Best Buy Employee Outs Man as Gay on His Facebook Page
A man was caught in a frustrating situation after he went to a Best Buy store to exchange his cell phone for a new one.
Rich Dewberry was having trouble with his cell phone and took it to Best Buy for repairs. After employees told him that they could not fix the problem, they issued him a new phone and service plan.
Things were supposed to go on as usual, but when he started receiving phone calls from family and friends who seemed to be concerned about him, he became suspicious.
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A message appeared on his Facebook account that simply stated, "I am gay. I'm coming out."
Dewberry had not checked or updated his status, so he was unaware that his family and friends were able to see this post which was written on his wall.
He knew something was not right when he started getting numerous calls.
"Calls started coming in immediately to my house phone … Friends, ex-spouses, they were all calling," Dewberry told KMGH.
After a quick look at his Facebook page, he discovered the post came shortly after he had left the Best Buy store. The next day, he contacted that manager of the store to file a complaint.
After the incident, Dewberry received word from the store manager that the employee responsible had been identified and then terminated.
Best Buy released a statement after the resolution of the incident which explained that employees are aware of how they should treat customer's private information.
"Each year, every employee of Best Buy is asked to review and sign our Code of Ethics, which includes details on how they are expected to handle customer information," stated the electronics giant.
Dewberry insists that his privacy was violated and that it has caused him a great deal of mental anguish due to the constant explanations that he has had to give telling people he is not gay.
"Just having to explain it to certain people I come in contact with, I feel like I shouldn't have to do that," he said.
Experts recommend anytime you get a new phone you should do a hard reset of the device to erase the memory. Usually that option is found in the settings menu.
