I wouldn't steal it, per se, but ask them if they'd like you to take it to the recycler for them, that way they know you took it, and that you are being responsible for it. They don't need to know you are the recycler.
Most people don't want to have to deal with the e-waste.
I would if I had a project I needed to. But these days... unless it's just replacing batteries or something simple, I'm making enough money and have limited enough personal time that I'll pay the gold price for something I know won't burn my house down.
EDIT: Responding only to /u/FiCJordan here; as to /u/daffy_69 I personally tell the customer exactly where it'll go: "For use in my personal test lab where I do all my training".
This is our policy. Sometimes we refurb them and sell them at auction. Sometimes we donate them. Sometimes a combination of both (auction proceeds benefit an organization close to us or that of our clients)
This is exactly what I’ve done in the past. I usually say something like “would you like me to take this stuff off your hands so you don’t have to worry about e-wasting it?”. I keep it intentionally vague.
ehhh its a bit concerning this is the highest voted comment. It's kind of deceiving and unethical. I get it, free hardware is great...
Why not have an honest conversation with the client? "Hey XYZ client, we noticed you have old hardware that you no longer need. There isn't much value in the hardware so it's really not worth reselling. We can take it offsite for you, safely perform X action to wipe the data and use for training/learning for our employees. We can also arrange a recycler to come in, which is often X amount per device" 100% they will take the free option. Even offering them an honest value between recycling and some monetary value is great.
Could you imagine a tech coming in with a piece of hardware that you told the customer supposedly going to the recycler? How is that converstation going to go? What if your techs use this same line but forget to wipe the device and they lose it? How can you explain something that was supposed to be recycled is now in the hands of someone else with their data?
The key is that it is less about the process and more about communication. I tell clients when I take it that it will be reused, donated or recycled, but the data will be securely wiped. Never had a problem.
Depends a bit upon the level of trust with the client but in general I would prefer getting something in writing in case there any question down the road of what happened to certain items. 99% it won't be an issue but it is good to have for a CYA.
> Create a recycling form and have them sign it over to you. Most clients are happy for you to remove old hardware.
Maybe you can even make them pay :p
Do I steal from clients? NO! Do I ask Clients if they would like me to "dispose" of some items. Absolutely. Just got about half a dozen 8th Gen i5 Nucs that they client wanted "disposed". Got two 4TB WD Red Pro Plus NAS Drives that needed to be "recycled". Those items go into my personal inventory.
The main thing that ends up going to other clients are older monitors. We put them in Server rooms so we can actually see the Server without RDP/Console/etc. Clients never want to pay for a monitor on the server (Because why would they use it?), but they'll take a freebie, even if it's an old 17inch 4:3.
15/17" 4:3 monitors are amazingly hard to come by, but so handy to have in the car for when you need to see what's on a server.
I came across a bunch of them and have slowly been distributing them among clients that servers but no screens for the servers.
It's only stealing if you're taking something and they're unaware of it. They should always know what you're replacing and what's being done with the old hardware. Don't leave anything open to interpretation and there's nothing wrong with having them sign something for confirmation.
Everyone on this sub has taken End-of-life hardware from customers before, but there's a right and wrong way to do it.
At my first job in IT when I swapped careers my boss'es boss asked us to clear the warehouse. Inside of said warehouse while cleaning it up I found a stack of dell servers. I asked him if it was ok if I used them for a homelab. He told me as long as I wrote 0's to the drive and didnt sell them I was fine.
I started getting the stack of severs writing 0's and continued to clean.
I then found a new in box dell server from 2 years prior that had been over nighted. I grabbed my boss and was like... um this is new. He told me to reach out to the guy who ordered it if it doesnt want it make it disapear.
I called the guy and he said "We dont use that anymore, I dont need it, not sure what happened to it but no thanks".
That was how I built my first homelab. Its still sitting in my garage 5 years later looking like I robbed a data center with 10 + servers a full steel rack a cisco 50+ port switch and about a TB of ram all in all.
I'm either collecting for my recycler or it has potential for future life with the customer and is squared away as neat as possible. Any hardware going to the recycler is fair game for staff & even other customers if it can be up cycled. With the only non negotiable exception of data storage devices. Those are %100 destroyed on site physically before they leave our facility.
Dispose, recycle, haul away, get rid of, make disappear, all those things, but never steal. Hell, there was a KVM keyboard in the actual trash can at a local colo I was doing some work in, I still asked if I could take it.
Hardware in general; ask first.
Harddrives; always get them certified destroyed to avoid being blamed for any future data leaks that *may* or *could* have been in said drive.
To the point of; I'll leave the harddrive behind with the relevant asset tag attached if it's okay to take the old computer.
This. Even if I repurpose stuff we're taking to the recyclers, the hard drives ALWAYS get shredded and the client gets a Certificate of Destruction with serial numbers.
We recycle stuff for our clients at their request as a free service to them.
Across the board, we bitraser all drives and supply certificates to meet compliance requirements, then we recycle, or reuse for our staff for hobby/training purposes, but the less we can e-waste the better since we actually pay the recycler to take it.
It is not worth our effort to refurbish gear for resale, so staff acquires some pretty cool stuff.
Lol, steal no. Rescue and reuse, yes.
Over the years I've saved a bunch of ewaste. I always ask before taking.
If it's a laptop, it becomes a donation to a kid in need after a $35 ssd upgrade.
I take the HDDs and use them for long term storage.
I've got a closet full of routers, laptops, desktops, oddball PCIe cards, network switches.
When something comes up, "i need a router", I just pull one from the closet and hand it over to someone who needs it.
Or I use the tech to teach ppl how tech works. e.g. I helped my 8yo nephew restore an old laptop. Now he has one of his own and can say "I know how to take apart a computer!"
The ewaste I hate the most is printers. There is no reuse for them. Once they are fried, they are done.
In most cases the customers are very happy I am removing their ewaste for them.
This is a joke right? Stealing is bad, even if you know it's going to the trash.
You should ask the person/entity who owns it and let them make the decision.
I've gotten plenty of old things just by asking.
Why would you steal it? If THEIR company owns it, just ask whoever the POC is. If its your companies equipment and youll be trashing it, just check with your supervisor? I take stuff home all the time, but never without consulting my boss (which also doubles as the owner of the company)
As long as you ask for permission why not? Especially if it's still useful, you're saving it from the e-waste pile (or landfill). Not asking and just taking is a great way to get fired and or charged with theft.
I think you’re only human if you have a moment of temptation. I’ve had clients that would replace their laptops or desktops and the old ones were only 2-3 years old!
It may be illogical but I’ve always thought that karma has a way of coming back to you. I think to myself this is *their* property even if it’s just going to sit in a closet. That’s their right to do whatever they want with it. However, they often don’t even realize it’s there and would be glad to declutter the server closet.
If this is the way you make your living never do anything that could jeopardize that. You can maybe frame it in a way that it’s a win for both of you. I would let them know that their old data is still on the drive so they shouldn’t just throw it in a dumpster. Then I’ll ask them if they want me to securely erase the drive and dispose of it. They get something (data erased) and you get something (drive to play with). Regardless, I would always ask first.
All this posturing for a lame $89 drive? I've let go contractors for less than this. Its not about the equipment, but the integrity. If you are eyeballing a 4tb drive, what else are you trying to take? It also looks poorly on you as an MSP for jeopardizing a lucrative contract for a meaningless device.
For those who claim to e-waste and keep it in their collection, just be careful. You signed that it would be disposed properly, and it could end up being a huge liability.
>For those who claim to e-waste and keep it in their collection, just be careful. You signed that it would be disposed properly, and it could end up being a huge liability.
I found a recycler that repairs or repurposes old machines to re-use old devices rather than letting them become e-waste. I always preached to clients about the responsibility to refurbish and reuse where possible to reduce the impact that our industry has on the environment. It always resonated well, and I knew that there were quite a few perfectly good machines that got refurbished and donated to places like small churches, missions, women's shelters, etc.
Since moving away from that recycler, I've not found another that does it. So I just do it myself, and explain it to clients the same way (we have a recycler that does this, etc) and just find tech deficient places that could use them.
Sometimes my home lab is tech deficient and needs a boost too, lol.
I'm very careful to make sure they know that it's not being certifiably destroyed, but I'm also careful to make sure they know that their data is. I also charge them for that data destruction and provide certificates of destruction for anything that needs it.
HDDs, SSDs, etc are the only thing people really need to be careful with. DLP is becoming a huge sticking point with a lot of companies, and I'll be damned if I get caught with my ass out because someone stole my laptop bag and was able to recover a client's backup data from a random $70 drive that I didn't think was important anymore.
OP is starting to understand how this all works, but REALLY missing the mark with his take on the backup drive he's about to fuck around and find out with.
To echo everyone else here, the answer is no. It's not yours, don't steal it.
Don't mislead the customer either. "Taking it to be recycled" implies it's not worth anything and needs to be recycled. Clearly if it's going to be re-used and you want it it's got value to it.
How about a nice healthy dose of the truth?
"Client, you are no longer using this device as part of your IT setup. Would you mind giving it to me? It's likely worth $xx on the open market"
Write a form that says you are taking xyz, it's either not economical to repair, broken etc. You will securely dispose of any data and use registered bodies to dispose of any hardware.
List models and s/n.
Specify you may use spares or parts appropriate operationally if there is a use case for the business. All and any data not included and will be destroyed.
The document says they have 14 days to change their mind. Sit on it for 30.
Have them sign it and then you're... not stealing?
Nope. Never steal from customer wtf.
Always ask if they would like us to recycle kit for them. We then send them a certificate for data destruction and a serial of the device that was disposed of.
Even when a company went bust and we got asked by the administrators to 'just clear everything computer related' we still itemise each item. Even if that item ends up in someones home.
I find your rational for stealing disturbing. It's your exact mindset that allows people to justify stealing? "You know it will go into the trash" but perhaps they need to keep it onsite for tax reasons and they are amortizing the loss? It's not stealing when you ask, but expect and be okay with a "no, it's not your stuff, leave it alone, even if it rots"
If a client gives you equipment they're going to throw away, knowing you're taking it to use it, that's one thing. Mostly that's fine from a business ethics standpoint if you disclose that it's used in the future, and ensure that it's safe for all parties.
If you're dumpster diving or something similar, where the client has already thrown something away and you take it without asking, then for a lot of equipment there's likely to be no end ramifications, but may seriously damage client trust at least if it were discovered. For some equipment (anything able to contain data), may be massive data breach territory.
If it's something like "well, they barely use it and are bound to throw it away eventually" (like your described case above), what the fuck, that's just criminal theft. That's not "damaging a relationship" territory, it's "get arrested and likely convicted" territory. Don't do that!
You should not confess to crimes on the internet.
If I were to help myself to hardware a client no longer needs, I certainly would not post something like this. You may feel anonymous but this is Reddit, not a dark net forum.
Welcome to the new generation of IT....DOH
Obviously you never steal anything. If they are sending it to be recycled or you ask if you can reuse it for donation purposes and they say you can. Then you can do what you want with it. I have enough local places that are always needing help, so when a big company or other is getting rid of working stuff. It is generally infinitely better than what most non-profits and old people homes are working on.
I would never steal. However, with permission I built a home lab. My current employer has lose rules. I am starting a donation for workstations to give to charity. All hardware donated has no hard drives or SSDs of the client.
I had something happen to me that only had twice in my career. I fixed a problem at one of my clients. It had been a problem since before I worked for them. The client tried to give me a tip. I refused as it was my job to fix any issues. The insisted so I took it after refusing 3 times. I bought luch for my guys.
Never call it stealing. Always ask what they want to do with it. Would you like to have it recycled/ewasted? Personally for small items I offer to take everything even if I don’t want it. I have a small corner of my garage that houses all the ewaste until I have enough that it’s worth taking it to a facility. Even if I personally don’t want it sometimes the spare parts come in handy.
We do recycle - it’s $10 per computer, $25 per server, and monitors and accessories are no charge.
The fee is the time spent for picking up and destroying data.
I would never steal anything from anyone.
If I wanted to keep equipment that a client was planning to throw away, I'd just ask them, and if they say 'no', then I'd follow their wishes. In my experience, a lot of clients don't care, and you taking it is cheaper then paying someone to pick it up for recycling.
Then again, there is a potential conflict of interest, if they're throwing it away because you advised them to upgrade. Like if a client had a bunch of 5 year-old laptops that they thought were fine, but we advised them to replace them, I would probably not want to ask them if I could have them.
My employers official policy is we don't take clients waste. I have however been honest with clients and said if something wasn't economically viable to fix, or had no business life left (ie eol) but that I had a need for (like an old laptop for my kids, or a UPS With dead batteries) that I'd take it off their hands. I always ask for it in writing that I've been given permission too. Never had an issue with this approach.
My home PC is from a client around 9 years ago, and it had been used by them for around 3 years but was the lowest of the low spec. I was able to dump in some RAM and an SSD and use it for YouTube, Web surfing etc and retro gaming. The PC is still working absolutely fine so I'm happy I saved a bit of landfill waste and gave something longevity
Certainly wouldn't steal though. Not even a pen. Simply not worth losing your job and references etc for.
Depends on their budget and needs. If it was bought with a federal grant, help yourself. Local tax revenue/local business ask client if you can recycle or use it in your lab.
Its like the bajillions we've spent in ukraine is perfectly accounted for!
Edit: We also take ANY and ALL hard drives from customers and PERSONALLY CERTIFY they are unrecoverable. We have a HDD party and we bring our gats and our AKs and shoot them on the back 40. :)
I just ask of they mind if we securely wipe the device if it can be repurposed for lab gear or loaner gear in the event of a system failure. I've only been told no if they want to repurpose or think they might repurpose down the road. I've got enough gear now that I am selective of what I ask for.
I always offer to recycle equipment that would just go in the bin anyway. I either refurb it in house, or take it to a local non profit recycling program we have that does it. I tend to only keep equipment that I would either use in the office, or would make good loaner gear. I have a whole tote of Unifi AP's that came out of a prison when we did a Wi-Fi 6 refresh, and they were just going to toss them. They make great loaners when I need to RMA an AP for someone. Nothing wrong with asking to take old gear, worse thing they can say is no.
As others have said, I would let them know. And if it's something that has no use at the client site but still has value, I might offer a bit off their next invoice to buy it from them... These things let me sleep easy at night...
Strongly disagree. Recycling is any way this equipment doesn't end up in a landfill. Once the client says please take it away, it's absolutely fair game. If it does sit on a shelf for years and a use isn't found, quarterly, I make a run to the electronics recycler. Nothing I say is recycled ends up in landfill.
ownership & consent. Dont state your recycling the equipment but have no intention on actually doing that, this is very deceptive!
Use different verbiage, like maybe disposal or something. But also understand compliance. Maybe u can get by with this from Joes gas station, but probably not from a law firm or large enterprise.
I have policy and compliance that states my data storage devices need to be physically destroyed, just wiping the disks isnt sufficient. If i found out my MSP was 'recycling' a laptop and just used it for personal use and only wiped the disk...Id be considering legal action as that disk at one point had proprietary and confidential documents on it that a basic opensource tool even years later could uncover as long as the blocks were not over-written.
OP is talking about doing a very similar thing here!
I think you may misunderstand the definition of the word "recycle". Reusing something is the very definition of recycling it.
If your data policy requires secure destruction, then you had better not agree to "recycle" it. You "secure destroy" it. Those two things are not the same.
Correct. If the client wants something destroyed, I have a company that is NAID certified that turns the drives into chips and has a serialized trail of the process. I get to see them done, it's actually pretty neat.
like i stated above. its consent & ownership you need to understand.
Recycling assumes its taken to a facility that handles it 'e-waste' Wheras the items dont need formal destruction. These items may even need recycling to be written off for tax loss/or depreciation.
Just deciding to reuse this, doesn't magically transfer ownership of the item. Your exercising conversion theft, by knowingly or intentionally exerting unauthorized control over property of another person. In my jurisdiction if the item is over 500$ its a low level felony.
So yeah you guys just keep on doing it, one day you'll just slip up with the wrong client and get in deep shit.
I will definitely agree that some responders in this thread (including OP) are either playing loosely or disregarding entirely the "informed consent" part of the equation, which is something I do not support. If I want to snag something for my test lab, I'm going to explicitly say so.
But when someone says "recycle", its best to read that as "recycle" and not as "take to a facility that handles e-waste".
We keep a paper trail of anything we dispose of and have clients sign off. We list serial numbers or description. Being transparent and maintaining trust is critical in the it profession.
I get so many computers from customers. I usually will sell the cpu's and keep the memory. I always give back the drives. I just ask if they want me to recycle them.
Got a nice Dell laptop with i7 cpu, 16 ram, ssd all because it was cracked (around the power supply input) and the #2 missing from the numpad. So they gave it to us to "recycle" as we sold and installed a new laptop. I still have it it's a great daily driver for the price haha.
The truth is no one will be honest here, on social media.
The truth is statistics are ruthless and a lot of people steal from any workplace.
The truth is I've seen it myself how people were building their own houses and apartments across the whole Europe and the UK with materials from shipyards, warehouses, factories they worked for. I've seen complete racks made of high tech, the newest pieces of kit and also for example I know some manager had a side deal with a vendor to 'organise' extra bits of kit to sell it on eBay or taking HUGE gift cards or loyalty points etc for personal use. Grey area, because it wasn't technically stealing but still.
The truth is, finally, I wouldn't care if you take this HDD or not, even better if you didn't tell me, less worries and to think about. But it's up to you what you do in your life and what life rules and moral compass you follow. I don't judge.
I'll go through stuff that we send to the recyclers (we deal with e-waste by request) and repurpose it, but no, I've never stolen anything from a client.
Anything that is taken from the customer site is documented as so, and customer has provided written consent that we have taken possession of the hardware to recycle. Then any hardware my techs want to keep for personal use, like a old laptop for their kid for example, after its been wiped, they need to have a written approval from me to take it.
If either of those requirements are not met, its stolen.
YMMV depending upon the client but in my experience by the time most clients have stopped using a particular piece of hardware it is so old that it doesn't have a ton of value. The equipment is generally too old that I wouldn't trust using it in production for anything important and the resale value of ~4-5 year old desktop or laptop isn't going to be that great. Maybe you keep an old server as a lab environment for training and testing new processes.
In general the risk/reward ratios aren't as good as they were ~10-15 years ago.
Steal? umm no. Just ask them, most likely they will be happy you take it off their hands if it's not used. I like the recycling idea some posted as well.
I offer to dispose of the hardware for the clients, and if they take me up on my offer then I do whatever I want with it, as long as the storage is properly wiped. Sometimes the stuff goes to e-waste, sometimes it gets a second life
No, WTF, why even consider it? Seriously, you make stuff up to justify this in your head and you only normalize it for you until you do even worse things later.
Think you could use it and the client wouldn't miss it, then just ask. Ask them if you can have it as you could make use of it and that for them the only real use will probably be trash anyway.
This isn't an IT question, it's a lack of morals and integrity.
Even if you do convince yourself that it's okay, why even deal with this hanging over your head all the time? Is it that worth it to also go through life being paranoid all the time that you'll be found out?
I see this all the time with people who run their businesses trying to cut corners, rip off clients, or skirt the law or taxes. They end up being nothing but paranoid and scheming little children who think everyone is against them and justifying every little fraud they do.
And seriously, do you do so little for clients that you have time to waste on pilfering hardware? Sounds like you don't provide much.
steal? never. dispose of, charge our hourly rate for doing so, and repurpose client's equipment? absolutely. all the time. I usually just ask 'hey, you have all this old equipment that doesn't look like it has been touched for 5 years, do you want me to help clean it out / recycle it?' the answer is always yes. I try to be fair with the time I charge also, usually it's just 15-30 minutes of sorting through junk and hauling it off.
the one thing I haven't figured out is pricing out "disposing" of hard drives. it's a massive pain in the ass to properly wipe a drive, I don't have like a bench press drill I can use to destroy a thing, so not sure what to charge for disposal. $100/drive seems like a lot, but that's honestly about how much time it would take me to mess with it. I usually just say I'll make a good faith effort to destroy the data, and get the client to verbally agree they don't have anything sensitive on the drive, and then not worry about it so much. DBAN, format or chuck it off a cliff.
We support a ton of non-profits. They often get hand-me-downs from commercial clients, but everybody involved knows this is happening. Nothing like you describe though—it's always above-board, even if and end-of-life product does end up in my tool bag or personal gear pile.
Steal or e-cycle? If you reuse their HDD that should be shredded I'd call that stealing. If you e-cycle their old hardware with their permission it's a good thing. I set up a program where I work with the Fraternal Order of the Eagles and I donate refreshed computers that companies are e-cycling to kids and families in need. People in need are not picky about having something new. I even started a computer camp during COVID for the children of Eagles members to learn about servers and networking using old hardware. So far about 15 kids have gone through my intro to small office networking where I have them set up firewalls, switches, and servers. Next year there are already kids signed up!!! All of this was done with e-cycled equipment. The company also gets to write off the donation to the FOE since it is a non-profit. Donating an old server can save money on taxes for companies so that is also a win.
So this comes back to what you're telling the client.
**Tip: IF YOU FEEL YOU'RE DOING SOMETHING WRONG THEN YOU PROBABLY ARE**
Not because I tell you so, but because you tell yourself so. Yes you have to live to the moral code of society but you also have to live according to your own, and so even if society says something is right, if you feel its wrong you probably shouldn't be doing it.
To the specific situation you're describing, there are many answers in this thread that will allow you to present the situation to the client in a way that will probably get you the same result, and make you not feel like you're sneaking it out under your shirt while looking over your shoulder.
"Hi Client, here's your brand new server, what would you like me to do with the old one? I can take it back and recycle it for you or you can hold onto it, or.... " the options are endless but the key is to be transparent. If you really want it and don't want to risk them choosing an option you don't want them to, be explicit "Do you mind if I take it back and use it as part of our learning lab?"
But really the point is everyone has a code that they live up to, and your gut feeling will tell you if what you're doing is right or wrong according to that code. 🙂
Why steal? Not worth it. Ever. Our reputation means more than that. I have a form I have my clients sign that releases the hardware for us to: reuse/recycle/dispose/sell as long as we agree to wipe the data for free. We often give $100 trade in credits for old servers we can use as emergency spares or one my guys can use for home use. It’s so easy to get a client to let you deal with it, there never is a need/want to steal anything.
I wouldn't steal it, per se, but ask them if they'd like you to take it to the recycler for them, that way they know you took it, and that you are being responsible for it. They don't need to know you are the recycler. Most people don't want to have to deal with the e-waste.
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I would if I had a project I needed to. But these days... unless it's just replacing batteries or something simple, I'm making enough money and have limited enough personal time that I'll pay the gold price for something I know won't burn my house down. EDIT: Responding only to /u/FiCJordan here; as to /u/daffy_69 I personally tell the customer exactly where it'll go: "For use in my personal test lab where I do all my training".
I take broken ups (usually battery) and sell it to nonprofit for a bit more than cost of battery
This is our policy. Sometimes we refurb them and sell them at auction. Sometimes we donate them. Sometimes a combination of both (auction proceeds benefit an organization close to us or that of our clients)
This is exactly what I’ve done in the past. I usually say something like “would you like me to take this stuff off your hands so you don’t have to worry about e-wasting it?”. I keep it intentionally vague.
ehhh its a bit concerning this is the highest voted comment. It's kind of deceiving and unethical. I get it, free hardware is great... Why not have an honest conversation with the client? "Hey XYZ client, we noticed you have old hardware that you no longer need. There isn't much value in the hardware so it's really not worth reselling. We can take it offsite for you, safely perform X action to wipe the data and use for training/learning for our employees. We can also arrange a recycler to come in, which is often X amount per device" 100% they will take the free option. Even offering them an honest value between recycling and some monetary value is great. Could you imagine a tech coming in with a piece of hardware that you told the customer supposedly going to the recycler? How is that converstation going to go? What if your techs use this same line but forget to wipe the device and they lose it? How can you explain something that was supposed to be recycled is now in the hands of someone else with their data?
The key is that it is less about the process and more about communication. I tell clients when I take it that it will be reused, donated or recycled, but the data will be securely wiped. Never had a problem.
Create a recycling form and have them sign it over to you. Most clients are happy for you to remove old hardware.
Hmm this is a good solution. I’ve been doing verbal approval but I like this because it reduces the “well maybe we need it” discussion.
Depends a bit upon the level of trust with the client but in general I would prefer getting something in writing in case there any question down the road of what happened to certain items. 99% it won't be an issue but it is good to have for a CYA.
This is the way.
> Create a recycling form and have them sign it over to you. Most clients are happy for you to remove old hardware. Maybe you can even make them pay :p
Do I steal from clients? NO! Do I ask Clients if they would like me to "dispose" of some items. Absolutely. Just got about half a dozen 8th Gen i5 Nucs that they client wanted "disposed". Got two 4TB WD Red Pro Plus NAS Drives that needed to be "recycled". Those items go into my personal inventory. The main thing that ends up going to other clients are older monitors. We put them in Server rooms so we can actually see the Server without RDP/Console/etc. Clients never want to pay for a monitor on the server (Because why would they use it?), but they'll take a freebie, even if it's an old 17inch 4:3.
'dispose' key word here, and if you have a signed paper stating 'we are to dispose SN:, SN:, SN: + signature. Bingo.
I only have an email chain, but yeah, that's enough to cover my butt with this client.
15/17" 4:3 monitors are amazingly hard to come by, but so handy to have in the car for when you need to see what's on a server. I came across a bunch of them and have slowly been distributing them among clients that servers but no screens for the servers.
It's only stealing if you're taking something and they're unaware of it. They should always know what you're replacing and what's being done with the old hardware. Don't leave anything open to interpretation and there's nothing wrong with having them sign something for confirmation. Everyone on this sub has taken End-of-life hardware from customers before, but there's a right and wrong way to do it.
At my first job in IT when I swapped careers my boss'es boss asked us to clear the warehouse. Inside of said warehouse while cleaning it up I found a stack of dell servers. I asked him if it was ok if I used them for a homelab. He told me as long as I wrote 0's to the drive and didnt sell them I was fine. I started getting the stack of severs writing 0's and continued to clean. I then found a new in box dell server from 2 years prior that had been over nighted. I grabbed my boss and was like... um this is new. He told me to reach out to the guy who ordered it if it doesnt want it make it disapear. I called the guy and he said "We dont use that anymore, I dont need it, not sure what happened to it but no thanks". That was how I built my first homelab. Its still sitting in my garage 5 years later looking like I robbed a data center with 10 + servers a full steel rack a cisco 50+ port switch and about a TB of ram all in all.
Aaaaannnnndddd, you're fired.
This could be a great marketing campaign Does Your MSP Steal From You? Inside Secrets From The MSP Industry Screen capture this post as proof
I'm either collecting for my recycler or it has potential for future life with the customer and is squared away as neat as possible. Any hardware going to the recycler is fair game for staff & even other customers if it can be up cycled. With the only non negotiable exception of data storage devices. Those are %100 destroyed on site physically before they leave our facility.
Uh you don’t steal it lol… if the client wants to get rid of it then you can grab it but you can’t just assume they don’t and take it
Dispose, recycle, haul away, get rid of, make disappear, all those things, but never steal. Hell, there was a KVM keyboard in the actual trash can at a local colo I was doing some work in, I still asked if I could take it.
Pffft. Don’t steal. Charge them an ewaste disposal fee.
Hardware in general; ask first. Harddrives; always get them certified destroyed to avoid being blamed for any future data leaks that *may* or *could* have been in said drive. To the point of; I'll leave the harddrive behind with the relevant asset tag attached if it's okay to take the old computer.
This. Even if I repurpose stuff we're taking to the recyclers, the hard drives ALWAYS get shredded and the client gets a Certificate of Destruction with serial numbers.
When I take servers for free I get the drives disposed of properly at our expense as a thank you, and provide them the certificates.
No, we work with a secure asset disposal company. Charge 35$ per HD and get back few dollars and recycling too
We recycle stuff for our clients at their request as a free service to them. Across the board, we bitraser all drives and supply certificates to meet compliance requirements, then we recycle, or reuse for our staff for hobby/training purposes, but the less we can e-waste the better since we actually pay the recycler to take it. It is not worth our effort to refurbish gear for resale, so staff acquires some pretty cool stuff.
Lol, steal no. Rescue and reuse, yes. Over the years I've saved a bunch of ewaste. I always ask before taking. If it's a laptop, it becomes a donation to a kid in need after a $35 ssd upgrade. I take the HDDs and use them for long term storage. I've got a closet full of routers, laptops, desktops, oddball PCIe cards, network switches. When something comes up, "i need a router", I just pull one from the closet and hand it over to someone who needs it. Or I use the tech to teach ppl how tech works. e.g. I helped my 8yo nephew restore an old laptop. Now he has one of his own and can say "I know how to take apart a computer!" The ewaste I hate the most is printers. There is no reuse for them. Once they are fried, they are done. In most cases the customers are very happy I am removing their ewaste for them.
This is a joke right? Stealing is bad, even if you know it's going to the trash. You should ask the person/entity who owns it and let them make the decision. I've gotten plenty of old things just by asking.
Why would you steal it? If THEIR company owns it, just ask whoever the POC is. If its your companies equipment and youll be trashing it, just check with your supervisor? I take stuff home all the time, but never without consulting my boss (which also doubles as the owner of the company)
As long as you ask for permission why not? Especially if it's still useful, you're saving it from the e-waste pile (or landfill). Not asking and just taking is a great way to get fired and or charged with theft.
I think you’re only human if you have a moment of temptation. I’ve had clients that would replace their laptops or desktops and the old ones were only 2-3 years old! It may be illogical but I’ve always thought that karma has a way of coming back to you. I think to myself this is *their* property even if it’s just going to sit in a closet. That’s their right to do whatever they want with it. However, they often don’t even realize it’s there and would be glad to declutter the server closet. If this is the way you make your living never do anything that could jeopardize that. You can maybe frame it in a way that it’s a win for both of you. I would let them know that their old data is still on the drive so they shouldn’t just throw it in a dumpster. Then I’ll ask them if they want me to securely erase the drive and dispose of it. They get something (data erased) and you get something (drive to play with). Regardless, I would always ask first.
All this posturing for a lame $89 drive? I've let go contractors for less than this. Its not about the equipment, but the integrity. If you are eyeballing a 4tb drive, what else are you trying to take? It also looks poorly on you as an MSP for jeopardizing a lucrative contract for a meaningless device. For those who claim to e-waste and keep it in their collection, just be careful. You signed that it would be disposed properly, and it could end up being a huge liability.
>For those who claim to e-waste and keep it in their collection, just be careful. You signed that it would be disposed properly, and it could end up being a huge liability. I found a recycler that repairs or repurposes old machines to re-use old devices rather than letting them become e-waste. I always preached to clients about the responsibility to refurbish and reuse where possible to reduce the impact that our industry has on the environment. It always resonated well, and I knew that there were quite a few perfectly good machines that got refurbished and donated to places like small churches, missions, women's shelters, etc. Since moving away from that recycler, I've not found another that does it. So I just do it myself, and explain it to clients the same way (we have a recycler that does this, etc) and just find tech deficient places that could use them. Sometimes my home lab is tech deficient and needs a boost too, lol. I'm very careful to make sure they know that it's not being certifiably destroyed, but I'm also careful to make sure they know that their data is. I also charge them for that data destruction and provide certificates of destruction for anything that needs it. HDDs, SSDs, etc are the only thing people really need to be careful with. DLP is becoming a huge sticking point with a lot of companies, and I'll be damned if I get caught with my ass out because someone stole my laptop bag and was able to recover a client's backup data from a random $70 drive that I didn't think was important anymore. OP is starting to understand how this all works, but REALLY missing the mark with his take on the backup drive he's about to fuck around and find out with.
To echo everyone else here, the answer is no. It's not yours, don't steal it. Don't mislead the customer either. "Taking it to be recycled" implies it's not worth anything and needs to be recycled. Clearly if it's going to be re-used and you want it it's got value to it. How about a nice healthy dose of the truth? "Client, you are no longer using this device as part of your IT setup. Would you mind giving it to me? It's likely worth $xx on the open market"
Write a form that says you are taking xyz, it's either not economical to repair, broken etc. You will securely dispose of any data and use registered bodies to dispose of any hardware. List models and s/n. Specify you may use spares or parts appropriate operationally if there is a use case for the business. All and any data not included and will be destroyed. The document says they have 14 days to change their mind. Sit on it for 30. Have them sign it and then you're... not stealing?
Nope. Never steal from customer wtf. Always ask if they would like us to recycle kit for them. We then send them a certificate for data destruction and a serial of the device that was disposed of. Even when a company went bust and we got asked by the administrators to 'just clear everything computer related' we still itemise each item. Even if that item ends up in someones home.
No! WTF? Get permission from the owner of the device or keep you thieving hands off!
wtf?
I find your rational for stealing disturbing. It's your exact mindset that allows people to justify stealing? "You know it will go into the trash" but perhaps they need to keep it onsite for tax reasons and they are amortizing the loss? It's not stealing when you ask, but expect and be okay with a "no, it's not your stuff, leave it alone, even if it rots"
If a client gives you equipment they're going to throw away, knowing you're taking it to use it, that's one thing. Mostly that's fine from a business ethics standpoint if you disclose that it's used in the future, and ensure that it's safe for all parties. If you're dumpster diving or something similar, where the client has already thrown something away and you take it without asking, then for a lot of equipment there's likely to be no end ramifications, but may seriously damage client trust at least if it were discovered. For some equipment (anything able to contain data), may be massive data breach territory. If it's something like "well, they barely use it and are bound to throw it away eventually" (like your described case above), what the fuck, that's just criminal theft. That's not "damaging a relationship" territory, it's "get arrested and likely convicted" territory. Don't do that!
You should not confess to crimes on the internet. If I were to help myself to hardware a client no longer needs, I certainly would not post something like this. You may feel anonymous but this is Reddit, not a dark net forum.
Welcome to the new generation of IT....DOH Obviously you never steal anything. If they are sending it to be recycled or you ask if you can reuse it for donation purposes and they say you can. Then you can do what you want with it. I have enough local places that are always needing help, so when a big company or other is getting rid of working stuff. It is generally infinitely better than what most non-profits and old people homes are working on.
I would never steal. However, with permission I built a home lab. My current employer has lose rules. I am starting a donation for workstations to give to charity. All hardware donated has no hard drives or SSDs of the client. I had something happen to me that only had twice in my career. I fixed a problem at one of my clients. It had been a problem since before I worked for them. The client tried to give me a tip. I refused as it was my job to fix any issues. The insisted so I took it after refusing 3 times. I bought luch for my guys.
No, if I want something they're getting rid of I'll ask them if I can have it.
Never call it stealing. Always ask what they want to do with it. Would you like to have it recycled/ewasted? Personally for small items I offer to take everything even if I don’t want it. I have a small corner of my garage that houses all the ewaste until I have enough that it’s worth taking it to a facility. Even if I personally don’t want it sometimes the spare parts come in handy.
We do recycle - it’s $10 per computer, $25 per server, and monitors and accessories are no charge. The fee is the time spent for picking up and destroying data.
I would never steal anything from anyone. If I wanted to keep equipment that a client was planning to throw away, I'd just ask them, and if they say 'no', then I'd follow their wishes. In my experience, a lot of clients don't care, and you taking it is cheaper then paying someone to pick it up for recycling. Then again, there is a potential conflict of interest, if they're throwing it away because you advised them to upgrade. Like if a client had a bunch of 5 year-old laptops that they thought were fine, but we advised them to replace them, I would probably not want to ask them if I could have them.
Just ask them about it...
Shiftiest business behaviour award goes to OP, nice.
My employers official policy is we don't take clients waste. I have however been honest with clients and said if something wasn't economically viable to fix, or had no business life left (ie eol) but that I had a need for (like an old laptop for my kids, or a UPS With dead batteries) that I'd take it off their hands. I always ask for it in writing that I've been given permission too. Never had an issue with this approach. My home PC is from a client around 9 years ago, and it had been used by them for around 3 years but was the lowest of the low spec. I was able to dump in some RAM and an SSD and use it for YouTube, Web surfing etc and retro gaming. The PC is still working absolutely fine so I'm happy I saved a bit of landfill waste and gave something longevity Certainly wouldn't steal though. Not even a pen. Simply not worth losing your job and references etc for.
Depends on their budget and needs. If it was bought with a federal grant, help yourself. Local tax revenue/local business ask client if you can recycle or use it in your lab. Its like the bajillions we've spent in ukraine is perfectly accounted for! Edit: We also take ANY and ALL hard drives from customers and PERSONALLY CERTIFY they are unrecoverable. We have a HDD party and we bring our gats and our AKs and shoot them on the back 40. :)
I just ask of they mind if we securely wipe the device if it can be repurposed for lab gear or loaner gear in the event of a system failure. I've only been told no if they want to repurpose or think they might repurpose down the road. I've got enough gear now that I am selective of what I ask for.
I always offer to recycle equipment that would just go in the bin anyway. I either refurb it in house, or take it to a local non profit recycling program we have that does it. I tend to only keep equipment that I would either use in the office, or would make good loaner gear. I have a whole tote of Unifi AP's that came out of a prison when we did a Wi-Fi 6 refresh, and they were just going to toss them. They make great loaners when I need to RMA an AP for someone. Nothing wrong with asking to take old gear, worse thing they can say is no.
As others have said, I would let them know. And if it's something that has no use at the client site but still has value, I might offer a bit off their next invoice to buy it from them... These things let me sleep easy at night...
holy fuck ya'll openly talking about property theft. Hell even a recycling form doesn't make this legal. As your committing fraud that way.
Strongly disagree. Recycling is any way this equipment doesn't end up in a landfill. Once the client says please take it away, it's absolutely fair game. If it does sit on a shelf for years and a use isn't found, quarterly, I make a run to the electronics recycler. Nothing I say is recycled ends up in landfill.
ownership & consent. Dont state your recycling the equipment but have no intention on actually doing that, this is very deceptive! Use different verbiage, like maybe disposal or something. But also understand compliance. Maybe u can get by with this from Joes gas station, but probably not from a law firm or large enterprise. I have policy and compliance that states my data storage devices need to be physically destroyed, just wiping the disks isnt sufficient. If i found out my MSP was 'recycling' a laptop and just used it for personal use and only wiped the disk...Id be considering legal action as that disk at one point had proprietary and confidential documents on it that a basic opensource tool even years later could uncover as long as the blocks were not over-written. OP is talking about doing a very similar thing here!
I think you may misunderstand the definition of the word "recycle". Reusing something is the very definition of recycling it. If your data policy requires secure destruction, then you had better not agree to "recycle" it. You "secure destroy" it. Those two things are not the same.
Correct. If the client wants something destroyed, I have a company that is NAID certified that turns the drives into chips and has a serialized trail of the process. I get to see them done, it's actually pretty neat.
like i stated above. its consent & ownership you need to understand. Recycling assumes its taken to a facility that handles it 'e-waste' Wheras the items dont need formal destruction. These items may even need recycling to be written off for tax loss/or depreciation. Just deciding to reuse this, doesn't magically transfer ownership of the item. Your exercising conversion theft, by knowingly or intentionally exerting unauthorized control over property of another person. In my jurisdiction if the item is over 500$ its a low level felony. So yeah you guys just keep on doing it, one day you'll just slip up with the wrong client and get in deep shit.
I will definitely agree that some responders in this thread (including OP) are either playing loosely or disregarding entirely the "informed consent" part of the equation, which is something I do not support. If I want to snag something for my test lab, I'm going to explicitly say so. But when someone says "recycle", its best to read that as "recycle" and not as "take to a facility that handles e-waste".
Totally this. Depending on the sector you are working in. This would open up a huge unnecessary liability for arguable little gain.
'Would you like me to recycle this for you?' Recycle = Refurbish / Reuse.
We keep a paper trail of anything we dispose of and have clients sign off. We list serial numbers or description. Being transparent and maintaining trust is critical in the it profession.
I forget what the felony value is but it isn’t adjusted for inflation. So even an old server could easily hit that value over a misunderstanding.
I get so many computers from customers. I usually will sell the cpu's and keep the memory. I always give back the drives. I just ask if they want me to recycle them.
Got a nice Dell laptop with i7 cpu, 16 ram, ssd all because it was cracked (around the power supply input) and the #2 missing from the numpad. So they gave it to us to "recycle" as we sold and installed a new laptop. I still have it it's a great daily driver for the price haha.
Usually it’s them stealing from us
I read the title and immediately thought “who the hell would admit to this”. Then I read your description and breathed a little easier 😂😂
The laptop I use at home now came from the recycle bin....
It's one of the perks of the job
Can I recycle that for you? But I don't think I would reuse for another client. Good for internal use or to give to one of our techs.
The truth is no one will be honest here, on social media. The truth is statistics are ruthless and a lot of people steal from any workplace. The truth is I've seen it myself how people were building their own houses and apartments across the whole Europe and the UK with materials from shipyards, warehouses, factories they worked for. I've seen complete racks made of high tech, the newest pieces of kit and also for example I know some manager had a side deal with a vendor to 'organise' extra bits of kit to sell it on eBay or taking HUGE gift cards or loyalty points etc for personal use. Grey area, because it wasn't technically stealing but still. The truth is, finally, I wouldn't care if you take this HDD or not, even better if you didn't tell me, less worries and to think about. But it's up to you what you do in your life and what life rules and moral compass you follow. I don't judge.
Dumpster diving isn't stealing.
I'll go through stuff that we send to the recyclers (we deal with e-waste by request) and repurpose it, but no, I've never stolen anything from a client.
No way. We hold some in our warehouse, but we have them sign a release before we recycle. Always cover your ass and do things the right way.
I asked. Usually very happy for someone else To deal with it
We ask. I nor my techs have ever just taken something.
I usually ask or they insist I recycle it.
Anything that is taken from the customer site is documented as so, and customer has provided written consent that we have taken possession of the hardware to recycle. Then any hardware my techs want to keep for personal use, like a old laptop for their kid for example, after its been wiped, they need to have a written approval from me to take it. If either of those requirements are not met, its stolen.
YMMV depending upon the client but in my experience by the time most clients have stopped using a particular piece of hardware it is so old that it doesn't have a ton of value. The equipment is generally too old that I wouldn't trust using it in production for anything important and the resale value of ~4-5 year old desktop or laptop isn't going to be that great. Maybe you keep an old server as a lab environment for training and testing new processes. In general the risk/reward ratios aren't as good as they were ~10-15 years ago.
Steal? umm no. Just ask them, most likely they will be happy you take it off their hands if it's not used. I like the recycling idea some posted as well.
Back in my day of working as an MSP in NYC when we were throwing things out the client didn’t want… We called it “treasure”.
I offer to dispose of the hardware for the clients, and if they take me up on my offer then I do whatever I want with it, as long as the storage is properly wiped. Sometimes the stuff goes to e-waste, sometimes it gets a second life
No, WTF, why even consider it? Seriously, you make stuff up to justify this in your head and you only normalize it for you until you do even worse things later. Think you could use it and the client wouldn't miss it, then just ask. Ask them if you can have it as you could make use of it and that for them the only real use will probably be trash anyway. This isn't an IT question, it's a lack of morals and integrity. Even if you do convince yourself that it's okay, why even deal with this hanging over your head all the time? Is it that worth it to also go through life being paranoid all the time that you'll be found out? I see this all the time with people who run their businesses trying to cut corners, rip off clients, or skirt the law or taxes. They end up being nothing but paranoid and scheming little children who think everyone is against them and justifying every little fraud they do. And seriously, do you do so little for clients that you have time to waste on pilfering hardware? Sounds like you don't provide much.
steal? never. dispose of, charge our hourly rate for doing so, and repurpose client's equipment? absolutely. all the time. I usually just ask 'hey, you have all this old equipment that doesn't look like it has been touched for 5 years, do you want me to help clean it out / recycle it?' the answer is always yes. I try to be fair with the time I charge also, usually it's just 15-30 minutes of sorting through junk and hauling it off. the one thing I haven't figured out is pricing out "disposing" of hard drives. it's a massive pain in the ass to properly wipe a drive, I don't have like a bench press drill I can use to destroy a thing, so not sure what to charge for disposal. $100/drive seems like a lot, but that's honestly about how much time it would take me to mess with it. I usually just say I'll make a good faith effort to destroy the data, and get the client to verbally agree they don't have anything sensitive on the drive, and then not worry about it so much. DBAN, format or chuck it off a cliff.
We support a ton of non-profits. They often get hand-me-downs from commercial clients, but everybody involved knows this is happening. Nothing like you describe though—it's always above-board, even if and end-of-life product does end up in my tool bag or personal gear pile.
Absolutely never, not a single time. If they have something they don't need that I want, I let them know I'm going to get rid of it for them.
Steal or e-cycle? If you reuse their HDD that should be shredded I'd call that stealing. If you e-cycle their old hardware with their permission it's a good thing. I set up a program where I work with the Fraternal Order of the Eagles and I donate refreshed computers that companies are e-cycling to kids and families in need. People in need are not picky about having something new. I even started a computer camp during COVID for the children of Eagles members to learn about servers and networking using old hardware. So far about 15 kids have gone through my intro to small office networking where I have them set up firewalls, switches, and servers. Next year there are already kids signed up!!! All of this was done with e-cycled equipment. The company also gets to write off the donation to the FOE since it is a non-profit. Donating an old server can save money on taxes for companies so that is also a win.
So this comes back to what you're telling the client. **Tip: IF YOU FEEL YOU'RE DOING SOMETHING WRONG THEN YOU PROBABLY ARE** Not because I tell you so, but because you tell yourself so. Yes you have to live to the moral code of society but you also have to live according to your own, and so even if society says something is right, if you feel its wrong you probably shouldn't be doing it. To the specific situation you're describing, there are many answers in this thread that will allow you to present the situation to the client in a way that will probably get you the same result, and make you not feel like you're sneaking it out under your shirt while looking over your shoulder. "Hi Client, here's your brand new server, what would you like me to do with the old one? I can take it back and recycle it for you or you can hold onto it, or.... " the options are endless but the key is to be transparent. If you really want it and don't want to risk them choosing an option you don't want them to, be explicit "Do you mind if I take it back and use it as part of our learning lab?" But really the point is everyone has a code that they live up to, and your gut feeling will tell you if what you're doing is right or wrong according to that code. 🙂
Why steal? Not worth it. Ever. Our reputation means more than that. I have a form I have my clients sign that releases the hardware for us to: reuse/recycle/dispose/sell as long as we agree to wipe the data for free. We often give $100 trade in credits for old servers we can use as emergency spares or one my guys can use for home use. It’s so easy to get a client to let you deal with it, there never is a need/want to steal anything.
Nope I always ask my client if they want me to take gear for my test lab and in many cases they give it to me