inspect their cash registers after his purchase? After all, they contain money that was his just moments before.
Would you feel differently about the privacy implications if he were leaving Wal*Mart and had just filled his prescription for an STD, or to prevent his frequent diarrhea? Pharmacists are licensed professionals, trained on the privacy aspects of their profession. You're saying that I should have to expose my medical condition to any minimum-wage flunkie who gets curious?
Go Michael, go!
He'll continue to update his blog with information on the case. Today's entry included this quote:
You don’t have to stand in front of a tank or refuse to move to the back of the bus to make a difference in the world.Well said.
The Consumerist is featuring a neat expose on Circuit City as told by a former employee. Some of this stuff is scary familiar:
1. When buying any product, expect the salesmen to tell you that after around 13 months, a certain part or battery will need replacing. The common manufacturers warranty only covers 12 months parts and labor, so the customer is pushed to buy the extended warranty under the impression it will fail later…
20. If you don't get the accidental coverage on the item you just purchased that's coming from the warehouse, it may be "accidentally" dropped a few times. It's believed that when the customer comes back in with the messed up computer, that they will then opt for the coverage.
25. Circuit City has laid off over 4 thousand employees recently to hire cheaper workers. They fired associates who were highly ranked in sales and service, and paid well for that reason.
Except that they didn't fire people specifically, they just brought in a new manager to make everyone so miserable they quit. Most notable is the dirty tactics that salespeople will resort to even when they're "not on commission":
4. Every salesman is ranked by the number of protection plans (or extended warranties) that they sell. At my store all the time we would throw on scratch protection plans to CD's, since they're only a buck, most people don't notice. During the $9.99 CD special days, customers who weren't aware of the sale were easy prey.
13. When looking at computers, make sure that the tag you're looking at matches the floor model you're testing. We often would only put the faster computers on display that looked the same, so the customer would think that they're getting this fast computer when in reality, it's for the tag 3 feet away, and it's twice the price.
18. I've seen in the past of people hiding the less expensive speaker wires for car or home theater, or other such cables in the back warehouse. This makes customers buy the more expensive cables, assuming it's all there is.
26. Stores will keep great coupons such as "$10 off when you spend $100" up at customer service next to our ads that we give out. Sometimes they're only for the next week, encouraging that you come back Also almost everyday we were given a 10% off coupon to keep in our pocket in case we needed to give a discount to close a sale, making it look like we're making some special deal for them when really, it's just a plain old coupon that they could have brought.
The thing that Circuit City knows that most people might not is that you don't have to have a commissioned salesforce to make them into ruthless salespeople. Just threaten their job and keep applying more and more pressure to management to get the right "numbers" and it will trickle down.
Tags: Circuit City, Employee AbuseIf you want to learn more about my professional background, click here to learn more.
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