Fuck Radio Shack. It’s forever been my final, FINAL desperation stop when in dire need of technology or batteries. Mostly batteries. Fuck them even harder after reading this news — they’re selling customer’s personal info to the highest bidder in an attempt to not go out of business.
From The Guardian via Gawker:
The highly sensitive information (SSNs and the like) is retained at stores for two years and then purged. Less sensitive purchase records were expunged after three years in some cases, but RadioShack kept them “indefinitely” if customers bought a warranty, so if you bought insurance on your television in 1998, RadioShack remembers.
Now the company is trying to determine how much it will be able to legally sell in an effort to keep creditors at bay. It has decided emails and addresses are probably what it wants to sell, specifically “67 million customer name and physical mailing address files together with any associated transaction data collected by the Debtors within the five (5) year period prior” to its bankruptcy, according to a recommendation by the company’s attorney, Elise Frejka.
Back in the 1990’s, people would hand out socials like they were…um…numbers that didn’t mean that much because identity theft wasn’t nailing people left and right. So giving out a social for a warranty on a TV wasn’t the craziest notion but…seriously, fuck Radio Shack for convincing people warranties are necessary.
I’d like to think there’s something that former Radio Shack customers can do about this but, sadly, there probably isn’t so just keep an eye on your credit.
[via Gawker]