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Motorola and Woot are warning that some refurbished XOOM tablets were not completely wiped of older user data before being sold through the daily deal website. Don’t worry, it’s not as scary as it sounds. Motorola is estimating that only about 100 out of 6,200 WiFi-only XOOM tablets sold between October and December of 2011 were not completely cleared of their previous owners data. The issues is obviously a concern for anyone who returned a XOOM tablet before that period, and while the chance of any particular previous owner’s data being present on a refurbished device is slim, Motorola is making an effort to make things right. Every customer that returned their XOOM between March and October is being offered a free two-year subscription to Experian’s ProtectMyID Alert to monitor any potential fraud that could arise from stolen personal data.
In addition, Woot and Motorola are asking that any purchaser of a refurbished XOOM return the device to Motorola to completely remove any data leftover from the tablet’s previous life. Motorola will, of course, cover all shipping costs.
Motorola can’t be happy about the slip up, but the company is doing all the right things to mitigate the negative impact of the news. With only a 1.6 percent chance that a returned tablet will still have older user data, the majority of potentially affected customers can rest easy. More details can be found at the link below.
[via Motorola | Thanks to all who sent this in!]
Well, at least they’re doing the right thing by owning up to it and offering to make it right.
I agree…maybe Moto has been making too many mistakes, but at least they are addressing them…most companies don’t seem to do that now-a-days…
Holy crap. Motorola can’t get out of its own way! They need a new CEO, new executives, new leadership. They have no direction, no discipline, no drive. They coast along, fool around, realize they have fallen behind then catch up only to start the cycle over again.
All you have to do is factory restore and it wipes it COMPLETELY.
This is totally unacceptable. I do place partial blame on the previous owner for not wiping the device, but how does a device go through the entire process of being refurbished without being wiped. The refurbishing process should include a full hardware test as well as being flashed with the latest software.
This shows that Motorola is not thorough at all. It would seem that just test the device to see if it turns on, then place it back into a new box to sell again.
Shame on Motorola.
I have one of the Xooms thats getting “recalled” for a lack of a better term. Getting a $100 gift card out of it. Hope the fix the fact that my screen “moves” and that the cover for the parts isnt completely secured. Was gonna send it in for that anyway.
My Dad got one with personal data, he wiped it. But Woot and Motorola are giving a 100$ american express card for returning it anyway, he’ll get it back in a few days after.
reminds me of that story where a 9 year old girl got a tablet and there was porn on it.
This is why when I sold my phone to Sprint, I deleted my data right then in there. LoL!! My G2 was running HTC Sense. =.P
They still took it, but the guy who took it looked kinda startled.
I bought one of these refurbs on Woot as a first computer for an older friend. He loves it. When we got the email that his unit might be one of these not properly wiped I knew it was, because I deleted an existing gmail address on it when I first set it up for him. We signed up for the return and re-wipe, Motorola shipped me perfect packaging, I shipped it at their cost on a Tuesday and got it back Friday with a $100 american express gift card. Great experience from the purchasing consumer side.