Expressing Disappointment with Sager's Recall Process / Privacy Concerns

Sigh.

I thought I'd share some things about Sager that supports their BBB F rating. And some of it is quite frightening. I was just going to keep it between me and XoticPC and Sager, but I think it's important for people to know.

Last Monday I was informed that Sager was ready to receive my laptop for the Intel recall / swap of motherboard for SATA chip. I immediately provided the information requested, primarily confirmation of mailing address.

I bugged XoticPC (my reseller for my NP8170) Friday that I had not heard back from Sager yet with info for shipping out my laptop. Bugged them again yesterday and got an email from Sager about the shipment of the laptop for repair today. Ok, no huge deal, a little delay there. I don't care when I send it, but when they say they're ready, now works for me better than later.

Then I opened the "attached UPS shipping label" which was a poor image scan of a printed label, not a printable UPS label. I chuckled a bit when I saw it, but was also a little irritated.

But what I can't tolerate is what shocked me next. I scrolled down the email from Sager, and it has a huge list of Sager owners with their names and shipping address. This is what concerns me the most. Very major breach of privacy, IMHO. Maybe I'm over-reacting, but that just seems unprofessional and wrong.

Despite their machines being solid an well built, this really concerns me...

FYI.

 

Yikes, that's a little concerning. Was it sent directly to you by Sager, or forwarded by your Xotic rep? Either way, that's a pretty big privacy issue as you said. While it's only your name + address, that's still identifiable info.

Reminds me of my Verizon internship application where the recruiter CC'd about 20 people instead of BCC, so those that just hit reply all sent everyone their applications and resumes with tons of info (SSN on the applications even). whoops!

Hope they can explain that to you.

 

It was sent directly by Sager. I just got an email from xoticpc that was more professional and concise, no user addresses, but same scanned image of a label.

In addition what bothers me is they say they don't use UPS insurance but have third party insurance. Then it goes on to say they are not liable for any damage done to your laptop during shipment. So what good is the insurance?

 

Sucky. I received the e-mail from Xotic but not the one from Sager. The e-mail from Xotic seemed direct and to the point, I don't think they are at fault here. Hopefully you were in the minority receiving that e-mail from Sager since I bet you my personal info was in there......

The scanned image of the UPS label is pretty laughable though, I've never seen that before. It seems like that would be more work then sending us the link to UPS so we can print it out our selves.

 

That they gave you a list of other owner addresses is shocking.

 

So what did you do about the label? Can you reprint it if you go to UPS in any way? Maybe I'll just take it to the UPS store and see if they can do it.

 

I don't think there is anyway to re-print the label off the UPS website. I was planning on printing out the label from the e-mail and taping it to the package as if I printed it from UPS. I'm not home to actually do that though, so I have no idea how small the label actually is.

I like your idea better, I'll bring in the label into the UPS store and see if they can print me a larger one.

 

I checked with Sager about this and they are indeed embarrassed. That information should never have been sent that way, and for that they are sincerely sorry.

They have now set up an internal course of action so that it will never happen again.

As for the label...it is just a label. Function over form you know. Just print it out and tape it to your box. It works just as well as a pretty one would

 

Thanks for taking the time to bring this issue up with Sager and getting it resolved. We just need someone else who initiates the recall process about a week from now to verify this issue has truly been corrected.

 

Thank you. I know the label is form over function, but even I can send a printable UPS label. Not hard to do, and not very professional, but nevertheless that was the least of my worries.

I was also wondering, in the email it says to leave a note with your login password if you have one. But I want to remove my SSD and hard drive and memory before I ship it since I bought it and don't want it to accidentally get mixed in with someone else's somehow or accidentally get replaced with stock stuff. I'm sure removing this stuff won't be an issue? Maybe I'll throw in a spare 2GB module that I have so it at least has RAM.

 

Thank you. I know the label is form over function, but even I can send a printable UPS label. Not hard to do, and not very professional, but nevertheless that was the least of my worries.

I was also wondering, in the email it says to leave a note with your login password if you have one. But I want to remove my SSD and hard drive and memory before I ship it since I bought it and don't want it to accidentally get mixed in with someone else's somehow or accidentally get replaced with stock stuff. I'm sure removing this stuff won't be an issue? Or do they need a hard drive and memory for a reason?

I have a spare 2GB module and HDD I can put in there. But I'm sure they have bench drives and memory?

 

From Sager:

"This was a single incident. What happen was, we work with our dealers for their "to be recalled" units. Communications have been done in these cases by Sager -> Dealer -> User.

And in this case, Xoticpc worked with our techs in batches of users in a single email thread. Then while we have already issued the RMAs and shipping labels for the customers in question it was sent to one of the batch of Xoticpc customer's email thread, but our tech received an email from Xoticpc in the same batch email thread requesting that we send to the user in question. And our tech missed that this was a reply including the thread with a batch of customers in it, thinking it was a new email requesting a label be resent for this user. This was forwarded to the user when it should not have been.

We understand that this was our mistake and we truly apologize for this incident, we are making sure that this does not happen again. And that every email will now be reviewed from top to bottom before replying."

 

Sorry I have not came in earlier, we have communicated this concern with Sager and as listed the concern has been addressed with Sager and will be corrected on future correspondences.

 

that is disconcerting. but as long as it is an isolated case that has been reported then i think all is good.
with regards to your frustration with the recall process, i think you will be going thru the same even if it was handled by another brand. i think your just being a little giddy that you want your machine back asap, as i would too.

just my 2 bits

 

My biggest issue was with the emailing of other users' information. Well that, and the scanned UPS label is a bit odd and less than amateur, but whatever. I actually am not that "giddy" to get it back as I've set up a different computer configuration for my needs and don't/won't use the laptop as much as expected, but still like the machine a lot when I do use it.

 

That is quite worrying. They say it is an isolated incident but if a list of customer addresses had been sent to an unscrupulous customer then you would never hear about it. Just think how much easier a list like that could make a thieves life. I know mistakes happen and I know they are taking steps to correct it but damn.

 

I guess I don't think it's really that big of a deal. Sure, you have names and addresses of a bunch of people. So does the phone book. All the people on your list have something in common - we're all computer nerds. So what? It's embarrassing for Sager and maybe a bit unprofessional, but mistakes happen, even to you and I. At least they didn't give you 77 million people's credit card numbers...

 

Ok, so I'll post the list here then. No big deal. I'd get temp banned for something like that.

It also contains phone numbers, invoice, PO, and serial numbers.

It is also telling of their business practices.

 

Just a short, tangential, note on the insurance thing: that is precisely why the insurance is good: it's the insurer who is liable for damages (to the extent of their insurance policy), so the disclaimer by the reseller is more or less just a restatement of the obvious, namely, if things go badly, you'll be looking to the insurance company and not the reseller (deeper pockets and whatnot).

EDIT: On the larger note, I quite agree that it was an unpleasant surprise, and unfortunately it is not inconsistent with Sager's less than stellar reputation for the customer relations side of the business; however, I would disagree with the decision to make it public in this manner for the simple reasons that (i) it was not a release of personal financial information that must be kept confidential to protect against identity theft or credit fraud, (ii) it was, to all appearances, a one-time mistake, and (iii) the resellers and Sager have taken steps to fix the problem. You did exactly the right thing when you brought it to Sager's and XoticPC's attention, but I think you went just a little too far when you made it public without first waiting to see if (a) Sager/XoticPC took any steps, or (b) there was any evidence that other people had also gotten the list of names and addresses.

This is a little bit like the case where you get a fax from your attorney that was sent to your number by mistake and which contains, say, a discussion of a proposed business venture that another one of the attorney's other clients is thinking about. If that happens, your "obligation" if you will is to tell your attorney about the mistake and destroy the fax you received, and then to keep mum about it.

Why keep mum? Because unless you have evidence that the same information is being sent to other people, you simply end up compounding the problem rather than helping to fix it by further broadcasting the fact that a mistake happened. It's a little bit like slander - it's bad enough if someone comes to you and tells you slanderous things about another person, but if you then go and repeat that slander to someone else, then you've just become a slanderer yourself.

Finally, there is a definite difference between what happened when Sager sent the OP that list by mistake and what would happen if the OP posted that list up here - aside from the temporary ban, that is - namely, instead of just one person, the OP, getting that information, hundreds and hundreds of people would now have that information. That would make the OP's actions qualitatively more blameworthy than Sager's actions for two reasons (a) the greater number of people given that information and (b) the OP would have intended that improper disclosure to happen rather than it having happened through inadvertence or negligence on the part of Sager - intentional wrong acts are always more blameworthy than negligent wrong acts.

To the OP: I'm sorry if I sound like I'm being unduly harsh on you, I don't really mean to be, and I do think that you acted in good faith and that you intended to help rather than hurt, so I don't really think that you had even the slightest thought of doing something wrong, I more or less just wanted to try and point out that there are larger dimensions - the forest if you will - that need to be considered when a particular accident - the tree if you will - happens (also, I just love to hear myself type, if that wasn't obvious by now ;^) ).