Are you an Office Depot customer? You might get some of $34 million in refunds
Checks totaling $34.29 million have been sent to Office Depot customers to settle Federal Trade Commission allegations that the Boca Raton-based company ran a computer repair scam.
Of that money, $4,029,006 went to 63,641 customers in Florida, about $63.31 per customer. Overall, 541,247 checks averaging $63.35 per check have been mailed. Anyone with questions about the refunds can call the FTC’s refund administrator, Epiq, at 855-915-0916.
The refund money comes from the accounts of Office Depot ($25 million) and Sunnyvale, California, software supplier Support.com ($10 million). The settlement allows each company to officially deny any wrongdoing.
But here’s what the FTC complaint says Office Depot customers and employees allege:
From 2009 through November 2016, Office Depot customers were urged to run Support.com’s PC Health Check on their computers. When the program asked if the computer ran slowly, got virus warnings, crashed or had other problems, a “yes” answer triggered a report of malware or “infections” detected.
This created an instant market for Office Depot employees to sell Support.com technical services on the spot.
Office Max, the office supply chain swallowed by Office Depot, ordered its stores to stop using the program in May 2013. But Office Depot, the FTC says, issued no such command until Seattle television station KIRO 7 reported Office Depot stores “found” malware on brand new computers the station took in for testing.
This story was originally published February 20, 2020 at 1:44 PM.
