The Goodwill stores around here often have printers, keyboards, mice, a few monitors, and sometimes CD/DVD drives, but they never have the computers themselves. When I asked one of the employees, I got some vague, "policy" response. What's the situation where you are? and why?

 

Probably because they don't want to blank the machines, then rebuild them with a new (expensive) OS. If ID theft occurs due to this, they could have some liability.

 

No goodwills here won't accept anything wiht dust, It has to be show room ready. I ended up dumping a $2000 living room set because Goodwill said they would'nt wipe it down and didn't want it unless I cleaned it all. I laughed and off to the dump I went. Pulled up and couldn't even throw one thing away because my truck was swarmed with people wanting all this new furnature,

 

Probably because they don't want to blank the machines, then rebuild them with a new (expensive) OS. If ID theft occurs due to this, they could have some liability.

Many of these machines are contracted by mob run ecyclers that sell off all the scrap metals, put a drill bit through the harddrive, then break up all the pcb's for gold. IF the computers new enough they will buy a HD for it and sell the system online. But they usually make orders from publix, best buy, etc.... for $150,000, $45,000, $250,000. etc...

 

Think about the quality of computers that likely get donated to goodwill, and the lack of tech support or warranty they would be able to provide. I can see it now, grandma goes to goodwill and picks up a vintage win95 machine, takes it home, it won't run skype with the awesome 28.8K modem it's got and she brings it back demanding someone 'fix it' - "Well I've been shopping here at this goodwill since they opened up back in 1970 and I have to say that this manager is worse than the last one and the one before that; selling things that don't even work - the nerve! Believe you me, I won't be back, and I'll be telling the Better Business Bureau about this, along will every last person I know."

 

Think about the quality of computers that likely get donated to goodwill, and the lack of tech support or warranty they would be able to provide. I can see it now, grandma goes to goodwill and picks up a vintage win95 machine, takes it home, it won't run skype with the awesome 28.8K modem it's got and she brings it back demanding someone 'fix it' - "Well I've been shopping here at this goodwill since they opened up back in 1970 and I have to say that this manager is worse than the last one and the one before that; selling things that don't even work - the nerve! Believe you me, I won't be back, and I'll be telling the Better Business Bureau about this, along will every last person I know."

Don't matter strantor they would still make a killing off selling the scrap. Just doing a stage 1 break down getting the Alum, copper, and PCBs. Will net you a small fortune if you know what your doing. My buddy does it at garage sales. Hey buys any old PCs' and old electronics for the old CPU's.(The only ones are worth the most, up to $50 for Pentium1. Then they get cheaper and cheaper the less gold they used. So he does this for 4-6 months and gets a big cardboard box full of broken PCB's, then auctions it on ebay for a couple hundred dollars.

 

Bill,

I'm sure some that "donate" the computer would go after goodwill for not cleaning up their machine.

I use to tell everyone that wanted to "give" their computer away to wipe it clean ... by reformatting the drive and reinstalling all the software that came with the machine.

I don't blame goodwill for not accepting computers because of the liability. Of course, their lawyers could draw up something the "donator" could sign stating they did reformat and restore to originial OS prior to donating.

I don't care who I'm giving a computer to ... it's going back to original condition. My grandson uses a spare laptop of mine, and it is bare bones as far as OS w/all updates, Tina-TI and AVG anti-virus.

You could download the hard drive manufacture's testing software and write all zeros to the harddrive prior to reinstall. I know it takes a long time to get all the updates from microsoft .... but it's worth it.

 

A thought crossed my mind while reading through some of these posts... What about computers at pawn shops? I know that people pawn their laptops and desktops, but do they ever wipe them or does the store?

 

A thought crossed my mind while reading through some of these posts... What about computers at pawn shops? I know that people pawn their laptops and desktops, but do they ever wipe them or does the store?

I've never seen a computer at the pawn shop that anybody in their right mind would buy. Pawn shop asks (for a 1 or 2 y/o computer) the same price best buy sold it for new, or more.
(I know that was way off topic, did not even come close to answering your question)

 

I saw a tractor trailer truck heading out of town,the truck belonged to Goodwill

and said recycled computers on the side. I don't think they resale them,they just

recycle them. They have a labor force that has low skills,so they just recycle

for other companies.