Two years ago, AnandTech got me fired. (seriously)

Red

Diamond Member
Aug 22, 2002
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I live in Northern Kentucky and in my senior year of highschool (2000-2001 school year) I had enough credits to be able to leave school and go to work. Staples has a large call center here so I was assigned there. I worked in the call center doing cust. service from october 2000 to february 2002, when I was fired.

About 6 months prior to my termination, I was taken off the phones and placed in a then-experimental internet chat program to handle customer service (which is still used on Staples.com to help customers today). So anyway, this is also when I started visiting sites like FatWallet, Ben's Bargains, and this website. I was first introduced to AnandTech while searching for "hot deal" websites that posted Staples coupons and deals. Basically, I informed the call center managers about price match schemes / coupons posted / etc so they could take action to correct/discontinue.

The only problem was, however, I was extremely interested in the hot deals myself so I actually got in touch with someone at Ben's Bargains and started providing full lists of valid coupon codes and stuff. Staples would give us packets of coupon codes and good product deals to be aware of. I would scan them and provide them to others. Well, I made a two fatal mistakes which lead to my termination. Well, one actually, but it lead to the discovery of my other mistake.

I was doing an internet chat with a customer while I was busy copying/pasting some hot deal info to/from websites and I accidentally pasted into a customer chat session (gulp). All the chat sessions (at that time, anyway) were recorded and reviewed because we were still developing/tweaking customer service chat. I acted like nothing happened, hoping one of my friendly chat monitors would shrug it off.

Nope. About 3 weeks later, on a Friday, my shoulder was tapped on and I was asked to have a short meeting. I got canned. They said the chat monitor noticed the strange info posted in the chat session so they did an investigation. They saw that I was posting on "Anandtech Hot Deals" and was posting sensitive Staples information. They also discovered I was having Staples items shipped to my house using coupons (you're not allowed to order any products for yourself, but I ordered them in my moms name). Then the head HR person at the call center said they would be watching me on AnandTech and if I were found posting any more Staples info there would be legal action. So, I made this new username.

So, my title should be "I got myself fired, but Anandtech was involved" but I think its more catchy the way I have it now.

EDIT: Grammur.
 
Oct 9, 1999
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oh yeah i remember you.... sorry about the loss of the job... hope you learnt your lesson.. next time either be a lot more careful when your doing covert work (always double check your steps and never loose concentration) or just do not do it.
 

Red

Diamond Member
Aug 22, 2002
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Originally posted by: whitecloak
why the sudden urge to confess?

Just kinda hit me, I was trying to think how I ever ran into this website.
 

Kelemvor

Lifer
May 23, 2002
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Sheesh, should have just taken the stuff home and did it from there. Much safer that way.
 

Aharami

Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
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hmm. its no biggie. i was under the impression that you got fired from your full time job and were supporting a family. i hope you learned from your mistakes atleast. always CYA (cover your a**)
 

Red

Diamond Member
Aug 22, 2002
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Originally posted by: Czesia
Wow. Did they take any legal action against you?

No, the woman in HR just threatened me with it if I were to continue posting information (because I live only 3 miles from the call center and I had a bunch of friends working there also, so she knew I'd be able to get codes if I wanted them.)

I learned from my mistake, and yes, now that I have bills to pay (I think when I worked at Staples, my only bill was $30/month for a cellphone, now I have roughly $700/month in bills and I only make $2 more/hr, ha).

The job was extremely regardless. We were not allowed to use the internet at all, except for a handful of us that did internet price matching.
 

murphy55d

Lifer
Dec 26, 2000
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Originally posted by: richardycc
didnt someone got fired from home depot for posting clearance prices from here too?

Yeah...can't remember who that was, though.
 

dabuddha

Lifer
Apr 10, 2000
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Screw staples. Now I feel better for screwing staples over and getting my 160 gig hdd for $35 :)
 

Red

Diamond Member
Aug 22, 2002
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I can understand Staples monitoring me because I was actively involved in hot deal websites/coupon/sensitive info, but how in the world did Home Depot find Evadman doing something? Anyone have a thread link?
 

MrBond

Diamond Member
Feb 5, 2000
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Originally posted by: burnedout
Wasn't there also a guy let go from Office Max for something similar? NeoV, maybe?
Yep. Some HD'er who didn't get the deal everyone else was getting printed a thread and NeoV's contact info, he got fired right before his first child was born too, if I remember correctly