Nothing like a little unexpected graphic pornography to dampen a family shopping trip to Best Buy, as one woman complained after such an image popped up on display TVs while she was browsing with her grandchildren.
News Channel 7 in South Carolina says Best Buy is issuing an apology after the woman claimed that a sexual image she describes as being harder core than simple porn showed up on a store TV.
“It was extremely, extremely pornographic image,” said the customer. “I think even the word ‘pornographic’ doesn’t cover it. I have never watched pornography, so I don’t know what else you can see there, but to me, I really felt extremely violated.”
She says the image stayed on the screen for several minutes until a manager came over to take it down, but that in that time, several families saw it. She says the manager blamed someone using Best Buy’s Wi-Fi to upload the offending picture, and that similar incidents had happened before but that the store was unable to do anything about stopping it.
Best Buy’s corporate office says:
“Two individuals accessed our store’s wireless signal to broadcast inappropriate content on a smart television display. In both cases, we worked immediately to disable the inappropriate content. We greatly apologize for this unfortunate incident and we are working to ensure that it does not happen again.”
Despite the apology, the customers has filed a complaint with police for dissemination of pornographic material.
*Thanks to reader Brandon for the tip!
Porn Displayed On Best Buy Television, Customer Says She Feels Violated [News Channel 7]
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Best Buy, showing your customers a visual representation of how you are going to treat them is about an honest a move your company has made since it was created.
And don’t forget folks! Best Buy’s Geek Squad is more than willing and happy to help setup and secure your home network!
Act now!
I know you were being sarcastic, but just so you know, the network used for the display devices is not maintained by Geek Squad, nor is it even password protected. (Then again, it’s usually completely useless to connect to it with a personal device). More likely than anything else, it was simply that whatever stock person set up the display forgot to set a password, or left it as the default.
And despite your sarcasm, yes, Geek Squad IS more than happy to come set up your home network. If you’d rather pay $70-$90 and have someone come out instead of reading some simple instructions, then I’m sure you’d find plenty of people who would be happy to do that for you.
“I don’t know what porn looks like, as I’ve never seen porn….”
And that is the real story. Glad your kids won’t be as sheltered as you!
Yeah that’s right, I blamed the OP. Check and mate
I’m 99% convinced that is a lie. Someone who really never watched pornography wouldn’t feel the need to point that out.
“I’m shocked – SHOCKED – to find that gambling is going on in here!”
“Your winnings, sir.”
Lost in thought trying to puzzle out what constitutes “harder core than simple porn”.
In SC it is usually that “thing” you do when you think no one is looking and refuse to admit you do even though you have 12 kids and claim that all that screaming the middle of the night is from night terrors.
In some ways, people in the South are a lot like Catholic priest and Republican political figures. Sex is only the work of the devil unless you are behind closed doors or bathroom stall.
…or in the back seat of a Firebird.
or the tardis…
And…I’m spent.
Probably anal.
That only happens when you are both “drunk” and only on “accident”.
As opposed to that thing Mississippi residents do when no one is looking, which we all know is watch MSNBC.
Wow, generalise much?
Goatse?
I’m thinking 2 girls 1 cup.
I was only recently able to delete 2 girls and 1 cup from my brain. Thank you for reintroducing it.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, not to mention the whole point that the OP was so offended they hung around to see how long it was on the screen. lol!
Heh heh heh. You said ‘hung’ in a pOrn context!
lmao!
Grandchildren? Living embodiments of your mortal, carnal sins? Nice try whoremonger, but looks like you’re no stranger to what popped up on the screen.
She’s never seen such things, I assure you.
“I lie down on my bed, close my eyes, open my legs, and think of the Confederacy.”
Thank you for saying what i was thinking!
Yeah, I suspect ol’ Granny is probably in her late 30s?
I think even the word ‘pornographic’ doesn’t cover it. I have never watched pornography, so I don’t know what else you can see there, but to me, I really felt extremely violated.
Sounds like a relative of mine. She thinks a picture of a girl in a bikini is porn.
similar incidents had happened before but that the store was unable to do anything about stopping it
Well that inspires a lot of confidence in their technical abilities.
Sounds like a relative of mine. She thinks a picture of a girl in a bikini is porn.
About a month ago, a woman wrote a complaint to the local paper about “pornography” in the paper. “My 14 year old son told me he saw porn in the newspaper!”, “Even a 14 year old boy knew it was porn!”
I looked in the back issue and found the “offensive” porn. Yep, a girl in a bikini.
DUMB ASS, OF COURSE YOUR KID “KNOWS” IT’S PORNO: YOU’VE DEFINED IT FOR HIM FOR THE LAST 14 FUCKIN’ YEARS!
Yes, we have a porn problem in my state. They don’t know what porn is.
Time to take the responsibility to teach them upon yourself Cat. C’mon…step up.
If anyone can upload porn to your TV in the store, they can do it to the same TV at home. If the TV is not secure, BestBuy needs to be sending them back to the factory. If they can be secured, BestBuy needs to be doing that.
Don’t buy TVs that other people can upload porn to.
I suspect that the insecurity is in that the interface to the TV isn’t password protected. The network may be, but you could get into the setup screen and find out what the network password is (I haven’t seen any wifi client yet that didn’t have the ability to reveal the password), and then it is all over.
When the same TVs are placed in a home environment, the would-be interloper would have far less ability to hack into the network to get at the TV.
Most of the Best Buys i’ve been in haven’t had a password on the in-store WiFi.
But really, the easiest way to do this sort of thing wouldn’t require messing with the WiFi at all. Get a cheap flash drive, put some nice, tame pictures that demonstrate the quality of the television on it, and stick it in the television’s USB port, and leave the store.
If it’s a sufficiently excellent television that Management wants sold, /someone/ will eventually notice the flash drive, assume it belongs to one of the salespeople, and start examining the slide show, probably on the television it was left plugged into.
Alternatively, if someone is going to put porn on for me, that is a great selling point…
“Don’t buy TVs that other people can upload porn to.”
Spoilsport. >:-|
“I have never watched pornography….” “She says the image stayed on the screen for several minutes until a manager came over to take it down”
How did she know it was several minutes? Did she not look or walk away? Was she so fascinated that she couldn’t look away? Just cover your kids eyes, walk away and laugh about it!
“South Carolina”
“I think even the word ‘pornographic’ doesn’t cover it.”
“I really felt extremely violated.”
Was it perhaps this?
More likely it was more along these lines: http://zionsmercantile.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/auntellerbutterchurn.jpeg
Her entire neck is exposed! How scandalous!
On the one hand, I think it’s silly in our society that we shelter kids from sex so much that many of them are confused about it and end up having many personal and relationship issues with it. But on the other, some pornography is so far removed from “normal” sex that it can be even more “damaging”, if you will. But whatever, this is Consumerist, so enough serious posting. Best Buy sux lol.
Well…. I just wouldn’t go to pornography for educational purposes, period.
Being a southerner, I hate ppl like that. Everything appauls them. I know many women like that down here. Stuff like that appauls them but they’re the main ones in restaurant bathrooms choking down **** like it’s going out of style.
And that’s just the menfolks.
“It was extremely, extremely pornographic image,” said the customer. “I think even the word ‘pornographic’ doesn’t cover it. I have never watched pornography, so I don’t know what else you can see there, but to me, I really felt extremely violated.”
Was probably one errant teat. And even if it wasn’t…sorry for exposing you to the real world. Maybe you should stay under your rock.
I loves me some good porno while I shop. That’s why I shop the on internet. I can get free porn AND great prices and service on electronics – both at the same time.
“It was extremely, extremely pornographic image,” said the customer. “I think even the word ‘pornographic’ doesn’t cover it. I have never watched pornography, so I don’t know what else you can see there, but to me, I really felt extremely violated.”
It must have been news coverage of a breast feeding sit-in.
Honestly she does sound like just the type who would call the cops on a breast feeding woman.
“”Two individuals accessed our store’s wireless signal to broadcast inappropriate content on a smart television display. In both cases, we worked immediately to disable the inappropriate content. We greatly apologize for this unfortunate incident and we are working to ensure that it does not happen again.”
So I guess the Geek Squad secured their network?
Sorry, I had to say it.
Granted WEP can be cracked quickly, so why don’t they put WPA/PSK2 on it? Oh yeah, it’d take time to put in the passcode when they put up a new TV. This makes me want to take a trip to our local Best Buy.
how’d they find out it was two people? if they’re that good why weren’t they good enough to secure the network… unless it was an inside job!
Next time, walk over to the TV and switch off the power or unplug it and then report the incident to a supervisor.
Even approaching the Zone of Filth would cause her eyes to melt down her cheeks like she was at Hiroshima.
Bump-bum-bah-dummmmwhaaaaaa
Oh no, by touching the TV she would be unclean in the eyes of the lord and would go to hell where all porn watchers go.
Yeah I was wondering the same thing. Who would wait several minutes to walk up and hit the power button?
Unless of course the TV was mounted too high up to reach.
Nah…she was just waiting for the ‘happy ending’.
Maybe the delay was because the manager had to get a ladder? Many stores put the TVs out of reach deliberately.
And Best Buy wants to be your technology experts? They can’t even prevent someone from unauthorized access to their own network.
I’m having trouble figuring out how someone on their network caused smart TVs to start displaying porn– maybe replacing a store demo file or slide show stored on some kind of central DNLA server they’re all connected to? Whoops, “pretty flowers and sunsets.mov” ain’t what it’s supposed to be!
I suspect an inside job.
There’s nothing I can say to this that doesn’t sound dirty in my head.
“I have never watched pornography”
This is how I know this is a load of horse shit.
Best Buy is hurting and trying to get new customers and the corporate heads got together and came up with one answer: PORN! Hey, sex sells! It is better than so of the other ideas they came up with!
As the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court said when they were going after Screw Magazine….”I can’t explain pornography but I know what it is when I see it.” That about sums it up as far as this gal is concerned.
No customers in Best Buy had a cell cam?
Ahhhhh a buttocks! I want to speak to the press NOW!
They thought they were showing a religious movie… “Cardinal Knowledge.”
It wasn’t porn! It was political speech, care of the Lemon Party.
First, she was watching it for several minutes??
Second, BB could change their Wifi password, that would fix it.
For a few minutes…until it gets hacked again…..sheesh.
“Despite the apology, the customers has filed a complaint with police for dissemination of pornographic material.”
What a prude, seriously, sounds like the ring leader for that One Million Moms group. Running around looking for reasons to be ‘offended’ and feeling “extremely violated”.
Sounds like she needs to get laid, so she will stop being so uptight.
No need to narrow it down, it seems most people are running around looking to be offended, the only difference being what offends them (some even write into this site to complain about things like a cashier trying to take their new Star Wars boxed set Blu rays from their hand to ring them up. lol!)
“Just the faps ma’am.”
If she’s never seen porn and doesn’t know what porn looks like, how would she know the image she saw was in fact, porn? Perhaps it was an advertisement from France, for body spray. You know the French, hardly tight-assed about the human body like we Americans are. I call shenanigans!
I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that. [Emphasis added.]
—Justice Potter Stewart, concurring opinion in Jacobellis v. Ohio 378 U.S. 184 (1964), regarding possible obscenity in The Lovers.
I saw this happen once at a Circuit City store where I worked when the Dish style (then DSS) satellite systems were coming out. Some comedian set the system to switch to porn and somehow lock it on that channel. Thankfully it was only on a few TVs and the store was pretty dead that day, so I don’t think any actual customers saw it. We just turned off the TV’s and called one of the video guys to come over and get the thing unlocked. I would have assumed that the demo account/card/whatever would have had access to very limited channels. Guess not.
What, did somebody leave HBO on by accident? No big deal. It’s an accident. Get over yourself, crazy lady on the news. What a drama queen.
A decade ago I worked in retail selling TVs and this happened to me. We were extremely busy that night and some idiot manager had scheduled only one person to be on staff after 7:30 PM. That one person was me. I was so busy tending to half a dozen groups of customers that I totally ignored the TVs. People were complaining enough about there not being anyone other than me to help them. Family-friendly movies were on all day drawing crowds, but at 8:00 PM on Saturday it switched to something with nudity. Most customers understood, stopped bugging me long enough so I could change the channel, and then we went back to talking about computers and stereos they wanted to buy.
There was this one lady who went absolutely crazy. She was dragging her husband and two kids along screaming and went running down to the hardware department. She made a huge scene, yelled at the customers I was working with, and got the attention of several managers. Most of the people in the non-clothing part of the store left as a result of this scene except for some stubborn people buying tools who nearly got into a fight with the lady. She made it her mission to get me fired for the incident I had zero control over by complaining to regional and national management, going to the media, and complaining to the state.
The video cameras in the ceiling were the only thing that saved my butt. It was clear from watching them that I was tending to way too many customers for one person on a busy night and had no idea what was on TV. It was also clear that the lady was being hysterical and deliberately causing a scene while the other customers were relaxed and understanding. I believe that the movie playing before 8 PM was Star Wars Episode II (everybody loves Star Wars — helps sell TVs). I still don’t remember what was after 8 PM because I never checked. I do recall seeing some actress in lingerie for a second when shutting things down as quickly as possible. I never saw full nudity as the crazy lady claimed.
I’m in the strange position of supporting Best Buy. These things happen. They’re very hard to control. Mistakes get made. Systems aren’t always secure or sensitive to who is around. Employees aren’t always around or capable of stopping incidents like these immediately. Employees from other departments probably don’t even know how to work the TV systems. Crazy lady from Channel 7 News should take a chill pill, relax, look away, and realize that the local Best Buy employees are just trying to earn a living wage and don’t need to take even more crap from customers and management as a result of a particularly whiny customer. Nobody at Best Buy intentionally tried to show these images. Put the blame on the hooligans causing these shenanigans, not the store just trying to sell TVs.
In both cases, we worked immediately to disable the inappropriate content.
Isn’t that as simple as, you know, turning off the TV? Why would it take “several minutes”?
Really? Pictures or it didn’t happen. I read the article, and they didn’t say what was actually on the screen. And this points out what is wrong with most people – they carry on like a nut when they see something that’s offensive to them, but don’t press the “off” button. Even smart, modern TV’s have them (I know, because I helped my parents set up their flat screens).
And if you’re old enough to have grandchildren, which means there was some sex involved along the way if they’re biologically yours, it must have been pretty bad to be so offended.
Good grief – get a life!
Wow I don’t normally defend Best Buy but honestly they don’t deserve anyone’s ire on this one. Anyone with a little knowledge of how wi0fi enabled TV’s work can pull this off and the store manager is right, there isn’t much he/she can do about this other than to ensure there is no wi-fi network for that TV to use.
And the parents comment of ” I really felt extremely violated.” is completely over the top. Was the TV in her vagina? Because if it wasn’t, she wasn’t violated.
“I have never watched pornography, so I don’t know what else you can see there, but to me, I really felt extremely violated.”
Did someone put their hand down her bra? Her husband’s pants? Then stop being dramatic. If you “felt extremely violated.” turn your head. It was a mistake and Best Buy fixed it. Stop playing to the camera for a gift card and move on.
That. Is. Awesome. Couldn’t have happened to a better company.
Unexpected porn is the best kind of porn.
What’s more pornographic than pornographic?
3rd base?
Yay! Let’s hate Best Buy some more!
…
But seriously, people, why not blame the person who actually committed the act? If someone walked into the middle of Best Buy and stripped off all their clothes, you’d still be blaming Best Buy for not fastening their buttons.
Interesting prank…my guess is that someone sent the image to the TV via DLNA. Obviously not BestBuy’s fault. This lady needs to stop being such a prude and get over herself.
It’s a slippery slide.
Next thing you know, Geek Squad agents will lose their white shirts and black slacks in favor of thongs made of recycled USB lanyards and Apple logo nipple covers.
“She says the manager blamed someone using Best Buy’s Wi-Fi to upload the offending picture, and that similar incidents had happened before but that the store was unable to do anything about stopping it.”
How about common freaking sense and not putting the TVs on the same network as the freaking public wifi?
de-semen-ation of pornographic material