Seattle's KIRO TV made undercover visits to Office Depot stores in Washington state and Oregon and asked the technicians working in the store's "PC Health Check" to evaluate a working, uninfected PC; four out of six times, Office Depot technicians diagnosed nonexistent virus activity and prescribed $200 worth of service to get rid of it.
An insider told them that Office Depot's sales-culture is aggressive and indifferent to fraud, with very high sales goals and league-charts posted in the break-rooms.
The employee tells KIRO that workers selling the services are just following corporate mandates."It's not an option to run the program," he said. "You have to run it on all machines that come in the building."
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.
Office Depot insider speaks out about unnecessary computer fixes
[KIRO7]
Office Depot Allegedly Diagnosing Computers With Nonexistent Viruses To Meet Sales Goals
[Ashlee Kieler/Consumerist]
(Image: Money!, Tracy O, CC-BY-SA)
