Motorola to Xoom Buyers: Woot.com Sold You Improperly Wiped Refurbished Tablets

Motorola discovered about 100 refurbished Xoom tablets had been sold by Woot.com that were improperly wiped of the previous owners' info, the company said in a statement Feb. 3. Motorola had done the refurbishing themselves, but they apparently didn't look very hard for the data because it's actually a really simple process. The devices in question were sold between October and December 2011, and Motorola claims they are certain no other devices were affected. People who bought one of the used tablets may have found photos, documents and user names and passwords from the previous owners.

To make up for the mistake, Motorola is offering a free two-year membership to Experian's ProtectMyID Alert to anyone who returned a Wi_FI Xoom between March and October 2011. It's an identity theft prevention program, and includes a $1 million insurance policy against said theft. It applies to anyone who bought and returned the Xoom to Staples, Best Buy, Amazon.com, BJ's Wholesale, Sam's Club, Office Max, Radio Shack or eBay (plus a smattering of smaller retailers). If you fall into this category, Motorola asks you to call Experian at 1-800-926-9803 to get the deal.

As for the devices that were not wiped of their memory's, Motorola asks those folks to go to the motorola.com/xoomreturn Web site or to call Motorola at 1-800-734-5870, and pick option 1, to see if their tablet is affected.

Motorola sincerely regrets and apologizes for any inconvenience this situation has caused the affected customers, the company said in the statement.

Motorola is committed to rigorous data protection practices in order to protect its customers, and will continue to take the necessary steps to achieve this objective.

The Xoom is one of the first tablets to get the Android 4.0 system updates, but Motorola hasn't been selling many of them even before the hoidays. It's a 10-inch tablet with front and rear-facing cameras, 720p video capture, full-size USB port, HDMI port, 32 GB of storage, SD card reader and also comes in a 4G LTE variant. They're available form about $400 on Amazon, but the Android 4.0 update is not included. It's a firmware update and is sent over the air. Tell us in the comments if you've tried the Xoom and what this mistake means for Motorola.

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