In this digital age, most people entrust their personal computer with personal data, including those for credit card information and account passwords among others. But when you send in your computer for repair, is it worth the risk entrusting such sensitive information?

One MacBook owner sent in his laptop to Apple, by way of CompUSA, because it won't start. He received his laptop back, with serial numbers matching, but he found out that the hard drive it now had was not his.

It sported all software, files, and information of someone else. What's more is that despite the fact that his original hard drive was an 80 GB one, the returned one was now only a 60 GB version. If this is what they meant by recycling your older hardware, they've got it the other way around.

If that wasn't aggravating enough, then listen up because there's more: he contacted CompUSA and they suggested he just wipe the hard drive and use it. What type of support is that? Yes, it's understood that one should always back up their data to avoid personal data loss (and because the techs will wipe the drive anyway), but we're talking about someone else's hard drive that doesn't have an apparent problem.

And why wipe someone else's hard drive and use it when your hard drive was far larger? He had then contacted Apple to sort things out, but the technicians have been no more helpful than CompUSA about the matter. One thing has been cleared with them, though: it was an official Apple technician who worked on his PC.

After a few more calls and e-mails, he discovered that the hard drive belongs to a woman and she happens to also have his hard drive. This he found out from an Apple representative who contacted him after his fruitless pursuit on the phone at Apple's repair division.

Pretty soon, everything just sorted out, and the details of the whole matter are now clear. Just as the MacBook owner recounted:

• A tech made an assembly mistake.
• Some questionable advice was given by a couple of low-level service advisers who clearly did not understand the importance of the problem.
• Calls were made, e-mails sent.
• Once the information made it to the proper level, Apple took appropriate and timely measures (starting on a Sunday afternoon!) to correct the situation.

Kudos to the high level intervention of Apple and applenewbie, the forum handle of the owner, for not just putting his story out there but handling the problem with patience and skill quite rare nowadays.

We're not really sure what's going on here, but we're guessing and hoping that CompUSA simply has too many iTunes gift cards in stock that it needs to dispose of.

Well, okay, not really.

As posted by the Spokane CompUSA employee who scanned and uploaded the ad that we have here, this was an advertisement tag that it acquired from the corporate computer. Apparently, the *cough* misprint that their manager caught on it was so funny, that he decided to keep it for himself. Thankfully, the mix-up was reported to HQ, and the tag was promptly replaced with something which announced a more appropriate freebie.

Xbox 360-what? Nintendo DS-what? No, the two top-selling holiday items this past year apparently were LCD displays and Apple's iPod. Is there any surprise there?

According to MacNN, Apple's new iPod products were on the lips of consumers everywhere, with large retail chains like CompUSA reporting good sales figures on the svelte music players. LCD displays, with their space-age looks and small footprint also drove in the dough.

"For us, anything that said iPod or was an iPod accessory was hot," said Larry Mondry, CEO of CompUSA. The latest statements from retail executives confirm analyst predictions of iPod sales; Piper Jaffray performed checks with several Mac resellers in late December of 2005 to find that iPod- and Mac-related sales were stronger than the previous year."

Just goes to show that innovation will always pay off in the end.

[Via, MacNN]