To the original question: there's evidence that the repair shops turn them over to the G-man who uses them for a door stops or pistol practice. Not much recycling.
Thinking back, my buddy owns a repair shop. Hadn't really thought about it, but he has old units stacked high in there. Not sure how many weren't picked up though.
Hell, people abandon cars and motorcycles if the repair bill is too high. I can easily see the same for a laptop. Especially if you've consumed too much Coca Cola.
There are shredding services for hard drives (and USB sticks, SD and other memory cards). Metal shredding FTW! Or is that Shredding Metal?
Most states have an abandoned property law to cover the legal aspects of ownership of abandoned property. Check your state's statutes.
The shit people leave on their phones, tablets and computers when they default on their pawns. Oh the life of owning a pawn shop.
Do you make them leave stuff unlocked when they pawn it? I've never pawned anything. Not even sure I have even been in a pawn shop in my 50 years.
Have to log out of iCloud or google and we take their password or pin to get in. That being said, this is their stuff. It gets shrink wrapped right in front of them and never to be touched until they pick it up or it defaults. But ya, I’ve had a porn star default on a phone with her porn and other videos on the phone. (Nothing to be excited about). I have an IT guy who works for me so they only thing I ask him to do is make sure there’s no kid porn or anything else illegal before wiping it. If there was then we’d contact the police and hand everything over. Had a thief another time who sold me a ton of coins also pawn his iPad. While pawned he was arrested for stealing coins. Police grabbed the iPad for a few days because dude took detailed pics of every single coin he stole. Lmfao.
I have a full size 55gal burn barrel at home and once a year all my neighbors and I get together and we put all our old paperwork, motor oil, old lawnmower gas, etc. in there and old memory cards and burn the shit outta it.