Woman sues Best Buy for lost laptop

do you know if you buy an extended warranty in pcworld your data is your responsibility?

So if you are sending a laptop away for repair it's up to you to ensure you have a backup of the data and that your laptop data is secured.

If PCWorld then lost your laptop, you would be entitled to a replacement of a similar spec'ed machine, however if its been like 3 months then you'd probaly get your money back.

Don't think you'd have a leg to stand on otherwise!

Mike

After all of the hassle she went through, the initial offer was $900 in store credit (not cash), from the very same store that gave her the run-around and blatantly lied to her... I would say it is very understandable that she wanted cash (or a refund on her credit card), so she could take her money where she would be treated better (also the offer was a little low considering what they had put her though, and the warranty she bought). According to the article, she picked 54 million (same as the D.C. judge who sued a dry cleaners for lost pants) to get media attention to how Best Buy treats their customers. She filed the papers for the case herself and has admited that she will settle for far less providing that Best Buy provides her with an explanation of exactly what happened to her computer and implements some sort of training policy or something to ensure that other customers are not treated the same. I think that's pretty fair (if not overly generous, for all of the hassle she had to put up with), and I appreciate the fact that she is trying to get Best Buy to change it's ways for the rest of us. Too bad it takes a $54 million law suit to get some attention these days...

They do a great job explaining this one as well.

Best Buy should replace her laptop with a new, comparable model.
As far as the loss of here data is concerned-- it's her own fault for not backing it up!
External hard drives are cheap as chips these days. Most folks can even store a backup of all of their important docs on a single USB key!

Only Americans can bee this stupid. I´m sorry but in every other country of this earth the court would just burst in laughter.


Yah for America and its abused legal system!!!

How in the hell is Geek Squad still around? The only positive thing I have ever heard about them is that they have kewl cars (not!).

It's not so much that she lost her personal data, it's that nobody knows where her laptop went and what whoever has it trying to do with her personal data.

It doesn't matter that she didn't back up her files, her files are still out there somewhere on that laptop. Best Buy broke the law (security breach notification law) , lied to her, stone walled her and tried to minimumly pay her off. Insulting! They did NOT do the RIGHT thing to begin with! So make them pay BIG for their arrogance and lies!

Best Buy have serious problems with their customer relations. They're all smiles while they're taking your money but if you actually have a customer issue you're going to get the run around, and probably end up screwed. The extended warrantry won't help you either -- I got burned on that one (they'll just claim the system was damaged by the user and so the warrantry's void)(but they'll sell you a new one)(but if you then get it fixed yourself they might refund the cost if they feel like it ).

Its not really the fault of the individual employee. They're just nameless 'droids (you'll notice that they only use first names and those names are invariably not their real ones) that have no discretion and are entirely disposable. Off the record they may be sympathetic but they're as screwed as you are. The best thing to do is to just not shop there (or at any similarly run organization). There are better choices, use them.

Its not about the loss of her data. For all we know, she may have a backup. Its about the horrible service, lies and stonewalling by WorstBuy.

She purchased a laptop + extended warranty for $1100. A year later, the laptop broke. She took it to the store, and was told it would take 2-6 weeks to repair. 3 months (12 weeks!) later, she hadn't got it back and called to find out what was going on. She called 5 or 6 times to find out what was going on and was lied to every time, until she finally got someone who told her the truth. After she was told the truth, that her laptop had disappeared 3 months prior, she was offered less than she paid for it in store credit from somewhere no reasonable person would do business with again.

I hope she gets her 54mil. Until companies are forced to pay through the nose when they lie to their customers and stonewall behind lawyers, they'll never change.

I don't think the fact that the data was not retrievable is the problem this woman has, rather that personal data is still around on the laptop somewhere but BestBuy don't know where it is or who has their hands on it.

I know of many a poor lass whose laptops the Geek squids failed to turn on!

@Mike (First post)

Yes, your personal data is your own responsibility when it comes to the possibility that is might be lost during repairs. You should allways make a backup.

But this has nothing to do with it. There was personal data on it, and it was lost. There is a law, not only in the US, in other countries too, that a company must, asap, tell you about such a thing.

They didn't do that, so they broke the law!

54mil is just to get the attention of the press, but accually Best Buy should be taken to court for this. Just to make shure next time they tell you right away.

And yes, if they had told right away, a refund of the purchase price, or a same specs PC or maybe, out of the goodness of they're hearts, a new one about the same price would be the right thing to do.

Why does it seem stores forget about taking care of your customers. For every unsatisfied customers there are 1000 happies ones.

But an unsatisfied customer, who has been made happy, will bring a 1000 more. Simple logic!

Sad thing in the end, for Best Buy, is that any media attention, is attention and makes your name known.

The upside to this story is that she wasn't tasered with god knows how many volts for complaining!


If your PC breaks spontaneously, and you're a basic user who's not going to be taking out the HD to ghost it, *how* exactly do you take a backup or encrypt your personal files?

BB are a bunch of liars, so good luck to her!

Hey LuckyStrik3r, I understand your perception of the US legal system from the outside, and agree with you to a certain extent, but consider this: without some of these apparently ridiculous lawsuits, we would have lead in some products and not even know it, steep stairs would have no guardrails (hey, take a stroll in Amsterdam at night, along a canal and let me know if you would like a small fence there!), and people would be smoking in pediatric hospital waiting rooms. Yes, we do experience some abuse in our legal system, but we also benefit in the end. And some of our benefits propagate to you, outside the US, with the global corporations watching their activities more carefully. So while Best Buy will certainly not pay $54M in this case, the threat of this suit, the potential legal costs, and the fear of similar suits in the future will no doubt trigger a reassessment of internal guidelines. That would not have happened if this lady had sued for $2000, and we would probably not be reading about this here.

" Only Americans can bee this stupid."

Apparently not as stupid as you. Maybe you were stung in the brain by one.



What do you expect from stupidvil.

This was sort of like my problem with Circuit City. But They damaged my laptop when it was being repaired by them, Then they tried to blame it on me. I was on the news and I took them to court and they settled the night before the court date. Check out the news story.

http://cbs5.com/video/?id=31037

1) After a few times, she should have gotten the message and gone there in person.

2) A paranoid person (like most of us reading this) would back up computer data before giving it over for a very minor fix, but a normal person wouldn't.

3) Wow, is it really necessary to plagiarize half the sentences, Nick?!?

Um, somebody needs to get the managers together and play a game of whack-a-mole with their heads.
The rule about happy customers is not that you get a thousand for every unhappy one. It's more like a happy customer brings in two others, and an unhappy one scares off ten others.
But obviously Best Buy (not PCWorld, like some apparently think) has the rule the wrong way around, which goes a long way to explaining how this woman got to the point of a lawsuit.
Given the uncouth arrogance of brushing off someone with such an argument, I can only choose to support the lady, even though I can also only agree that backups are a lot easier these days.
But for those who blame her for not doing her backups, it would be good to remember that only a small portion of computer users are geeks prone to paying medical attention to all the needs of data and hardware.
The rest of the users are people who expect to be able to use their PCs like their tennis racket : pick it up when they need it, and stow it away when they don't. They do not realize that a PC is basically a comatose vegetable in intensive care and, if they did, the home computer market - and the Internet itself - would probably be a lot smaller.

I'd like to make a point that several commenters are not getting-

She's not suing because Best Buy lost her data and it's now unrecoverable and can't be used by her.

Her gripe about data loss is that through their own ignorance Best Buy allowed her personal data to be put into the wild and potentially abused. And worse, they did nothing to notify or protect her!

Boiled down reasons for her suit are:
1. Loss of physical hardware
2. Loss of personal data resulting in possible identity theft issues.
3. Very (very) poor service.
4. Inadequate compensation given the losses (tangible and otherwise) and lengths she's had to go to both protect her identity and work the BB bureaucracy for minimal results.
5. Raise awareness

Best Buy could've closed this issue quick and cheap if they'd fessed up to the loss, given her cash compensation in the amount of the original purchase price, paid for identity theft services for five years and offerd an honest apology for the loss.

They'd have been out less than $5,000, would have avoided all this negative press and possibly even retained her as a "valued customer".

Best Buy had better hope this never makes it to a jury ;-)

I'm no fan of big business.

I'm no fan of American Consumers.

I'm truley torn on this matter.

Mariner-

Making them pay big is not the answer. Want to know why our doctor bills, auto insurance and items carry such a huge price tag? Welp, its because of frivoulous lawsuits. When best buy, circuit city and all of these stores start having to carry large insurance policys to protect themselves from these type of law suits guess what? They pass that cost right to the customer. 

I agree they are liable for any REASONABLE damages and maybe some small punity for lieing, however, "paying big" just hurts everyone and drives prices even higher in a declining US economy.

-Scott

Best thing is...when signing up for geek squad services. When you sign that paper for them to work on your laptop (the paper no one reads). It states they aren't responsible for lost or missing data. They should compensate for the laptop and throw extra...but 54 million??? There's more important matters going on in the world: the NIU shooting, the middle east, and various local news affecting my community. I don't want to see another crazy all over the news when there's more serious matters at hand. Am i right?

Actually I have similar story with Best Buy. They stole my laptop and want to charge me for that. Now I have to go to court in order to clear my credit.
This issue is going already for 2,5 years. Also I amd glad that customers like her do make a big deal about such cases because otherwise we as acustomer will loose our rights totally. Best Buy emplyees are doing whaterver is permissible from the headquarter and other than humangous # of dollars won't get their attention. Also I am happy that in America we can file the humorous cases because only in America you have a rights as a customer and you can be protected by the law. In other countries they look at individual custmer like an ant and the law actually doesn't care about individual.
Thus as a customer she did a right thing and Best Buy must first apologize publicaly, fix the problem by paying her for ll her troubles and learn the lesson. I hope we will be albe see any changes for better in Best Buy. Otherwise guys there are always a choise to shop. So be and educated and smart shopper, don't be fooled by a big merchant. Thank yo to this lady. My applause.

"Making them pay big is not the answer. Want to know why our doctor bills, auto insurance and items carry such a huge price tag? Welp, its because of frivoulous lawsuits. When best buy, circuit city and all of these stores start having to carry large insurance policys to protect themselves from these type of law suits guess what? They pass that cost right to the customer."

I agree with you scott. She can sue for 54 million, but we lose in the long-run. It's ridiculous someone can file a lawsuit for 54 million for a laptop case. I know the 54 million is enough to draw the media to it. But as i stated earlier, I personally don't care about this woman's quest for 54 million and want to live easy street for the rest of her pathetic life. What happened to work ethics? I'm 24 and work 3 jobs to pay off college and survive. I could see her getting 7 figures outta this. I'm sure best buy will pay out of court a couple million to get this out of the media. But honestly, does anyone want to work anymore? Everyone's got these get rich quick ideas for a better life. It sickens me that our society has come to this. I'd say 3 to 5 million tops for her loss of the laptop and frustration. If she wins 54 million dollars, it's just another example that the system fails. 

But, if she does win 54 million, maybe she can get that surgery where they can remove the "b***h" from inside her.