You can buy a new laptop on the Internet, at Costco, at Best Buy, or at any office supply store. Suppose you order online from a company like Dell. If you pay by credit card, is that card in your name? If so you can be traced. The same goes for a check—if that check can be traced back to you, you can be identified.
Costco: You must use a Costco card. If that card belongs to you, you can be traced.
Best Buy, Office Depot, or Office Max (preferably a branch where you have never shopped before). Pay cash and do not give them any information. No name, no address, no telephone number.
What about returning it? I recently returned a Sony Vaio to Best Buy and they refused to refund in cash. “I paid you guys in cash,” I said, “and I expect to get cash in return. Call the manager.” The manager showed up. He pointed out in the extremely fine print on my receipt that all purchases over $250 must be sent by check from the company headquarters. If this had been your problem, would you have given them your true name so that the check could be deposited or cashed?
As it happens, I had a backup plan—a non-interest bearing checking account in the name of a young woman who later moved back to her village in the mountains of Chiapas, Mexico. She left me with a notarized power of attorney, a stack of checks signed in blank, and the keys to her post office box. The refund check arrived two weeks later. I rubber-stamped the back and mailed it to her bank.
However, there is
another way to get an untraceable laptop. Watch for an almost new one on Craigslist. If you find one, buy it with cash. (Warning—even though the seller says he has cleaned the files, have an expert search the hard drive again. You don’t want to have any child pornography on there, ever.)
Labels: computer, craigslist, laptop, security, untraceable
Privacy blog post by JJ Luna at 4:36 AM
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