The $54 Million Laptop

Stanislav_J writes "It happens to the best of us: you drop off your laptop at the local branch of some Super Mega Electronics McStore, go to pick it up, and they can't find it. Lost, gone, kaput — probably sucked into a black hole and now breeding with lost airline luggage. It would make any of us mad, but Raelyn Campbell of Washington, D.C. isn't just mad — she's $54 million mad. That's how much she is asking from Best Buy in a lawsuit that seeks 'fair compensation for replacement of the $1,100 computer and extended warranty, plus expenses related to identity theft protection.' Best Buy claims that Ms. Campbell was offered and collected $1,110.35 as well as a $500 gift card for her inconvenience. (I guess that extra 35 cents wasn't enough to sway her.) Her blog claims that Geek Squad employees spent three months telling her different stories about where her laptop might be before finally acknowledging that it had been lost. For those who follow economic trends, this means that a laptop's worth is roughly equivalent to that of a pair of pants."

Comments

If a single .MP3 is worth...

[CyberLord Seven]

...then I have no problem with her claim.

Re:Mod Parent Up

[arivanov]

... the damage to Best Buy's rep has already been done.

You mean, "free advertisement for Best Buy has already been done"

With the current reputation of Best Buy or PC World it is not like you can damage it any further. That will require using irrational numbers and complex math to compute it.

I ran into difficulties with Best Buy ...

[JoeGee]

When I finally filed a complaint with my state's attorney general the runaround ended (within a week) and I got a very prompt replacement, a written apology, and a substantial gift card. I'm upset though that my six months of $2500 television hell were only worth $200 compared to this lady's two months of $1100 PC hell being worth a $500 gift card.

Maybe I should sue Best Buy for their disciminatory ass-kissing policy ...

Re:Read what she's gone through?

[Robert Y. Frost]

Blogging is a creative art.

And logging is an excretive fart.

Price quotes...

[tubapro12]

That's one laptop, one pair of pants, or in RIAA-land, that's 36 CD, cheap half empty CDs at that.

Re:Read what she's gone through?

[Anonymous Coward]

And a fart is the cry of an imprisoned turd.

Re:Read what she's gone through?

[Malevolent Tester]

I know why the caged turd sings.

Re:Tenleytown Best Buy!

[gerardolm]

When I read the title I just thought: "Oh, God, don't tell me this is some kind of One Laptop Per Country initiative"

Re:Not any more unrealistic than the MPAA's figure

[Toonol]

Yeah, but the waiver is for lost as in 'destroyed'... not lost as in 'um, we're not sure where it is'.

The second is potentially much more damaging. I'm sure some geeksquad employee stole it, probably reinstalled windows, and uses it to browse 4chan all evening. But we don't know that for sure.

Depends on who gets to do the pricing

[ReverendLoki]

Yeah I love how she throws in the cost of music and video on her lost computer into her justification for suing for so much. What did she buy enough to fill up an iPod? :)

She only had about 50 songs on there, but she was using the prices put forward by the RIAA's lawsuits.

Re:Read what she's gone through?

[Bryansix]

Everybody in this thread is on the wrong website. You wanted Splashdot: News for Turds, Stuff that Splatters.

Re:She's a loon.

[Anonymous Coward]

Worst Buy I see what you did there.

No Employee of the Month?

[raftpeople]

Raehl, you've posted about 18 times about how she's a loon and BB didn't do anything wrong, and I'm noticing you sound defensive.

Did this incident break your streak of Employee of the Month?

Re:Read what she's gone through?

[gbobeck]

How appropriate... www.splashdot.com is a marketing company!