In today’s news to be filed under *facepalm*:
Tara Fitzgerald, a woman in Sacramento, California had a harrowing experience with a Dell service representative in India. She called up to get help with ( and I am not making this up):
Nude photos of herself that she could not find on her computer. She had taken the pictures for her boyfriend. The Dell service rep from amchi Mumbai , Riyaz Shaikh evidently downloaded the photos that soon made their way to the internets and a site called “bitchtara”. Shaikh then allegedly over the course of several conversations with Tara , convinced her somehow to send him a brand new Dell laptop so that he could work on “taking down” the site from home. Ms.Fitzgerald then freely and of her own volition, actually shipped him a brand new Dell laptop ( nice to see that he at least had brand loyalty!). ( sfgate.com)
In a further twist tio the tale , Shaikh- who evidently is some sort of cyber -lothario- allegedly used Ms,.Fitzgerald’s Dell credit card to send $ 800 worth of computer equipment to another American lady with whom he allegedly “fell in love”.
See video here
There are so many lessons to be learnt here :
(1) Do NOT under any circumstances ship anything of value half way across the world to a stranger promising you good things. Its a scam. Period.
(2) Do NOT take nude photos of yourself. I cannot think of anything good that can come of having X-rated photos of yourself unless you are a Playboy model or Adult film star or Exhibit A in some convoluted criminal trial.
(3) If you need embarassing or sensitive data to be retrieved from your computer, you are probably better off finding a local firm that specializes in handling such issues.*Ducking to avoid any brickbats from proponents of outsourcing*
(4) Buy Apple computers 
I mean WTF? Seriously ?
UPDATE 1:
Dell has responded predicatably by making sure that Riyaz is nto unleashed on any other customers ( link).( Tip: Santosh via email)
The Company huffily says
” “We contacted the vendor about the allegation and can confirm that the representative no longer handles Dell calls. We’ve been in contact with Ms. Fitzgerald regarding this issue and continue to investigate her claims to best assist in a resolution.”
My friends,I further need to regretfully report that there is something black in the lentils- as we would say back in the des.
Ms. Fitzgerald is not exactly washed in milk – as we would also say back in the des.
She admits to a * gasp* relationship with Mr.Riyaz that seems to have crossed the bounds of normal customer – customer service rep relationship
Following the initial technical call, conversations between Fitzgerald and Shaikh quickly turned personal. Fitzgerald admitted being flattered by the attention from the Indian support tech, whose MySpace page identifies him as being 24 years old. “He’s very charming and he knew exactly what to say. It warmed my heart,” she said.
Fitzgerald shared a number of personal e-mails Shaikh sent her from his Hotmail account shortly after their first conversation, including the following message dated Jan. 11, 2009:
“There are no words to express how I feel about you. I constantly search for the words, and they all seem less than I truly feel. You are my life, my heart, and my soul. You are my best friend. You are my one true love. I still remember the day we first met. I knew that you were the one I was meant to be with forever.”
(link)
I will with regret refrain from commenting on my take on the whole story.
Instead I will leave you to peruse this interesting thread on reddit, where some amateur sleuths find some interesting stuff from our herpoine’s life splattered across cyberspace.
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