Target sells memory card with nudie pix...buyer traumatized for life

It's not the first time someone has been surprised to find some fleshy pics on their electronics, and it certainly won't be the last. Aleta Kelley of Tucson was, quote "shocked I mean absolutely shocked, there is no other word" to find nearly 80 nude and graphic photos of a middle-aged woman on her supposedly new memory card she purchased at Target. Apparently in preparation for her bizillion-dollar lawsuit, she goes on spewing, "to me this is traumatizing, for my daughter this was traumatizing. It's horrifying to think if my granddaughter had gotten this." Of course you know what this means don't you? Target memory card sales are about to skyrocket!

[Ron @ Jan 5th 2006 4:12AM]

"We contacted Target about this story. A spokesperson told us the store is taking this situation very seriously, and they plan to look into how it could have happened."



I currently work in electronics at my local Target, it's really simple how it happened:

When an electronic item is returned to Target with the receipt and the guest returning it states there is nothing wrong with it a team member coving electronics is called down to guest service to inspect the item. Except we are not supplied the equipment to format the card, so as long as the card appears to be in a working state, and the packaging and documentation are in a resellable condition, we give the thumbs up and the item is returned. At that point the item is sorted into "reshop" and sent back to electronics to be restocked.

The funny thing is if the card isn't in resellable condition it gets "charged back", which pretty much means if it's not broken it's passed on to the local discount store (porn included).

[crazihouse @ Jan 5th 2006 4:43AM]

Ohh... boo hoo!



I am so sorry this poor lady viewed these horrible, horrible photos! How traumatizing it must have been for her!



If there were 80 or so photos on the memory card, does it change anything if you're obviously not going to scroll through all 80 of them since you are so disturbed?



This is just another case of the money-hungry average american, looking for a quick buck. I hope Target completely destroys this greedy bastard.

[js @ Jan 5th 2006 4:48AM]

As a payback, the woman should've thought of selling those nude photos as prints on eBay.



Make a few bucks off a "traumatizing" situation.

[King Bigos @ Jan 5th 2006 4:54AM]

If they sue I hope they get crushed, cause they're money hungry bastards.

[aleta @ Jul 6th 2007 4:01PM]

Again suing was never in the question. not even a thought. just trying to get the return policy changed. not a money hungry bastard

[Xultar @ Jan 5th 2006 5:09AM]

What a loser. IF you see something disgusting. Stop @ the first one. Don't scroll through all 80 pix.



GEEZ!

[Harish @ Jan 5th 2006 5:17AM]

:o) Interesting story.. interesting lady, especially with her expression that she is totally traumatized, her daughter is traumatized... hey imagine her calling her daughter and all the family to watch it.. and later decide to sue Target.



But Target's story is also interesting.. somebody returned it.. so it goes without the cleaning to 'restock'.. that explains the kind-of and quality-of stuff u get at your Target stores..



So, what does this mean,... somebody returns a microwave with cooked food inside it, target will just look at the package and 'restock' it with the food.. "good heavens". :o)

[thistiredfall @ Jan 5th 2006 5:20AM]

...Or perhaps it really was kinda of a crappy situation, I wouldnt like that to happen to me..I mean....gross



I think target should get into trouble with this along with any other retail store that doesnt check stuff like that



the employes should be given the tools to reformat the disks and such if to only avoid these situations

it doesnt take much time or resources to reformat a disk

so I dont think this person is in the wrong

not in one bit

[Mart?lesa @ Jan 5th 2006 5:50AM]

I had a similar funny story. I bought a DVD recorder in Media Markt. When I installed it in my PC and opened the tray I found a porn DVD-ROM inside!!!! It looks like someone in the shop was quite bored and installed the drive on a PC to see the movie ;)



The funniest think was when I returned the drive (not for the movie) as it wasn't dual drive, and I saw the face of the girl at the counter when I told her that I wanted to change the drive not only because it wasn't dual as they had told me, but because there was a porn movie inside. The poor girl blushed red and didn't know what to say, so I didn't complain much as she offered to do the change immediately.

[TZK @ Jan 5th 2006 6:22AM]

Whether it was tramatizing or not isnt the real problem. Target is neglegent.



Someone returned the item which APPEARED to be in new condition - so then how did the photos get on there? IF she bought it AT a Target, then it wasnt bought at a discounr store.



So where does the fault lie? Target - since they probably dont pay those "inspectors" of returned electronics more than $8 an hour to goof off all afternoon, what did you expect. IF anything, a lesson to Target to pay closer attention to things like Flash memory cards. The card should ave been wipped.

[Peter @ Jan 5th 2006 6:51AM]

To all of you who think Target should have checked and wiped the card - you can't have it both ways. You can't have them check everything with extra equipment and people and still expect low prices. If you want that level of service, you'll need to pay more for it.

[Robert @ Jan 5th 2006 8:00AM]

I don't see what is traumatizing about seeing a naked person. Maybe if see was doing some strange sex act with a chicken or a goat, that might be traumatizing. I think the woman is just fishing for money, and wouldn't be suprised if she downloaded the porn herself, and put it on the card to try and extort from Target. I don't expect the kids at target getting slightly better than minimum wage to be super-vigilant about what gets returned. These type of things can cause Target to change their return policy.

[JinKazama @ Jan 5th 2006 8:07AM]

Traumatized...yeah right...just take a free memory card lady and shut up

[gadgetgav @ Jan 5th 2006 8:31AM]

What a good way to pay for Christmas. Why didn't I think of that. Mind you... you can get memory cards from many stores, I think I'll check the ones I got a Christmas and see if there's anything traumatizing on them.

[megamomma @ Jan 5th 2006 8:36AM]

Pictures of a nude middle aged woman of the memory drive is traumatizing?



What must she feel every time she looks into the mirror?



This is one of the stupidest complaints ever.

[atomb @ Jan 5th 2006 8:42AM]

aren't memory cards sold in those impossible to open unless you have a chainsaw plastic packages? If somebody ripped into the packaging and uploaded the images and then returned it, wouldn't the packaging be all messed up...and not 're-sellable'?



either somebody took the time to load the images and then carefully glue the packaging back together so it appeared to never be opened...



..or she loaded the pictures herself.

[Elias @ Jan 5th 2006 8:53AM]

What kind of memory card could be repackaged and resold at Target?



Pretty much all memory cards come in those horrible plastic blister packages, which need to be destroyed in order to open them.



Either the lady did this herself, or maybe she bought something that was refurbished.

[gorkon @ Jan 5th 2006 9:35AM]

The lawsuti isn't valid. Who is to say WHO loaded the pics on the card?? Her husband could have even took the card, put it in the cam, took pictures of his mistress and then this idiot got the cam and assume there were no pics on it, put the cam in play mode and whoa what IS this! It MUST be Target!

[DadeMurphy @ Jan 5th 2006 9:36AM]

Apparently this woman has never had sex, so the child she speaks of is the immaculate conception or adopted, and she has never bathed or lokoed into a full length mirror.



A nude woman traumatizing?

Uh....ok....was there food and animals involved? How can a nude woman traumatize a grown woman?



And why did she just not reformat the card herself?

Maybe someone should check and see if the woman in the pics is anyone the "offended party" knows.

This sounds like a scam to me.



"hmmm...if I get Joan or Beth to pose nude on here, and then complain about the pics to the store....hmmm....lawsuit? Oh and if I say my child was traumatized...WOW! Millions!!!! Yeah...now where is Joan's number?"



Please, lady...go get laid and shut up.



Was this woman's name Hillary by any chance? She is so uptight she walks with her legs crossed.

[OddManOut @ Jan 5th 2006 9:36AM]

" Pictures of a nude middle aged woman of the memory drive is traumatizing?





What must she feel every time she looks into the mirror? "



Perhaps the answer to your first question, lies within your second question. What if they in fact WERE pictures of this lady herself.



I don't know about the rest of you, but I might be a wee bit traumatized if I purchased a memory card and discovered it already had nude pictures of me on it...

[John @ Jan 5th 2006 9:41AM]

hahaha this story is funny! The lady herself is probably middle aged since she has a daughter. Interesting choice of words! I agree with a earlier poster in that what the hell does she think when she sees herself nude? A woman seeing another woman nude is not traumatizing...what about at the gym? She needs to lighten up. I too hope that Target nails the bitch. She is only after the $$$.



-John

[Steve @ Jan 5th 2006 9:45AM]

This lawsuit is going to dry up once they subpoena her credit card records and find her husband has a $100+/month web-porn habit.

[DJ @ Jan 5th 2006 9:49AM]

Why is this a news story??? Similar incidents have been happening across the country for years at Target, Best Buy, CompUSA, Circuit City, WalMart and just about anywhere else digital image products are sold. It's happened with digital cameras, camcorders, and computers. People forget or don't know how to erase the content.



In this particular case, is it possible that someone in the quality control area at the factory either downloaded the content to the card? Better yet, maybe Target should publish "appropriate" photos of the naked woman on the card in that store with the tagline "Do you recognize this woman". It would help determine if the card was really new or returned.

[thomas @ Jan 5th 2006 9:51AM]

this is stupid, if you're traumatized by seeing a naked person then you have issues. i agree with the others here, i think she's just trying to make money on this. and how can they prove that she did'nt just put the pictures on the memorycard herself?

[Grant @ Jan 5th 2006 10:11AM]

Wow. That woman better sue, just to be safe. :rolleyes:



However, I'm willing to be completely objective. Someone should send me the offending pictures, so I can judge for myself how offensive they truly are.

[Casey @ Jan 5th 2006 10:37AM]

I'm sorry, but she just wants money! It's ridiculous to sue for an honest mistake like that. It isn't that hard to clean the memory card out yourself!

[ChillyWilly @ Jan 5th 2006 11:29AM]

Several things from this...



- Every store that sells memory cards really should have someway of bulk erasing the cards. Yes, it's can be time consuimg and a bit costly to some stores, but it avoids stupid people that would jump at the chance to sue the company when they have been offended.



As Xultar mentioned, why did the lady have to look at all 80 "disturbing" images?? Was she looking for pictures of herself??? LOL



And lastly, why do I always end up purchasing the blank memory cards??



Traumatized.... sheesh!! As I said above, this lady was simply waiting for something like this to happen to her.



And a kudos to Steve's comment re: credit card bills for her husbands porn addiction.

[Richard @ Jan 5th 2006 12:00PM]

Same thing happened to a friend of mine. She bought a camera and then accidentally deleted a picture she wanted. We took the card and tried to find her deleted picture. We found it, but also found a picture of a naked women in a shower. It had the date stamp of 5 days prior to her buying the camera. She bought it from QVC.



As far as being traumatized by pics of naked middle-aged women, maybe they were really fat or disfigured. I'd be traumatized by that.

[KingJewBROOKLYN @ Jan 5th 2006 12:09PM]

WHat a loser. This woman is what makes this country suck. She obviously needs the money or has some shady lawyer cousin or friend who put the idea in her head she could make millions. Get a life is what I would tell this backwoods idiot of female.She saw one then proceeded to slide her hand down lower and then view the rest. If anything she owes money to the woman in the pictures....





I LOVE AMERICA

[mathew @ Jan 5th 2006 12:44PM]

Now we know why the Target logo is a GIANT NIPPLE.

[JRM @ Jan 5th 2006 1:05PM]

this story could have gone so much differently had the woman's husband opened the memory card...

[JRM @ Jan 5th 2006 1:15PM]

this story could have gone so much differently had the woman's husband opened the memory card...

[doyouflip @ Jan 5th 2006 1:28PM]

I'm not sure how I feel about this. The article doesn't say anthing about a law suit, but the fact that the media got their hands on this might be an indication one is in the works.



If she's asking for money...damn lady, get a life. If she's asking for process change, then I can get behind that.

[epp_b @ Jan 5th 2006 1:31PM]

["...Except we are not supplied the equipment to format the card..."]

You must be kidding. Format the card using any camera, PDA or card reader in the store; it'll take all of three seconds (and don't even try to tell me that you don't have a single computer in the store).



["If there were 80 or so photos on the memory card, does it change anything if you're obviously not going to scroll through all 80 of them since you are so disturbed?"]

Perhaps you are too ignorant to notice the bottom of a Windows Explorer window where it states the number of files in a given directory.

[Liz Newcomb @ Jan 5th 2006 2:05PM]

"As we started flipping through, we thought it was a fluke, we got two or three pictures in then we realized what it was and we turned it off."



Did some of you actually read the article? They didn't scroll through all 80 of them.



I agree that this potential lawsuit is ridiculous and frivolous. I can see why finding nude pictures of some stranger (if this is all true) would be surprising, but not lawsuit-worthy.

[Nick @ Jan 5th 2006 2:34PM]

I'll take 3.

[Henaro @ Jan 5th 2006 3:13PM]

Anyone know where I can find these pictures? I want to know what is so traumatizing about them. Then maybe jerk off to them.

[Omer @ Jan 5th 2006 4:19PM]

ha.. this reminds me of the wendys incident .. the lady put her husbands friends finger in the chili then she wanted to sue .. now shes behind bars .. i bet this lady put those pictures on the memory card .. very interesting .. we will be seeing a lot about this on the news ..

[ChillyWilly @ Jan 5th 2006 4:57PM]

-- this story could have gone so much differently had the woman's husband opened the memory card... --

Very true.



Regarding the 80 nude photos

-- Perhaps you are too ignorant to notice the bottom of a Windows Explorer window where it states the number of files in a given directory.

-- "As we started flipping through, we thought it was a fluke, we got two or three pictures in then we realized what it was and we turned it off."

-- Did some of you actually read the article? They didn't scroll through all 80 of them.



Guess I missed that part of the article. Thanks for the clarification.

[tony @ Jan 5th 2006 5:12PM]

I've been playing too much phoenix wright on my NDS, and i say there's no decisive evidence, therefore the case being dropped. :)

[Rick_Havoc @ Jan 5th 2006 5:24PM]

I dont beieve her! Prove it! I want to see the pictures.

[Chris LW @ Jan 5th 2006 5:44PM]

Here's KGUN's news article on this:



http://www.kgun9.com/story.php?id=1188



Reading this, I have a some (I think) legit questions like:

1) If they really saw only two or three photos, then how did they know there's 80-some-odd pics on said card? Did they get someone else to investigate it in detail?

2) Can this woman, with a daughter (and a grand-daughter!) really be traumatized by these photos? There's a difference between being offended (which I would be), and being traumatized.

3) About some of the comments above: Wouldn't it be somewhat feasible for someone to investigate this in full, put said card into a reader hooked to a computer and use whatever means to pull up timestamps and/or origin info on the picture files? That would either place or remove suspicion from the mother if people think she put them there herself just to make an easy million.



I know that there are a lot of sue-happy people out there. This lady's probably one of them. I also think that Target is going to put their best foot forward in this. They may have to settle out-of-court, if it comes down to it. Hopefully this won't go to court. It does smell mighty fishy, even if it isn't Karen Kelly's fault.



Just my .02�

[Chris LW @ Jan 5th 2006 5:57PM]

Sorry for the hyperlink. I didn't notice Engadget's little "Read" hyperlink. I also know that there's a few ways to tell how many files are in a card/disk/file. I was just assuming the lady in question is technologically inept.

[Robert @ Jan 5th 2006 6:47PM]

I once bought a CD case at Target. It had a disc full of MP3's of someones crappy garage band on it.

[John D @ Jan 5th 2006 6:49PM]

Maybe it was a disgruntled factory worker who slipped the pics of his ex-wife onto the card before quiting that day. Dropped it onto the line for packaging and then promptly left the plant, flashing a bird on his way out...

[Dull @ Jan 5th 2006 8:40PM]

Was she forced to look at all the photo's? Couldn't she just format the card and call it a day?

[rjlawrencejr @ Jan 5th 2006 9:44PM]

Personally, I was offended by the fact that KGUN actually aired this story in the first place. I called the station and got the name of the reporter and the interim news directors and I wrote a letter asking why they felt this was a newsworthy story.



I hope they respond.

[CK @ Jan 5th 2006 11:24PM]

this lady also forgot to mention that the 80 pics are of herself...

[Meredith @ Jan 6th 2006 1:33PM]

They should try to identify the woman pictured and blame HER, not Target.

[Rex @ Jan 8th 2006 10:29PM]

In Australia this would be regarded as a comedy story, rather than a news story. And the local Target store's sales of memory cards would skyrocket! I can just imagine the TV news readers trying [unsuccessfully] to keep their faces straight whilst they were telling it. And the leg-pulling they would get from their on-screen colleagues.



If I was Target's advertising consultant, I would be advising them to launch a new campaign. Buy your next memory card from Target. One in fifty GUARANTEED to contain a great surprise!