I recovered the two gamer tags that were on that HDD (my wife’s and mine), changed the password on both accounts, and did a content license transfer to the other 360 to be sure. Hopefully that’ll pretty much render the HDD useless, as I think you guys are right in that the CC info is protected to just the last four digits. I’ve been watching the CC account like a hawk for new charges and also had no purchases prior to discovery (I’m still sitting at 360MSP and there was nothing new in my purchase history and my e-mail account didn’t get any of the “you just bought points” mail).
So, apart from just wanting an old-style 120GB HDD there’s not much use (and those aren’t worth much). This could very well be an “inside job” – however, neither kid had logged on since it went missing so I don’t know how they would’ve broken the HDD and my account is not perma-panned (now THAT would be serious – I really like my gamer tag AND all my Creator’s Club / publishing info is tied to it). Still, a 3rd degree questioning and room checks are in order. There is also the possibility that maybe the cleaning buddy just got a non-HDD 360 and wanted a HDD to format and use. It’s remote, but I don’t really know the guy well so I suppose it is possible.
My plan is to inform the cleaners that I’m forgoing their service until I sort out what happened (therefore adding incentive for the long-time cleaner to pursue this issue with the new guy) and turn over the cleaning duties to the children in the meantime (therefore adding incentive to come clean if they were the culprits so that I’ll bring the cleaners back).
The main pain in the butt is I lost several videos that are no longer available (as they don’t guarantee availability for re-download if they were free) and the biggee was losing my saves. Ugh. I’m going to try and spin it into a positive, though – I’ll embrace the crap out of cloud saves this fall and I’ve got a reason to play through Brutal Legend again (I loved my finished save that let me just ride around, enjoy the scenery, and listen to all the tunes).