Not that ANY of you would ever sell your console without deleting all your personal files and credit card information off of it first but just in case, here’s a reminder why you should do just that. Apparently a refurbishment center bought up a bunch of Circuit City’s pre-owned consoles that were to be “in working condition, and with maybe a few components missing.”
The rest, according to Kotaku, who received the information from someone who worked at this particular refurbishment center:
Instead, not only does he allege that the majority of consoles [were] broken (217 of 227 Xbox 360s were “non-functioning”, and 167 of 205 PS3s), but, more importantly, that a “large quantity” of them came with something extra: sensitive personal information.
Friends lists. Photos. Videos. Sexy home videos. Arcade games. Credit card details.
The facility discovered this while repairing the damaged consoles. They’d fix them, turn them on, test their network connectivity, then suddenly start receiving friend requests, chat requests, game invites, etc. What’s more, with the user details still recorded on the system, they could have easily purchased game content on an unsuspecting former owner’s credit card.
It’s very possible that whoever was responsible for wiping the data from these consoles at Circuit City before they were sold to this other place was either let go or didn’t care to do any actual work. Either way, it’s probably best to clear all that stuff out yourself.
Ex-Circuit City Pre-Owned Consoles Include Credit Card Details, Home Porn [Kotaku]