protecting personal information

For reasons that aren’t important, I bought 2 used mobile phones yesterday (for family members). The sellers were both in their 20s and I contacted them both through craigslist. One of them worked a technical job at an Engineering firm. Not sure about the other one. Both of the phones I purchased had hundreds of contacts, text messages, photos and emails still on the phone. The first thing I did when I got each device was do a factory reset. It took me all of 20 seconds to do it. Why aren’t people concerned about these things?

So, a word of advice, don’t just assume the guy buying your stuff will be nice enough to do a factory reset. Do it yourself.