Welcome to Android Central! I edited out your email addresses -- please don't share any identifying information on the forums, for your own privacy's sake. You can always ask people to send you a Private Message via the forums.
We also don't know which app you're referring to -- do you mean the Android Central app? Are you saying that the Best Buy salesperson told you that they sold you a used phone? What did they mean by a "mod phone"?
Android Central is not spyware. We sure have been getting a lot of ads lately

, but no spyware.