Woman sues Best Buy for lost laptop$54 million lawsuitBy Nick Farrell: Wednesday, 13 February 2008, 8:26 AMA US woman has sued Best Buy to the tune of $54 million for losing her laptopRaelyn Campbell said that she was so miffed at Best Buy for losing her laptop, which was loaded with her personal data, that she reckons the inconvenience and are hurt feelings are worth more than the GDP of a small African nation.The story starts six months ago when she took her damaged laptop computer into a Best Buy electronics store for repairs. After three months Best Buy admitted it had lost it.Not surprisingly Best Buy has told Campbell that her demands are unreasonable, and has tried to settle for far less. Most people would probably agree with Best Buy at this point.However, Campbell does not appear to be yet another person trying to make her fortune on the back of an 'only in America' type court case.She started out by being reasonable but got more and more miffed at the months of stalling and brush-offs by the company.Campbell was talked into buying an extended warranty for her laptop, something she was happy about when the on/off switch broke about a year later.She was told it would take two to six weeks to fix. This was annoying enough as she used her laptop a lot when travelling.When the laptop didn't turn up she went through a long list of agents and managers who variously assured her that it would be there any day now.Later it turned out that the laptop had never left the store to be fixed and had been lost. Best Buy clerks seem to think it better to lie.The manager promised Campbell compensation but weeks later she didn't get anything. Finally Best Buy offered her $900 for a computer she paid $1,100.Campbell demanded $2,100 in cash instead and when that went unanswered she urged family and friends to write to the store saying they wouldn't shop there until the matter was resolved.Her friends and family got notes back saying that for every unhappy customer there were thousands of happy ones.Campbell contacted the attorney general's office, which in turn contacted the store. This time it offered her a $1,100 refund to her credit card and a $500 gift card.This was when the lawyer reminded her that she had all her personal data on the laptop and Best Buy was in violation of the district's security breach notification law, which requires companies that have lost a consumer's data to tell them. She had to enrolled in a $10-a-month identity theft monitoring service.Campbell admits that she picked the $54 million lawsuit figure out of her head without legal advice in a bid to draw attention to the case.Best Buy's response was to offer her $2,500 in addition to the refund and a gift card if she would just go away and sign a confidentiality agreement.As Campbell said it shouldn't take a $54 million lawsuit to motivate Best Buy to address what it has done.She wonders how many other people have had their computer stolen or lost by Best Buy and then been bullied into accepting lowball compensation offers for replacement expenses and no compensation for identity theft protection expenses.
Campbell demanded $2,100 in cash instead and when that went unanswered she urged family and friends to write to the store saying they wouldn't shop there until the matter was resolved.Her friends and family got notes back saying that for every unhappy customer there were thousands of happy ones.