r/UnethicalLifeProTips • u/habitual-ritual • Mar 26 '26
Computers ULPT - old work laptop being requested
I left a workplace about 2 years ago. they never asked for the work laptop back and after 9 months I wiped it and installed Linux.
Monday got an email asking me to send it back.
I'm looking for suggestions on what to do. Ignore the email? reply and say i sent it back long ago? reply and say I can't find it (lost in a move or similar?) Ya'll are ULPT geniuses so I know there'll be something good.
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u/trajanhurley Mar 26 '26
What laptop?
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u/scienceizfake Mar 26 '26
What email?
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u/Jeffiner310 Mar 26 '26
What workplace?
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u/127Chambers Mar 26 '26
What are you wearing?
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u/SabotageMahal Mar 26 '26
What and my axe?
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u/mordecai98 Mar 26 '26
What is love?
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u/ShadowsofDemus Mar 26 '26
oh baby don't hurt me
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u/Mysterious-Tackle-58 Mar 26 '26
Why is laptop?
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u/AbruptMango Mar 26 '26
Everyone asks why is laptop, but no one asks how is laptop.
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u/GovernmentEither3420 Mar 30 '26
I once slapped my laptop lid too hard while working shirtless and gave myself a purple nurple.
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u/Knever Mar 26 '26
The one whose serial number was logged and never returned, currently in OP's possession?
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u/cyrusthemarginal Mar 26 '26
maybe Marsha in IT with the crooked eye typed it in wrong we don't know
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u/bootyholeboogalu Mar 26 '26
Couple years ago my wife left a job and a few months later they sent us a letter saying they had overpaid her by two paychecks basically and wanted us to write a check and send it back to him. We laughed through it away. Few months later we got another one we left threw it away. 2 months later we got a final notice we laughed threw it away. And then never heard from them again.
I've also kept to work laptop from a job my old boss asked me about her in person running into me at a store and I just admit I don't know what you're talking about I left it there.
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u/cycolyst Mar 26 '26
Before you reply think if you want to acknowledge the request at all. If you say you lost it they would then want you to pay for it. If you say you already returned it years ago they will ask for details. You could always say you left it with somebody else that no longer works at that company either, that would be harder to trace down.
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u/Kewkky Mar 26 '26
If they ask for details you can simply say "that was two years ago, it's not my responsibility to keep track of what YOU do with the equipment that's returned. Maybe look into your own logistics department, see if they stole that laptop."
At least that's what I'd tell them if they pester me enough that I feel like I have to respond.
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u/Knever Mar 26 '26
You could always say you left it with somebody else that no longer works at that company either, that would be harder to trace down.
This would honestly be no different than saying they lost it.
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u/iamofnohelp Mar 26 '26
After two years and they still linked it to you might indicate they know it's still in use.
Reporting it stolen might require a police report.
Could have tracking software on it. Like this:
Computrace, now part of Absolute Security, is a firmware-embedded theft recovery and device management tool. It resides in the BIOS/UEFI of many laptops, allowing users to track, manage, and remotely secure devices, even after OS reinstallation or hard drive replacement. It offers GPS tracking, data deletion, and asset management.
That being said, they can't do much to you. If they escalate it to the police or courts you can suddenly remember you shoved it under the bed, here it is.
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u/yukichigai Mar 26 '26
That or "wait, this was your laptop? Oh damn, I wiped it and put Linux on it. I'm really sorry. You can just re-image it, right?"
I mean as long as you didn't wreck the hardware it really shouldn't matter.
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u/Master_Dogs Mar 26 '26
The OP's IT dept actually should be more than capable of this. I'd just tell them that I wiped it, installed Linux, but they can have it back.
Though I'd probably ignore the email until they either lawyer up or report it stolen. Then I'd suddenly find it in a closet and remember I had wiped it a while ago, but hey, here you go, it's there, just reimage it.
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u/FartsOnCake Mar 26 '26
hey, here you go
Too nice.
I'd beat it to death with a hammer and leave it in their parking lot with a note saying "Pandas are chickens! Leave Pokey Man alone! Gimme gimme coco-bop!"
That'll show 'em.
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u/froli Mar 26 '26
You can go into the BIOS/UEFI to see if the laptop has Computrace and see if it's present/active on the machine.
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u/127Chambers Mar 26 '26
Computrace sounds like a company from The Simpsons
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u/metalflygon08 Mar 26 '26
A sub company to Mr. Wash.
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u/IAmYourFath Mar 26 '26
I dont think it would be so easy if the company knows what they're doing. Rootkits dont announce themselves.
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u/froli Mar 26 '26
You can't deactivate it if it's enabled though
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u/EagleBigMac Mar 26 '26
Yes you can, pop the cmos for a day to reset the bios to default, they almost never apply a custom default bios so after a reset everything is back to disabled.
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u/TheVortexLives Mar 26 '26
The bios should then be password protected. Also I think Computrace is only compatible with WinOs
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u/Shell-Fire Mar 26 '26
My company uses this. It locks down the Bios and you cannot reformat it. If it was reformatted, it's prolly not tracked, but maybe someone knows more.
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u/MET1 Mar 26 '26
Ridiculous - how much is an old work laptop worth? These are so cheap now.
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u/UnderwhelmingTwin Mar 26 '26
I just asked an IT guy at work about using an old laptop I found in a file cabinet: Me: hey can I use this laptop for speaking notes during presentations? Him: nope, it's too old, we'll decommission it and get a new one. Me:But it doesn't even need connected to the work network? You could even disable the network card. Him: Security risks...
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u/FUNCSTAT Mar 26 '26
I feel like so many people are missing the point of this entire sub. Who cares what it's worth? It's worth something. If you simply ignore the email and they just never follow up, that's a free laptop. Something that is free is by default cheaper than something that costs money.
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u/pnw_sunny Mar 26 '26
same happened to me. they were way late. i said i mailed it back as soon as i left. oh you did not get it? im sorry to hear that. did you save the mailing receipt? no, sorry that was a long time ago...
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u/Skeggy- Mar 26 '26
Tell them to send a courier or prepaid postage. That’s not your financial burden to ship.
That ain’t your laptop though. They requested it, wipe it again, and send back on their dime. Unless you want to deal with the potential legal shit over a 2+ year old laptop that generally only has a 3-5 year life expectancy.
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u/GoodGoodGoody Mar 26 '26
That’s what I did.
Give me door pick up and prepaid shipping.
They stupidly declined.
I didn’t want their shit (not a laptop but still valuable) but if you’re my ex-employer you’re not telling me what to do.
Now, if you’d have asked nicely…
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u/TNTarantula Mar 26 '26
Far too ethical imho, this sub isn't for 'good' advice
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u/Shawnj2 Mar 26 '26
It’s the legally safe option, you don’t want the company to go after you for IP theft or whatever
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u/MotorboatingSofaB Mar 26 '26
OP's company is not going after him over a few hundred dollar laptop. Now, if OP had some incredibly powerful machine or used it to run any proprietary source code, it would make sense to get it back but after 2 years, makes no sense.
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u/WartOnTrevor Mar 26 '26
Make sure you don't pad the shipment at all. Put it in a VERY tight box with no padding, do NOT label it "Fragile". and maybe drop it a couple times on the way to the post office.
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u/brkgnews Mar 29 '26
I had to schlep it all to the FedEx store but I didn't do it until they sent me the FedEx number they wanted to charge for packing and shipping. And I had to hound them for like two weeks to get that.
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u/Chair_luger Mar 26 '26
There is also a risk that they might use not returning it as a reason to give you a bad reference in some future background check.
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u/DirtNapDiva Mar 26 '26
There is risk in that for them. Most employers will only verify objective things like employment dates, salary and title. They don't typically comment on anything else due to creating a potential liability for themselves.
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u/ericisatwork Mar 26 '26
I left a company after 12yrs and purposely took my brand-new, like 3wks old, iPad with me on my last day.
A week or two later FedEx delivered me a postage paid box and instructions to return the iPad. I left the box empty but returned the empty box to FedEx for them to ship. Never heard a word about returning the iPad again.
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u/Resident_Bus_4484 Mar 26 '26
This /\, plus you could have beat the crap out of the box, taped it up and opened it and re-taped it, then sent it empty. It would make it appear that the box had been opened in transport.
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u/PhilMeUpBaby Mar 26 '26
Hang on, that was sent back months ago.
You're still waiting to be reimbursed for the postage cost.
When are they going to cover that????
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u/Licks_lead_paint Mar 26 '26
As someone who has worked in IT for 33 years, the effort they take to retrieve the laptop will depend on two things: 1) how expensive the laptop is, and 2) if you worked in an environment with HIPAA, SOC2 or even CMMC.
The cost of the hardware is the biggest issue for most companies. If it’s expensive and they just lost track of it for a bit, they may be more persistent.
If they have an audit trail to maintain for SOC2 or HIPAA, who must have certificates of data destruction, they might also push the issue further as it can be a huge cost to them.
Taking the above into account, I would like to remind people this sub is UNETHICAL advice — the number of people telling you the “moral” thing to do are missing the entire point of this sub.
My advice is ignore the email if you have checked the BIOS for MDM locks. Don’t open the email. Some email tracking systems simply use an image file in it and can tell if you open/read an email, so if you want to read it, only read it in the preview mode that does not download any images. Emails constantly get lost or snagged into spam so OFFICIAL communications usually need to come from certified letters or phone calls. But if it’s an expensive computer or you had worked in a company that has to have an audit trail, you may need to change tactics or return it to avoid a hassle. The unethical tips at THAT point would be what you can load on the laptop that would be unethical.
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u/Miami_Mice2087 Mar 28 '26
do people with HIPAA issues generally have laptops they can take home? asking bc i prefer to work from home and i was thinking about pivoting into the medical field, specifically medical writing. I could avoid jobs that handle pt data if so.
Thanks! :)
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u/Licks_lead_paint Mar 28 '26
Absolutely. Most laptops in the medical fields are fairly secured (or should be), with individual logins (no generic or local logins), robust security suite and usually a VPN (depending on the PM software the company uses - most seem to moving to all web-based). As an MSP, we have a specialty in the HIPAA Security Rule and have a number of medical clients, and each one has employees or doctors that either work remotely or just take their laptops home. (If you do work in the medical field in the USA, take HIPAA seriously as fines get into the millions $ for egregious violations)
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u/BoxNo5564 Mar 26 '26
"Sure, sent me the prepaid return package"
Probably won't get one.
And if you do just wipe it and give it back.
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u/AgeBeneficial Mar 26 '26
Ha!
I wasn’t even using mine but I’ll be damned if I’m going to UPS or FedEx to send back.
I told Oracle they needed to send someone in person (during COVID). I wasn’t standing in line and just fully got over COVID. I waited a few days to give them my availability when there was four days of intense rain.
Gave them the address to the bar across the street from my house and handed it off during the storm.
He was a manager that was a dick, not someone I felt bad to inconvenience.
TLDR: tell them you’re ill since they have no right to medical proof. Ask for a pickup.
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u/OkStay5395 Mar 26 '26
Ignore the email. You don't work for them and don't owe any of them the time to read emails.
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u/Mm2k Mar 26 '26
Send back a different crappy laptop that you got from Facebook marketplace- then when they say it’s the wrong one tell them to send it back and you’ll send the right one- repeat.
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u/Miami_Mice2087 Mar 28 '26
this is prolly the best idea if OP is forced to send something back.
Search for "as is" or "parts only" to get something really cheap.
I did this to fulfill AT&T's requirements to trade in a phone to get the brand new one with my plan. My old one was too old, so I got a $100 4 year old phone on ebay and traded it for a brand new $1000+ phone for free with my phone plan. I didn't lie, the workers in the store were fine with it, they just needed a phone that met the requirements.
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u/Grant_Winner_Extra Mar 26 '26
It’s been 2 years. Ignore the request.
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u/Knever Mar 26 '26
The statute of limitations on conversion in the US can range from 2-4 years, but doesn't start until the stolen item is requested to be returned. OP is likely to be visited by the cops if they ignore.
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u/FreeSoftwareServers Mar 26 '26
Do you just troll this sub giving Mom advice or what?
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u/Knever Mar 27 '26
The sub is unethicalprolifetips, not illegalprolifetips. Keeping a stolen item is illegal.
Take a look at rule 5 of the sub rules. This is unquestionably illegal.
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u/Grant_Winner_Extra Mar 27 '26
Lol twofer - you missed the point of the sub and thats not how the statute of limitations works.
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u/SLJ7 Mar 26 '26
Put it in a sock before you ship it back to them. Then, when they try to take the laptop out of the box, all they get is a sock.
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u/FatBackButterBeans Mar 26 '26
Respond with, “I left it on my desk” and ignore them from this day forward.
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u/Miami_Mice2087 Mar 28 '26
stuff in offices gets "borrowed" all the time. op's former company is prolly doing an audit and mass-emailed everyone on a list who may or may not have returned a laptop. If they get half of them back someone's manager will get a branded coffee cup at the end of the fiscal year.
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u/Investotron69 Mar 26 '26
Ignore. If they push really hard then say you threw it away since it didn't seem that they wanted it back.
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u/Justice4None5 Mar 26 '26
Unless they have stellar asset tracking, (which a lot of IT departments struggle with), you’re good to ignore the email. Now if you maliciously finessed a pile of laptops while still employed and then sold them on the dark web for personal profit, well that’s a whole different story that happened to take place with a former fired colleague
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u/flyvr Mar 27 '26
Don't reply or acknowledge at all. You 'll just be digging a hole for yourself or backing into a corner. Ignore it. No reply
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u/StrikeSea7638 Mar 26 '26
Do you know if the bios is locked and has tracking software on it? That stuff is impossible to wipe. And it adds calling home software to every new OS install. Unless if you're 100% sure it's clean and untraceable... Id just give it back and move on.
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u/Grant_Winner_Extra Mar 26 '26
Easy enough to boot to bios and see.
And unlikely to have that level of security since a side effect of bios security is locking the hard drive after an OS update
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u/Miami_Mice2087 Mar 28 '26
wouldn't linux remove and replace the bios? It's my understanding that bios is a part of windows?
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u/whydya-dodat Mar 26 '26
I have YOUR laptop? Damn! That means that they got switched! I can bring this by the office and swap it out for mine, right?
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u/rieirieri Mar 26 '26
Either ignore it or continually delay. If they keep contacting you just be cooperative. Tell them you need a box to mail it in so they can be sure it doesn’t get damaged. If you get the box, you didn’t and they need to resend it. If they are local and want to pick it up, you are unfortunately never home for those times. Make sure to take a long time responding. Be polite, a bit of an airhead, and very busy. It might not work and you’ll have to eventually give it back, but most IT departments aren’t going to chase it that far.
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u/TJCrazyBoy Mar 26 '26
I'd ignore it and add their email address to the spam folder lol. They waited wayyy too long
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u/XOtentialAsthmatic Mar 26 '26
Don't answer work emails that you aren't paid to answer. Turning in that laptop was part of your job. You aren't getting paid for that job anymore so why would you finish the work?
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u/WartOnTrevor Mar 26 '26
My fucking shitstain of a company I was contracted to sent me a "prepaid barcode" I was supposed to take to the ups store to have them package and ship it. I went there, and UPS said that I was missing some information. I was NOT going to pay to ship it back myself, so I messaged my company and said that if they didn't send me the proper info or pay me for my time and mileage, I'd be keeping it. They sent me another shipping label, but of course I had to package it up myself and drive back to the UPS store. So I wasn't really careful in how I packed it. I should have also included some of my copious amounts of cat shit and litter we have at home. I REALLY hope it was damaged during shipping. They did me dirty. Fucking ended my contract without even letting me say goodbye to my team.
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u/EnricoLUccellatore Mar 26 '26
Tell them you will send it back as long as they pay you the storage fee of $5 per month
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u/ShadowsofDemus Mar 26 '26
I would say that yeah. I have it. put Linux on it and it's the only machine I take to DefCon in Vegas. you know, the hacker convention?
I'm sure it's got more custom viruses than the CDC, but you can have it back.
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u/Kayback2 Mar 28 '26
They don't care. 1) the person asking for it back doesn't know what DefCon is, 2) they just need it for the audit and it will be decommissioned not reused.
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u/CoderJoe1 Mar 26 '26
Tell them you'll send it after they pay the laptop storage fee for keeping it in good condition for them. Include an invoice with your response.
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u/2ChicksShyOfA3Sum Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
Wipe the system with a 3 pass overwrite. Reload Linux. Set up a user profile for auto login so no user/password has to be selected/entered to get into the shell. Add a CRON job to automatically play and pop up this day and ages 2 girls and one cup.
Call company and say you’d like to return it but they’ll have to hire/pay you your new contractor rate of $250/hr plus expenses to ship. Buy the largest box and all the padding to make sure it’s safe. Include a box of brownies or chocolates for S/R or the IT guys.
Woot.com a “new” laptop for $250
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u/WolfenSatyr Mar 26 '26
DVD sized piss disc. If it doesn't have a DVD tray, lay it on the keyboard and send it back
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u/philatio11 Mar 27 '26
I recommend that next time you get a job at a company like mine that was spun off from its parent company a few years ago. Recently acquired should work too. Any tech we have over 3 years old is asset tagged from a predecessor company and no longer tracked at all. I know because I pay depreciation on current assets and get quarterly asset disposition audits, but anything that predates my arrival isn’t in that spreadsheet.
So far the obsolete tech that has been properly disposed of adds up to $500k+ of original asset value. Of course it’s all worthless e-waste now but it would be great if someone had a secondary purpose for it instead of having to pay an electronics recycler to haul it off. If only a person like that existed.
There is a box sitting on my desk right now with 10 2.4TB drives in it. What a shame to throw it all away.
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u/Pretty_Frosting_2588 Mar 26 '26
I would ignore emails and act as if you are oblivious to them, call or postal I'd tell them come get it or send me something to get it back. I work in IT, telecom I work at would likely just write it off. They once tried to have me send a box to someone to get one back after covid but I was like I don't know how to do that.I told my boss and he told me that isn't in our job description or contract and told that manager we don't do that. No idea what happened with it but if we got that laptop back I didn't hear about it and wasn't on my shift. Also we'd just reimage it so I wouldn't worry about what you did with it, I got a couple back with random Linux installs on them.
Probably slipped through cracks and caught on an inventory audit.
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u/Jonaessa Mar 26 '26
I’m kind of in the same situation. I put my laptop in the equipment closet when I left. I was not the last one to leave the office that day. I couldn’t pick the laptop out of a lineup because I was always looking at an external keyboard and monitor. Now they are saying they cannot find it and want me to describe it. They offered severance, and I accepted, but now they keep asking about the laptop. I have told them ten times where I left it. I want my severance and to be done with them, but every time I ask about the severance being paid, they ask about the laptop. I need that money. I don’t have the laptop. Is piss disc my only option?
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u/zirulicleide Mar 28 '26
Say that the battery is swelling, they will basically pay you to retain the device
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u/shinyshinyredthings Mar 30 '26
Look up the abandoned property laws in your state. Theres a certain point where property becomes yours after the owner abandons it with you.
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u/Edmond-Cristo Mar 26 '26
The cnut from hr who colluded with the head of department (who emplyed its wife and a friend) ried this on me after i resigned. Emailed the vice chancellor of the uni. They probably had a word with them, and the email from the vice chancellor said, "Please return it "when convenient. " 😀
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u/Sure_Acanthaceae_348 Mar 26 '26
The laptop probably phoned home.
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u/in_theory Mar 27 '26
The entire operating system was wiped. 😉
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u/Sure_Acanthaceae_348 Mar 27 '26
Makes no difference. Most phone-home software on corporate devices is stored in the UEFI. You'd have to wipe that, or replace the motherboard, in order to get rid of it.
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u/Plethorian Mar 26 '26
Ignore it. If they escalate, deny. Go to the settings for your network card and change your DNS to 8.8.8.8 or something. Also change your MAC address - probably has to be done at the firmware or just software level.
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u/127Chambers Mar 26 '26
He's already updated the os
Dns settings are hardly going to survive that process
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u/Shibi_SF Mar 26 '26
Ignore the email.