Sorry I don't know much about this stuff, but I find some of the things done to the author pretty crazy. The one thing that really stood out for me was sending him back. That is a huge amount of money and time wasted for a ridiculous reason. Why can't you fight for yourself in these situations, you should have some rights because the crap they are doing is just unfair.

Also, what if you have a laptop with all your passwords and stuff, would they just go on ahead and copy your hard drive with you not being able to do anything?