Lost laptop: Woman sues BestBuy for $54 million
American citizens and their joy in lawsuing about everything is back and crazier than ever before. A Washington, D.C. woman has sued Best Buy for $54 million, claiming the consumer electronics retailer lost her computer and then tried to cover up the disappearance. Raelyn Campbell, 37, acknowledges that the money she wants is more than the price of the notebook and the inconvenience she has suffered. But she said the lawsuit, along with a blog she started to chronicle her legal battle with Best Buy, is necessary to make a point. “I have filed a lawsuit against Best Buy and launched this blog in an effort to bring attention to the reprehensible state of consumer property and privacy protection practices at America’s largest consumer electronics retailer,” Campbell wrote.
In her blog, Campbell provides a timeline of her contacts with Best Buy, starting May 25, 2007, when she left the broken notebook at the Tenleytown store for repair under a service contract. On Jan. 25 of this year, a Superior Court judge recommended that she and Best Buy try to settle the matter on their own. Campbell said she offered to drop the suit, if the company paid her for her expenses and time and addressed “the shortcomings in its property and privacy protection practices.” Best Buy hasn’t responded, according to Campbell, and the next court hearing is set for Feb. 22. The only compensation Campbell has received from Best Buy is $1,110.35 that was transferred into her credit card account in late October without her consent, the plaintiff said. She’s obviously not that busy when she invested a lot of time into writing longish blog posts…
Comments(70)
Million for laptop? Yeah right, my ass…
only in america….
thank god i live in sweden
yeah, I love America!
I’m suing the world wide web cause there’s too much porn.
bogus claim. the money she is asking for is way too much and kind makes her look greedy. stop whining and get over it. just have best buy compensate you and not this media buzz over some stupid laptop..
I’m not a big fan of Best Buy either but $54 million is ridiculous. Unless she had $54 Million worth of p0rn saved on there,which i do, then that’s a different story.
@2
they got any apartmaents in sweden?
i’m ready to move.
What greed just ask for a million lol.
lol america
54 Million isn’t being done because she expects to get that money. Research legal practices in America and use some intelligence to piece together a large number of reasons to ever sue a company for an unfathomable amount.
With that said, I’m not saying she isn’t an idiot. She might be but it doesn’t mean ever person to do this is an idiot. Though if she is one, she’s an idiot who will end up with at least a good bit more than $1,110.35 and seem interesting enough to make a blog until it’s over with at least.
@ 2
Agreed. Thank God YOU DO live in Sweden. Dumba@@.
Some people can’t read…
She was originally asking for $5000.00 for replacement of laptop plus expenses.. Which is fair.
$1,110.35 was transfered to her WITHOUT her knowledge or consent.
Apparently some people haven’t had to deal with such matters or have something stolen from them before.
I hope she gets it, every last cent.
Companies are rarely responsible, rarely care about their customers, and rarely suffer for it. So hopefully they have to pay the whole amount. Shame she couldn’t ask for more and drive them out of business.
she chose $54 million on purpose to get attention! this is to raise awareness that big companies in america don’t screw their customers by losing laptops containing private data that may lead to identity fraud then try to take no responsibility.
read this article to get a better understanding,
http://redtape.msnbc.com/2008/02/a-lost-laptop-a.html
“obviously not that busy when she invested a lot of time into writing longish blog posts”
So what? What are you implying Martin? I don’t get it. Who cares how busy she is?
Perhaps what was being implied was that she’s a jobless loser trying to grab some quick cash for doing nothing…..perhaps.
I would rage if they just put in 1 grand in my bank without telling me and then not saying anything. Amazing how they can put a price to her data and hardware without knowing much about it. I hope she gets something out of this but I highly doubt that it would be 54 mil.
And about her being busy shes fighting for something that matters to her so let her be. I wonder how any of you would feel if this happened and you just happened to have private/business data on the laptop and you were force fed 1 grand? My guess is not too swell!
@ the other a.
y u gotta steal my name?
You always ask for a high amount and haggle it down. It’d be stupid to ask for a million if that’s what she wanted for it
And yes, she deserves the money. Incompetence that leads to losing personal information and is being covered up and later reimbursed by a paltry thousand bucks should be punished where it hurts the most, the company’s wallet
Offtopic: i just found a site ripping rlslog, all the posts are rips of this site, this kind off thing just make me sick, its rlslog [dot] nl, even the domain is the same (apart from been nl)
FUNNY STUFF!!!!
I agree that she should claim for her expense but 54 million is a little bit much even if she had every single bit of her personal information on that laptop she won’t get anywhere near the amount she asks for but good luck to her.
Reminds me of that case in which the lawyer sued this Chinese couple for 38 million Dollars over his missing trousers and got told by the judge he was a disgrace to the profession and that he was in no way getting compensation, especially as he was whining about the emotional impact of his missing trousers when the couple had offered to buy him a new pair.
I do understand her problem with Best Buy but she can’t solve it in a lone lawsuit, a class action suit is required to force Best Buy to abide by the law. I would like to point at the 10 million dollar suit brought against Ebay and Paypal by a consortium of lawyers. Ebay defrauded many people out of their money but it’s been ensured they no longer make the same mistake they made.
She will not win on her own, she needs to organise a more powerful suit than this. Then when Best Buy has had to pay millions in compensation they will change their practices.
“She’s obviously not that busy when she invested a lot of time into writing longish blog posts…”
RAWR!! PWNED!!!
Best Buy sucks and deserves to get sued over this. They stole a gig of RAM out of my moms computer when she took it there to get fixed. It seems I talked to a ton of people there about it and it got me nowhere. I wish I would’ve sued too just so they would’ve taken me seriously.
check out this link about what Best Buy techs do to peoples computers….http://www.stumbleupon.com/demo/?review=1#url=http://consumerist.com/consumer/leaks/best-buy-porn-thief-inquisitions-revealed-328949.php
Screw Best Buy! I applied there once for a PC tech job and they never responded! EVER! Lucky me…
You are jelous because you don’t have the balls to do it yourself. I am a Computer repair professional and what she says is very true. Her information is now in the hands of someone else. Maybe she works for the government and her laptop was sold to china for 50 million. Then again maybe she snuck in the tech room and stole it herself so she can make a lot of money….. I know for a fact broken laptops don’t disapear from my tech rooms and they would be easy to locate if they did.
So as far as conspiracy theory I think she snuck in or had one of the empoloyees bring her the lap top because she forgot to take her memory card out or something and then took advantage of walking out with the laptop in her laptop bag.
WHY? Because I have walked in their tech department before without them noticing and when they do notice its like 10 min later. Lunch time is the best time. AND NO I dont go around figuring how to steal things in tech rooms. I am just simply a really good observer.
LOL, I dunno about the US, but in Canada, Best Buy gives your money back after 90 days, if they are unable to fix your computer. It happened with my laptop.
You lost my com-put-ahr.
For com-pen-sah-shun, I want…
[Cue Dr. Evil music sting]
…Fifty Four Mill-yaun Dollahs!!!
(This was exactly the thought that was running through my mind when I read this story. Remember kids, make sure you’re truly awake before commenting about stupid lawsuits made by stupid people, okay?)
LMAO Coolblade! If she works for the government and has high profile security clearance information on her computer, she (a) wouldn’t have bought it at Best Buy and (b) certainly wouldn’t have taken it to those bozos to get it repaired. Honestly, I don’t know how any rational, ethical person can support this nonsense. If Best Buy lost her laptop, they owe her more than just the cost of a replacement. I totally agree there. If they’re not willing to settle with her out of court for a substantial sum (something well over the cost of the laptop but certainly under a million!), I understand why she would sue, but her arbitrary amount is insanity. Yes, I’m well aware of the fact that suing for 54M doesn’t mean you’ll get 54M, but she looks like a greedy opportunist demanding that much from the start.
I’m sorry if she lost personal information or worries about identity theft, but you should ALWAYS back up your important data and probably not keep super sensitive info like bank account numbers on your machine anyhow.
Good thing she doesn’t take her dry cleaning there:)
You crybabies that complain about this being excessive and whine about how glad you are to not live in America completely miss the point and sicken me to the point that I want to hurl. Pull your collective heads out of your arses!
What a lot you do not or will not seem to understand is that this is a case of federal fraud!
1. You dropped off your laptop to have it worked on. They accepted the laptop. At that time under US Law, they became responsible for same and if lost or damaged they would be responsible to replace same with an equal product or the replacement value of an equal product. They have constantly refused to do this.
2. They compounded the problem (Best Buy) after losing the laptop, by creating a fake timeline or paper trail after the loss happened. That is classified as fraud in every state of the union in the US/Canada/England/and yes even Sweden and in US federal laws as well. In most US states if the amount exceeds a set standard of usually between $500 and $2500., it now becomes a felony and it is now felony fraud as possible felony theft as if they would have just admitted they lost it and paid in the first place, none of this would have happened. I mean even the US Government when they lost a laptop filled with ID info of Veterans, offered 2 years of ID theft protection. Since when is Best Buy better then the US Government?? At least they admitted their mistake and tried to correct it. Can you expect anything less of a business?
3. Since Geek Squad has stores in this chain, both Best Buy AND Geek Squad are equally responsible under the eyes of US Law and European Union Law.
4. If they replaced over $1000. on your credit card, you should dispute it. If you do not and you accept that money, then best Buy can take that portion out of any settlement that you may receive. Not to mention that they can make a case (the wont win though as this is far below the cost of a replacement laptop)you accepted this money as a settlement.
5. I have done business with Geek Squad and at NO time has any agreement I signed stated that the loss of Data was not Best Buy’s fault. What the contract actually said is the “loss of data DUE TO failure of a hard drive-virus or malware-or damage to the laptop/computer by fire-dropped-crushed-etc., will not be the responsibility of Best Buy or Geek Squad.” people should actually READ the contract as it does NOT say they are not responsible for loss of an item by theft or deception from their store.
Now while I agree the amount she is asking for is excessive, what else can you do to get their attention when you have tried everything else and are constantly met with a brick wall. Sometimes you have to take a bat and smack the jacka## right between the eyes and make it hurt to get it’s attention, and sometimes you have to do the same to a company before they will sit down and talk with you. And no matter if idiots complain about you “clogging up the system” or not, if this is the ONLY way to get their attention so you can get a fair compensation (replacement of a new laptop-cost of the suit-5 years ID theft protection at no cost-and a written apology should be fair) then all I can say is smack them once for me!
an individual challenges a big corporation and some of you rag on her… morons!
HAHAHAHA dam americans, ohh wait thats an idea i will sue PC WORLD for there expensive HEALTH CHECKUPS *secretly all they do is run norton though your system lol*
or there useless people that work there that know hardly nothing about pc hardware.
that is the exact reason I didn’t want best buy or someone to repair my computer away from my presence! i at any time have hundreds of accounts on my laptop with personal information and once I give them the password to my computer they have full access. So if Best Buy lost my laptop I would take similar action. Our Privacy is just that, Private and Not for others viewing pleasure. If an irresponsible company lost the laptop they should pay for the value of the “information” of that laptop! Let see the court rule in her favor! IN America if a internet provider blocks access to any site I like i.e. rls, piratebay or another I’m waging serious suit like her! It is on!
I live in the US and I absolutely hate these kinds of frivolous lawsuits
These f@#*ing idiots are the reason for driving up cost of everything. Just last year some dumba$$ tried to sue a dry cleaner for millions for losing his “lucky suit”
Sure she has a right to sue because of the neglegance….but for f@#*ing millions?…millions?….MILLIONS?
How did she come up with that cost?
“Oh all that stress cost me $54 MILLION!!!”
If you defend her than your just as dumb as her.
I used to work for Best Buy and they lost people’s computers all the time….finally someone is bringing this to light. It was usually internal employee theft. Employees stole $500,000 worth of product in one year at the store I worked at!
her situation are one of the rare moments when its worth living in united states of terrorism
Damn Geek Squad
no one ever expects to get the amount they sue for, they just throw out some ridiculous amount and hope that it scares the other party to settle for like 10 percent of it.
They should at the very least replace it with any laptop she wants regardless of what hers was valued at, since they lost it.
“….obviously not that busy when she invested a lot of time into writing longish blog posts…”
Talk about projection.
This reminds me of that dumbass case with that judge suing a dry cleaner’s for like 25 million due to his pants being lost, then found shortly afterwards. It was for the same reasons too pretty much.
Hey RLSLOG employee, keep your crap opinions to yourself. We get it, you live in Europe, and you think everything is better there out of sheer ignorance.
If you had a brain you might realize that while the US has its fair share of frivolous lawsuits,(we also have a population of 300 million)it stems from the US justice system being geared towards actually helping the victim.
See, I am a lawyer, and Ive lived in the UK for 4 years, so I speak from first hand experience when I say Europe has a very serious problem with throwing out genuine lawsuits in a attempt to stem the number of frivolous lawsuits. Laws were passed there to prevent these kinds of lawsuits outlined above, but it ends up hurting honest people more than anything else.
This is something that is commonly known if you practice law in Europe, or ever find yourself suing a private entity.
Oh look, another generalization about Americans with words that don’t exist! Lawsuing? If you knew anything about all the shady business practices that Best Buy has done over the years, you’d understand why this woman is asking for that much money. She knows she’s not going to get it, but if she can give them negative advertising and more people can learn about how shady Best Buy is, then she’s doing a good thing.
Can we please have an article about how the British have bad teeth, the French all smell bad, and every person of middle eastern descent is a racist terrorist? I mean if you’re just going to post articles with sweeping negative and misguided generalizations about America, why not some other countries?
You know whats really sick. The only people that are going to suffer from this are fellow consumers. she’s not hurting the company, she’s hurting us. because then they hike up the prices, better yet, no more big sales. THIS SUCKS. that’s why so many stores have to resort to having like 2 decent sales a year. remember black friday 10 years ago. company’s then were able to afford it, now black friday is like any other day, almost.
EVERY STORE WILL HAVE THEIR ISSUES. For sure they are going to have problems. You try running a multibillion dollar company and make sure every person that works for you, says hello with the nicest smile in the world. Best buy has millions of workers. maybe one of them stole something. I DONT KNOW and I DONT CARE. But what I do know is that I’m going to suffer in the long run. Hell every company gets news time, WALLMART?? anyone.
This has nothing to do with an employee saying hi and smiling. This has nothing to do with Black Friday (which is a scam anyway). This has nothing to do with a company having a sale. This has to do with middle management giving customers the run around. If a company has millions of employees then that’s their thing to work with. No reason to screw a customer out of something that is completely their fault. This woman would get nothing if she’s to the point of starting a ridiculous lawsuit. Now she’s got media attention and even if she doesn’t get any fair restitution for the time that Best Buy has wasted of hers, then maybe someone else will learn that shopping at Best Buy isn’t a great idea to save a dollar or two in the long run.
Right, and who will suffer from this??? I can guarantee you that bestbuy is laughing their asses off.
So one lady is trying to make a statement. BIG WOOPDIDY F()CK.
She’s a dumb@@@ss. Before I bring one of my comps in for servicing I either back up the harddrive and wipe it, or I remove it to prevent any tampering with my personal information. It’s common sense.At least the information stored on her comp would not have been compromised.
To the equally ignorant Europeans: Are you telling us that none of the employees at any of the European tech chains has ever been found to be guilty of either identity or PC theft,negligence,or incompetence in this manner? Just sunshine and roses in Sweden then? This woman may be a no life loser but at least she’s bringing attention to the problem. If Best Buy’s management were intelligent she would have been compensated for the cost of the laptop plus expenses and maybe she would have kept quiet. It’s a completely ridiculous lawsuit but in the States you have to make noise to get results. Sad but true.
@41
You’re so full of crap……
I hope she burns in hell
I hate people like this. When mindless lawsuits are filed it costs American tax payers BILLIONS of dollars every year. Too many people in this country think they can get rich quick from petty miscommunications like this. I can see suing for a few thousand, but no $54 million…thats just rediculous.
lol americans , shes not gonna smell this amount of money her entire life .
this is USA what did you expect?
What’s that, like 53 million canadian?
They should have a pre-screening process before anyone in the judicial system even wastes a minute with this case.
Take it to people’s court or something else. She clearly wants to be on Springer.
@a sorry, didn’t know that a was taken
i expected higher intelligence from eurocrats. i was wrong. read this article: http://redtape.msnbc.com/2008/02/a-lost-laptop-a.html
“In November, she filed her $54 million lawsuit against Best Buy — by herself, without legal representation.
The amount intentionally echoes another lawsuit that made headlines last year — a case involving a D.C. judge who sued a dry cleaner for $54 million over a lost pair of pants. That case was eventually dismissed.
Campbell freely admits she picked the same amount in an effort to attract media attention.”
in short, she sued for $54 million just to bring awareness to shady, sleazy companies refusing to take responsibility for losing private data, and then lie about it. the kicker here is that she doesn’t even expect to get $54 million!
She’s 100% right
@54 – a2
That makes better sense….she’s just trying to get awareness just trying to get awareness
@ 27, they don’t give u your money back!!!!…at least not with me, they just gave me a new one (valued at $999, and not its ‘on sale’ for $699)…..such a scaM!!!
Suing over a pair of missing pants is stupid, suing when a company loses a relatively expensive piece of hardware that they accepted responsibility for, and then lies about it, is justified. If she had personal information on the laptop, the delay in informing her that the computer was missing could cost her much more than the price of the system if someone uses the information to steal her identity.
I suppose you could argue that it wasn’t the best idea to entrust a computer full of information to a large chain like Best Buy, but then again, Best Buy presents itself as a trustworthy organization, which it clearly isn’t.
As for the amount; If she had simply sued for a few thousand, nobody would have even heard about this case. Best Buy would settle the case out of petty cash and just keep on being incompetent. To them, a few thousand is about the same as a penny (smallest US coin) to the average person.
By suing for a high amount, she brings attention to the case, making people aware of just what a lousy company Best Buy is. Also, if Best Buy is forced to pay out a large amount of money every time they lose someone’s computer, maybe they’ll stop losing them.
americalol
I love how all these stupid euro trash hippy liberals rag on America and our legal system…yes its flawed but not one is perfect. id rather live here and enjoy my life than live in ur elitist countries who are so full of themselves u cant see past your own flaws…btw The U.S. controls most of ur pitiful countries
As for the woman…do a li mor research before u judge..yes its an exorbitant amount but its meant as punitive damages….to teach them a lesson…returning 5k to her wouldnt make a differece in the way they conduct business, 54 million will!
@ Ice-T
Being a Best Buy CANADA employee I will tell you that Best Buy Canada and Best Buy USA are verrrryyy different companies using the same name. Yes that is the correct course of action, as you said. 90 days, full refund of the purchase price of the computer. I see it all the time at work (I am in computer sales at my Best Buy location).
What happened in this store was very wrong. Best Buy’s int he states are run like crap.
Annoyed
February 15th, 2008 | 17:08
I live in the US and I absolutely hate these kinds of frivolous lawsuits
These f@#*ing idiots are the reason for driving up cost of everything. Just last year some dumba$$ tried to sue a dry cleaner for millions for losing his “lucky suit”
Sure she has a right to sue because of the neglegance….but for f@#*ing millions?…millions?….MILLIONS?
How did she come up with that cost?
“Oh all that stress cost me $54 MILLION!!!”
If you defend her than your just as dumb as her.
—————
Are you a mental moron or are you trying real hard? tell me doofus, what would get your attention in a milti million dollar company? A suit for $5000. that you take out of petty cash? Or a suit for 54 MILLION that will make the investers and stockholder very angry and upset with you at the next meeting?
Again you whine about her driving up the cost of lawsuits, but I ask you yet again…just WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TO DO if they refuse to pay attention and settle like they are suppose to do in the first place? Just walk away and take the beating, or snarl amd smack the moron in the face with something that will be GUARENTEED to get their attention? No one in their right mond believes she is going to get this much, but if this threat is what it takes to make Best Buy do the right thing and replace the laptop and the rest I mentioned, then I say sue the bastards for more then that if they cannot or will not make good on their screw up.
You know what Martin. I think your website is straining my eyes. Baiting me with links to free movies just so I’ll suffer through your advertizing. Ooohh my eyes are sooo sore. I’ve been surfing here for a coupl of hours now catching up on the last few days releases. I’m gonna need glasses, surgery, pain killers, liquor, lawyers etc. What do you say we just settle out of court??? : ))) a million should do it.
Should we just stay in the topic, so all of you “U.S rocks and Europe sucks” dumbasses just shut up.
I do agree that this is a great way to catch major companies attention but too often these kind of lawsuits are just an easy way to get rich.
I’m not too familiar with the legal system in the U.S but if you sue someone and lose, you have to pay the expenses, correct?
Migi
February 16th, 2008 | 09:33
Should we just stay in the topic, so all of you “U.S rocks and Europe sucks” dumbasses just shut up.
I do agree that this is a great way to catch major companies attention but too often these kind of lawsuits are just an easy way to get rich.
I’m not too familiar with the legal system in the U.S but if you sue someone and lose, you have to pay the expenses, correct?
——————–
Depends. On most of the cases, the answer would be yes you would have to pay the court costs of the person or business you sued. Notice I said most cases.
We do, on the other hand; have some very whacked out judges who are seemingly angry that a person or a business would DARE try and sue the person that sued them and lost for the cost of their time to defend themselves. If you get one of these freaks, then you can sue; lose and walk away scott free.
Thank goodness that 99.9% of these moronic judges are on the east coast and west coast of the US. Soon as the “big one” takes out liberal land (other wise known as California) that would end the west coast problem. And as soon as that island by Africa has part of that Volcano slip and fall into the ocean, the resulting tidal wave that will hit the east coast 8 hours later should rid us of the east coast problem.
Then the rest of the judges should be able to overturn what little judicial morons are left over.
Americans are hilarious, it’s a shame they’re soooo stupid. But I guess they can’t be both smart and hilarious :p
Oh well, China will teach them a lesson someday…..
At the same time, she visited a legal aid office and was asked by a lawyer there whether she had any personal information on the computer?
“Of course I did,” she replied. “My tax returns were on there.”
Campbell was informed that she had a bigger problem than a lost computer – the potential for identity theft. She also learned that 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. To date, she has not received that notification.
Now everyone that says shes stupid for keeping that kind of information on her computer is wrong. computers are not just for downloading movies or playing games people do use them for work or finances . keep track of there bills do payroll or taxes . I’m not saying she should get that much but you have to think this is something that could haunt her for the rest of her life and her family if she has one. her, her husband and kids will all have to keep track of there credit for the rest of there lives . once she settles she can not take them to court again. if you’ve ever had anything put on your credit that’s not supposed to be on there and try and take it off its a pain in the ass. she needs proof its not her to get it taken off sometimes even have to get a lawyer . now the question becomes not how much is the computer worth but how much is your credit and your family’s credit worth. Coming from someone with crappy credit – credit is priceless. it can save you thousands on car of home loans.
54$Gees… She had alot of porn in there for shure… If something like this would happen to me all i wanted in return would be some sort of compensation, like a new computer and some gift as sorry from them. i would never be capable to rip someones pockets for a computer! a car or a house is understandable, but its a computer ffs! even i cant pass a day without my pc but it doesnt mean that much for me, i still have time to recover my lost data if needed, for crying out loud.
Now i know that there is anyone for anything in this world, i really think that this is a very bad joke from her when talking about 54$.
In another side, im trying to sue her for making me lose my time with this bull*etc. I want my lost time back, just that, no money, just a rewind in the time.
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/72016
the same story. It’s almost similar to this one. But I think Best Buy shouldn’t counter offer just with a gift card. And she even bought the laptop at a higher price with an extended guarantee. I mean come one. Give her 2000 cash she’ll shut up. Must be some misunderstanding with the negotiator at Best Buy.
How did she decide on the precise ammount of $54 million anyway?
Sounds absolutely rediculus to me