Woman's Nude Pics End Up Online After Call To Tech Support 197
Tara Fitzgerald couldn't find the nude pictures she planned on sending to her boyfriend, but instead of just taking more, she decided to see if a Dell tech support call could fix her problem. Apparently the tech support guy found them. Unfortunately, he then put them up on a site called "bitchtara."
Let me be the first to say (Score:4, Insightful)
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Let me be the first to say - this 'story' would be a good way to get nerds surfing up to malware-ridden sites. Someone paid for a domain to host the pics of a stranger?
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Re:Let me be the first to say (Score:5, Insightful)
If you read the linked article in TFA, you will find that she BOUGHT HIM A LAPTOP AND MAILED IT TO INDIA! wtf woman
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She's a classic scam victim. Obviously someone with extra cash who can be exploited. It's sad, but ... well ... people can't be stupid enough to fall for these scams.
Re:Let me be the first to say (Score:5, Interesting)
And she was dating him online
http://www.rgj.com/article/20100729/NEWS13/100729021/1321/news [rgj.com]
"Following the initial technical call, conversations between Fitzgerald and Shaikh quickly turned personal. Fitzgerald admitted being flattered by the attention from the Indian support tech, whose MySpace page identifies him as being 24 years old. "He's very charming and he knew exactly what to say. It warmed my heart," she said."
Sorry lady, the guy might have stolen your photos and called you a bitch (hence bitchtara.com) but you started dating him online and gave him your credit card and bought him gifts.
Re:Let me be the first to say (Score:5, Informative)
No, there was both.
First he told her he'd need a new laptop mailed to him to 'work on the case from home', which she overnighted to him.
Then, he used her credit card to buy another woman a computer and a router.
Well (Score:5, Funny)
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The bare facts certainly are disturbing. But the naked truth is that Dell's customer service is just obscene. I think that support analyst should be stripped of his position.
Good sir, I believe that one must produce digitized, pixelated facsimiles of said photography... In lieu of said event, I must protest it being a factual portion of the past.
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Right. Like he said, pics or it didn't happen.
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Re:Well (Score:4, Informative)
http://bitchtara.webs.com
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I think you meant to post this on reddit...
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I think that support analyst should be stripped of his position.
He'll just go work for HP instead.
Story is so absurd (Score:4, Insightful)
So she took the pics and then "lost them"... but the support guy found them in her email. She obviously sent/received them at some point, and how she could just 'forget' they were in her email is hard to fathom. Then she sends the guy who WORKS FOR DELL a laptop? She may be the victim, but boy is she good at it.
Oh, and of course: PICS OR IT DIDNT HAPPEN
Re:Story is so absurd (Score:4, Interesting)
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"I really had faith that he was protecting my dignity."
I think that train already left the station
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> ...how she could just 'forget' they were in her email is hard to fathom.
Not done much tech support, have you?
So.... (Score:4, Funny)
Pics still up?
Re:So.... (Score:4, Funny)
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as news no less...
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I'm sure slashdot will dupe it long before ten years from now.
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There was a thread yesterday on reddit.com that had all the links to the pictures, myspace, her contact info, etc. Do yourself the favor and don't look, it's pretty bad.
However, she does dance worse than Elaine.
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It's the internet. The way things get recopied my guess is the pics will never really be eliminated from this point on.
You just can't stop "the signal". It's amazing how many people try though. Reminds me of a time back in high school (this was circa 1998 - the web wasn't what it was today, but it had still been around for a good long time). A guy I knew had written some poetry, and asked if there was a way that he could keep people from copying it if he posted it online. And I made sure I was understa
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http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/cv888/womans_nudie_pics_are_stolen_from_her_computer_as/?sort=top [reddit.com]
there ya go
Unfortunately (Score:3, Insightful)
The only way to get action from companies today is to publish a bad PR story.
How sad is that?
That is the real problem, lack of accountability not the fact that it happens, that the only way to get it fixed is to make the company suffer publically.
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Corporate does not automatically equal lack of accountability. The bigger companies become the more difficult it becomes to manage false claims vs. legit ones. Using bad PR is a great resource to help a company perform better in the future.
That's not sad, it's just life.
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Corporate does not automatically equal accountability either, which is why one should never buy a product in order to have someone to blame if it goes wrong. One should try to buy products that won't go wrong in the first place.
However, it is a mistake to think that legal action equals accountability either. The law, these days, has little provision for the judge to take the facts into account and lawyers don't put in equal effort, which means the law ceases to be about what is far and becomes who can game
Should the website really be called (Score:3, Funny)
If true... (Score:5, Insightful)
If true, someone at Dell could end up having a friendly conversation with someone from the FBI.
If it was only exposure of private data (pictures) then Dell may have gotten away with a just a civil resolution. If it is true that the tech extorted a laptop, then it becomes a criminal case. People can go to jail.
This could become quite costly to Dell in terms of goodwill if proven that someone representing them extorted material goods from one of their own customers.
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was the tech support guy in india? he'll get fired and show up the next day at his new Dell tech support job with changed name "John Q. Smith"
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From what I saw, the laptop wasn't extortion (coercion or threat). He conned her. She was dumb and fell for it.
If he had been in the US, there could have been charges. The most she can really hope for is a civil resolution with Dell. I'm sure they'll pass the buck to "Dell India", a subsidiary of Dell, Inc. Most companies are very careful to segregate parts so the company as a whole cannot be held liable for infractions by a part. Usually it's set up so a partition of the company can
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If it is true that the tech extorted a laptop, then it becomes a criminal case. People can go to jail.
While the US has an extradition treaty with India, it is highly unlikely they would do anything over there as would require major FBI pressure.
At this juncture I would like to interject... (Score:2, Redundant)
Pics or it didn't happen.
welcome to the real world tara (Score:3)
LoB
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is it just me or does she sound waaaay naive
No, it's just you. To everybody else she sounds extremely intelligent and not at all gullible or made-up.
This just in... (Score:4, Funny)
Dell's attorney's have assured Tara she is their 'true friend', and will help her resolve this if she will send them a new Dell laptop.
Here's the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Using my amazing powers of deduction, I have found this to be the root cause of the trouble.
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Which part? "I trusted him", "Dell technician" or just "Dell"?
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My guess would be all permutations of "trusted", "Dell" and "technician". There are probably a few other suspect word pairings in there as well.
The same thing happened to me (Score:3, Funny)
Jealousy rage more like it (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd bet this is actually a case of jealousy.
My take is that she got jealous that her indian boyfriend fell in love with that blondie, then made all this crap up. Why? You can see a chat window where she was clearly talking to someone she had some sort of love (or at least close) relationship with. "I'm worried about you"? Is that something you'd tell a company's representative "helping" you with a tech problem?
So she got mad that he fell in love with someone else after "making" her send him a laptop, and ma
The list is on the refrigerator door (Score:4, Funny)
How may rupees is a gallon of eye bleach these days?
Amazing story (Score:2)
Mel Gibson has a new hero.
Doesn't sound like an innocent victim (Score:5, Informative)
"Romantic conversations
...
...
Following the initial technical call, conversations between Fitzgerald and Shaikh quickly turned personal. Fitzgerald admitted being flattered by the attention from the Indian support tech, whose MySpace page identifies him as being 24 years old. "He's very charming and he knew exactly what to say. It warmed my heart," she said.
Fitzgerald shared a number of personal e-mails Shaikh sent her from his Hotmail account shortly after their first conversation, including the following message dated Jan. 11, 2009:
"There are no words to express how I feel about you. I constantly search for the words, and they all seem less than I truly feel. You are my life, my heart, and my soul. You are my best friend. You are my one true love. I still remember the day we first met. I knew that you were the one I was meant to be with forever."
On Valentine's Day 2009, Fitzgerald said Shaikh told her he had fallen in love with a 22-year-old woman in Tennessee who had also called Dell technical support.
Fitzgerald later discovered two mysterious purchases on Feb. 17 totalling $802 charged to her Dell Preferred credit card. She called Dell and was told the charges were for a computer system and router shipped to a woman in Waynesboro, Tennessee."
(Outsourcing nightmare: Sacramento woman describes Dell tech support abuse (watch video report), RGJ.com, July 29, 2010)
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Not the actress then... (Score:3, Informative)
When I first read the name I thought that maybe the British actress [imdb.com] of the same name, notorious for (tasteful) nude scenes in 1990s films. Obviously not.
So, maybe this is all made up and the woman's real name isn't Tara Fitzgerald at all?
This woman is a liar. (Score:2, Informative)
She is a pay-cam-whore. www(dot)ashcams(dot)com/profile/taritabonita
Sounds like a scam to 1) avoid paying her Dell bill 2) get more traffic.
reminds me why... (Score:2)
telcos used women as operators.
Stupid is, as stupid does (Score:2, Informative)
Aw... for a second I thought you meant... (Score:2)
... Tara [bbc.co.uk] Fitzgerald [google.co.uk].
My momma always said (Score:2)
Let me ask you which is more likely (Score:2)
- That Dell tech would go to the bother and expense of creating a whole website called "bitchtara.com" and domain to post incriminating photos of some random person who happened to call them, in the hopes that they would extort out of her, of all things, a DELL laptop...
- That the woman e-mailed them to her BF or whoever, and the photos made the rounds to someone who dislikes her (heck maybe her ex BF himself, and THEY set up the website.called "bitchtara.com", an obviously personal name, to try to get back
This didn't happen. (Score:2)
Nobody is this stupid. This is the internet version of calling up the beer company saying you found a dead mouse in a bottle of their product and please send one million dollars to ease the mental anguish.
Also, dude looks like a lady.
Read all of the info (Score:2, Informative)
In 2008? (Score:2)
And she sent the laptop?
Sad. She should have called the police. And the police should have called Dell.
Me? Sure, I would send a laptop [notla.com]. What the heck. Does India charge customs fees [zug.com] for incoming gifts?
Re:Ha! (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably that Dell employees would actually respect customer confidentiality. Would it be any different if it had been a confidential business letter or accounts statement?
I hope the employee has been dropped from a very great height by Dell. It doesn't inspire much trust in getting support from them.
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Well, the dell employee should be hanged upside down, that said, she certainly lowers the bar for dumb!
its already dumb enough to call tech support to recover your own nude pics, its even dumber she got convinced to send a laptop to the guy to help her with her nakedness problem., that's be-yond ridiculous.
also, props to mark72005 below, nicely worded.
Re:Ha! (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that he's a Dell Employee is irrelevant (though no doubt the company will get sued, too). This is a simple case of theft and harassment. Jail for the perp, leave his boss alone.
Next!
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Though I am surprised to see so many Dell fanboys (Dellboys?) queueing up to mock a typical computer user who has at most basic computer skills. Lets face it only people with basic computer skills would probably even buy a Dell to begin with.
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And for the record, I am not a Dell fanboy, but we buy almost exclusively Dell where I work and their business tech support is top notch. I talk to real live Americans every time I call, and they never hassle me about anything. Say what you want about their "home computer" tech support, but their corporate support is very good.
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And for the record, I am not a Dell fanboy, but we buy almost exclusively Dell where I work and their business tech support is top notch. I talk to real live Americans every time I call, and they never hassle me about anything.
And now allow me to quote from the wiki page about Dell.
In May 2008, the New York Supreme Court ruled that Dell and Dell Financial Services "engaged in fraud, false advertising, deceptive business practices, and abusive debt collection practices". The relevant lawsuit aimed primarily to highlight and seek restitution for a lack of technical support given to customers by Dell. The court plans to hold further proceedings to determine how much money Dell has to pay out to customers and how much profit Dell ma
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Seeing as Dell is so bad, who would you recommend?
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If an IT department needs to be calling Dell/HP/IBM/anybody's tech support, they're understaffed/under trained. in such a case, why do you even have an internal tech department?
if you bought in real volume, you'd be getting better deals than Dell does. though without knowing the size of your company, all this is just me sounding like an over zealous idiot. carry on!
Maybe not. (Score:2)
This is a simple case of theft and harassment. Jail for the perp,
RTFA. It may not be that simple. The guy works for a call center in India, not Dell in Texas.
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> The guy works for a call center in India, not Dell in Texas.
That's India, not China. It may come as a surprise to you to learn that India has laws. Also, the call center just might want to keep Dell's business.
Taken advantage of? (Score:2, Insightful)
People in Indonesia line up for MILES to get a US Outsourced job like this. They get paid roughly similar to what a DOCTOR in these places makes. They can live VERY nice, middle-class lives with the money they're making.
Maybe you should do a quick study on the Cost of Living in these countries before you start spouting off how Dell (or any other company) is "taking advantage" of workers in other countries.
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Regardless of the local standard of living, they are being taken advantage of. If the job is worth a fixed amount, it should be worth that amount everywhere. Just because it can be outsourced to another country (India) for 10% or less of another country (USA), it isn't right to pay the lower rate.
The baseline pay rate should never be lowered. It should only be increased for areas of higher cost of living. Any company outsourcing knows that they can't pay the same rate in another countr
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No STFU and go stand outside
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If the job is worth a fixed amount, it should be worth that amount everywhere.
You failed to say 'why' and this is absolutely a non-obvious statement. Imagine you're buying strawberries off of the side of the road, adjacent to the farm where they were grown. Now imagine those same strawberries being sold to you on the international space station. Still 'worth that same amount everywhere'? If not with commodities, like food, then why with labor?
The baseline pay rate should never be lowered. It should only be increased for areas of higher cost of living.
Okay... then all you need do is imagine that the lowest rate is the base, and all the others are the increased rate. Logical gap resolved.
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That was a bad argument. Strawberries on the ISS are free to the consumer (the astronaut).
For tech support, the c
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I heard this morning on the radio how do you reach a cost of each injured/sick/dying/dead pelican caused by the BP oil spill? They did what an economist did 30 years ago to read the same figure, ask away in a survey what people would pay to keep that from happening. Of course, the replies were CRAZY! Everything from $1-$10,000 PER pelican. But that is not how they reached the actual
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Way back when, I had something similar happen. I was working in tech support for a small hosting provider in 1996. Our office hours were 8am to 6pm Eastern. I would show up late, and frequently work all kinds of ungodly late hours. That's the kind of person
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Although generally not a language issues, I regularly hang up
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Yes, and the Geek Squad is provably safe with customer files.
There's never been reports of them keeping and trading customer images.
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And how much are they paid? Not much, if anything, above minimum wage I imagine.
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Around $10 - 13 / hr is / was typical for the in-store, line-level techs (the admins make less, sometimes a lot less).
Supervisors and in-home techs will usually make $15 - $17ish / hr.
The cap for their pay grade is / was $20 or $21 IIRC. But in practice, BBY is more likely to promote someone to management than pay them more than $17 or $18 in Geek Squad.
This info is a few years old (when minimum wage was in the $5 / hr range). I wouldn't be surprised if the figures were all about $1 higher now, but I don't
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So if you want to take-down a company, all you need to do is get yourself and a few hundred friends to star war-dialing the company, so they will waste precious time (and money) answering the bogus calls at the Service Center
Re:Ha! (Score:5, Funny)
...get yourself and a few hundred friends to star war-dialing the company...
For those not familiar with the practice, that's when you call someone and make wookie noises into the phone.
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Stop reading all those 80's text files on that commodore 64 there buddy, or I'll blow 2600 hz on you.
Re:Ha! (Score:5, Insightful)
Just as there is little the company could do to stop this, they also have to expect to pay for the damage done. That is the price of doing business. Being liable for damages and being bad are not the same thing.
If one of the trees in my yard falls over in a storm and crushes my neighbors car, I am liable for paying for it. I am not a bad man because of it.
This woman called Dell. She did not look up this perticular tech person and seek his help. She called Dell. Dell answered the phone. They used this tech as their agent, but the company responded. The woman did not have a business arrangement with the tech. She had one with Dell. Is Dell evil for hiring this guy? Not likely. Are they responsible for the actions of their agent. Yes.
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Dell is responsible for his actions he takes as an agent for Dell, such as stealing her pics. At some point the two developed a personal relationship that did not include Dell. Communications between the two that did not take part on company time or as part of his official duties are probably not Dell's problem.
Take your car analogy, the storm blows the tree over and it hits your neighbors car, likely your liability. Your neighbor than starts to date the tree online, buys it a computer and gives it her cred
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Wow, you must have had a bad Dell experience to get so fired up you can't even type straight.
Re:Ha! (Score:4, Funny)
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What does it take to have her _not_ trust someone?
Apparently, she didn't trust her own boyfriend. The Indian guy was telling her that her own boyfriend was the one who must have posted those pictures online. So apparently, that's all it takes for her, a random Indian guy from India telling her that her boyfriend is a creep.
Re:Too effing bad... sorry. (Score:4, Insightful)
Except, that is a shitty way to live. So we invented criminal punishments to deal with asshats.
Throw the tech in jail.
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But there's nothing one could do about her exposure after the tech submitted the pics.
Well, except maybe not post the story on some of the most read sites of the internet.
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the jerk behind bars who broke that doesn't change what happened.
True, but it sure is sweet vindication.
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Fail, that picture is now seriously outclassed by the articles.
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No I'm not. Look at that video of her...
Re:It's Obvious (Score:4, Funny)
M maybe, but even looking at the video still of her at the desk there's nothing ILF about that.
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There is more to this story.
http://www.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/tara-fitzgerald-says-dell-technician-downloaded-her-nude-photos-2645780.html [nowpublic.com]