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Phil’s Ramblings
ed, and now it has to pay $25 million monies to
the FTC. “
Birthday to us! Founded in How-To Geek lists two sources as reference for
appy
1983 by J.J. and friends, LCACE turns 36 this news; here are the provided links: https://
this month! Technology has changed over arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/03/office-
the years (and so have we), but our core val- depot-tricked-people-into-buying-pc-support-with
ue remains – “Members helping Members!”. -fake-virus-scans/ and https://gizmodo.com/
office-depot-agrees-to-pay-25-million-to-ftc-over-
Speaking of members, April is our official scam-1833655854.
membership renewal month. If you have not
already done so, please sign up for a new The FTC has also published a blog about this
year with Judy Dunham or J.J. and slip them case; you can read it here: https://
an “Andrew” ($20 bill) as annual dues! And,
encourage past members whom you might www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2019/03/office-
know to once again become involved in our depot-computer-scans-gave-fake-results?
club. Assure them that we are prioritizing our utm_source=govdelivery. Note that the FTC
presentation choices by need / interest rather blog and related press release talk about using
than available speaker – to provide the best the money received from the fines in this case to
possible return on their investment of time reimburse customers. If you feel that you have
each month. been victimized in this way, you should keep in
The big technology news this month involves touch with the FTC to learn about possible resti-
questionable business practices at Office De- tution.
pot / OfficeMax.
These articles report the same story – up until
Here is what the company says in the 2016 the office supply company partnered with a
“Compliance & Ethics” portion of their web- software company in a scheme to return
site: “infected” results for most free PC check-up
“The foundation of Office Depot's culture is scans, leading to many customers paying for un-
based on our core values: Integrity, Account- needed “remedial” actions. Before scanning,
ability Innovation, Teamwork and Respect. customers were asked to complete a question-
These values guide our decision making and naire about how their computer was running. If
how we act as a company. At Office Depot, they checked any box that indicated a problem,
we strive to conduct ourselves and our busi- the scan would confirm that there was a problem
ness with uncompromising honesty and in- that required correction by the store.
tegrity. We make this commitment on a glob-
al scale to our customers, business partners, Employees received favorable ratings and/or bo-
associated and shareholders because it is nuses for hitting revenue targets from these
the right thing to do.” rigged check-ups; store managers who failed to
meet their revenue targets were pressured to
Here is what How-To Geek has just reported improve performance.
in their latest email newsletter:“Office Depot
has been rigging PCs—even new ones!— In November 2016, a Seattle TV station ran an
with tainted malware scans to upsell virus exposé about these fraudulent practices, as part
and malware removals services. It got bust-
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