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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."
Blogging is a creative art.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
And if she had sued them for $10k would it have been posted on slashdot? Somehow I doubt it. The reason she put such a big sum up was specifically so the media would pay attention to the case and not let BestBuy slink away. Even if she settles out of court at this point she's accomplished her goal.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
You're missing the point. When the other entities mentioned lost those laptops, do you think they knew their contents? Probably not. The point is that the consumer needs to be notified immediately in case there is sensitive information on there...not lied to for months on end while some script kiddie with a part time job at Best Buy is POTENTIALLY using her SSN.
It's precisely because Best Buy didn't know what was on her computer that they're required to notify her about it.
"Life's short and hard, like a body building elf." -- The Bloodhound Gang
She seems to want a minimum of $100,000 according to her blog http://www.bestbuybadbuyboycott.blogspot.com/ which I feel is a bit much even for what she claims to have gone through. From her blog:
3) Full compensation ($25,000, per my letter to Mr. Feivor) for my direct expenses and time related to restoring my property and resolving this issue. 4) Treble and other damages in the amount of $75,000, for the completely unnecessary 6- month ordeal Best Buy has put me through.Yeah, what happened sucks, but I'm of the opinion what she's asking for is still a bit unreasonable. I'm by no means an apologist for Best Buy, in fact I really dislike them, but I think 54 mil is completely ludicrous and $100,000 is a bit greedy.
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
Rather than reading TFA or TFB, I'm going to say that if she wanted to make a point, why not just ask for a million dollars. Oh and 35 cents. Asking for 54 million is just ridiculous and makes her look like someone who's just hoping to profit from a frivolous lawsuit, no matter WHAT her story is.
I agree that replacing her lost laptop is not going to cut it, even with a 500 dollar gift certificate. If all she had was that one laptop and all her personal emails, documents and photos were on it, then she is due a -reasonable- additional amount. If her story is true, then add to that a little more for the stress and anger she must have felt while dealing with people not willing to own up to what had happened and then finding out they had been jerked around for no reason. In addition, they should pay court fees. Then you have a reasonably fair settlement. If what she says is completely true, then I would have also commended her for taking the trouble of going to court and showing companies that they cannot just lose people's belongings and then say "oops." However, since she's sueing for 54 million, I'm not quite sure she's not secretly hoping to get a rather hefty settlement that will make her very glad that they lost that laptop...
I'm sorry but suing for an incredibly large amount of money just to make a point is a bit ridiculous and when you publicly admit that you're doing it mostly out of spite, it makes you look like an ass.
I don't think it's ridiculous at all. First of all, it's working - she is getting media attention. I doubt she could have hoped for the same attention if she wanted to settle this in a small claims court (she was willing to do so at one point, but Best Buy seems to have repeatedly ignored her). Secondly, it seems to be common practice to sue for an enormous amount of money, realizing that the court will rarely ever award that much. As for being an ass, it looks like Best Buy is the one you should really accuse - they're playing all sorts of legal paperwork games, contesting every move (read her response to Best Buy's lawyer's claim that none of the defendants were served).
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Yeah $54,000,000 sounds absurd. But did she have any original content on that computer? Photos, songs, stories, spreadsheets, etc.? If she created it, she owns the copyright.
I ask because, if the courts allow the MPAA to sue kids for tens of thousands PER SONG for simply sharing a copywritten work, then why not let her sue for tens of thousands for each of HER original works? After all, her damages are much WORSE than those claimed by the music industry -- her content has been permanently destroyed/lost, while the music industry still has their content and can continue to sell it.
(Frankly, I don't think either case deserves what they're asking. Reimburse market price or some small multiple of *actual market price* as a punitive measure -- $1100 for the laptop lady. $.99 per song for the music company.)
What usually gets over looked in these arguments is the reason for punitive damages.
It is not about compensating her loss. It is about forcing the company to change its ways. You award enough money to affect the company's bottom line, which punishes the stock holders, which puts the heat on management to stop the offending practice.
If there is not a change in practices, the clearly the award is not high enough.
So don't think of it as her getting 54 million for a laptop and aggravation, look at it as getting through to the company in the only language it understands...money.
Look at Ford and the Pinto episode. I don't think it was a high enough award. Ford should have been brought to its knees financially just to make it clear that the cost/benefit analysis of dead/burned people to lawsuit costs was waay off.
Perhaps you should do your customers a failure, begin documenting this, and then turn it over to the authorities. I'm sure your state's AG's office would be interested, if you've got some proof.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
From what I understand, the amount has nothing to do with the value of the laptop...
It has everything to do with a refusal to acknowledge they'd lost it, making constant excuses for a long time, followed by a refusal to pay up promptly even what it was undeniable.
It was only after she threatened to sue for the large amount that they finally got around to paying the smaller amount. Until they were in danger, they weren't in any hurry to deal with it.
There's often minimal incentive to avoid repeating the mistake if all you ever have to pay is actual physical cost, ignoring value of lost data, and you can get away with postponing making that payment, requiring endless forms of validation, follow up calls where they sit on hold for hours, etc. until they give up.
The idea of punative damages is that it's accepted that a bare minimum effort doesn't come close to being adequate and a dramatically higher cost is required to spur them in to acting in the way they knew they should have in the first place.
If BestBuy had got on and acknowledge the loss, promptly paying up, they likely wouldn't be facing this. Instead, their responding only when threatened with large punative damages, demonstrated that that's exactly what's necessary to get them to truly fulfill their obligations.
Had she asked for millions the instant they lost it, she'd get laughed out of court. That they demonstrated a complete unwillingness to address the issue until they were faced with that kind of a threat is going to get noted in a court case.
She'll unlikely see the $50m+. She'll be lucky if she sees $5m that gets reduced to $500k on appeal. But the pain of facing that, getting lawyers involved and all the rest of it is going to make an impression on BB policy for the future far more than any number of angry letters will.
It's going to take a considerable blow to the corporate bank balance before top management at Best Buy will stop treating the loss as 'yeah we lose some cash to mad women now and then' and actually spend time and effort on making sure this never ever happens again.
While $100,000 is more than enough to *give to her*, I'm not sure it's anywhere near enough to be *taken from them*.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
how is Raelyn Campbell's situation any different from anyone else's who has had a computer stolen from them?
A) It was left at a trusted* location, hence where it was was assumed to be known.
B) It wasn't stolen, persay. Officially, it was lost.
C) It took three months for Best Buy to fess up to losing it.
Normally when your laptop gets stolen from you, you have a pretty good idea when that happens, I would wager within 24 hours you'd know it's missing. You don't sit down at a meeting one day and realize, "Holy crap, my laptop was stolen three months ago! I better start doing something about that!"
*Let's not quibble over the definition of trusted. It was believed to be a trusted location at least, and that's what matters.
The thing about the term "Punitive" is that it means to punish. Now if she were only sueing for $100,000 that wouldnt actually qualify as punishment for an international megacorperation like BestBuy. On a good week a single bestbuy store could easily bring in $100,000 and completely swallow the loss. So as punishments go thats akin to sentincing a three time convicted car thief to a week of comunity service. 54 million is alot closer to something that would actually punish them. Clearly she thought this out and from reading her timeline I feel that she gave them more than ample time to properly rectify the situation.
If you think it thru she started by being quite reasonable and not getting any response. Then the response she got was close to criminal. And now they are trying to make her the badguy. I hope BestBuy gets p0wn'd.
This makes a lot more sense than the pair of pants case. In this case, the laptop could have _a lot_ of personal data.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I used to work at Worst Buy and we were also told to tell the customer things that were not exactly true, like there were additional issues, backordered parts and such. The solution is to GO TO YOUR LOCAL MOM & POP computer store. You will get higher quality equipment, better waranties, better customer service, and in most cases, you will qualify for the Microsoft Buy Local Bonus Packs and get free stuff! Don't patronize the big box stores. They don't care about individual customers, only the bottom line: their wallets, NOT the customers!
Do you know, what her Job is and how many files have been on that hard drive? Do you know, how many unreplacable pictures could've been on that hard drive? IF IT'S TRUE, what she says, she's dammn right to sue them. What she really wants is 1) an explanation how this could happen 2) an explanation why this won't happen any more 3) 100k$ Well, that's still a lot of money - but given the situation, Best Buy deserves a little bit of beating. And negative Publicity, of course.
Fair enough, but forgive me for not being so easily swayed by her attempts to refuse their offer in preparation for litigation. How kind of her.
Also, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to take plaintiff's admission that she is attempting to use the court system as a forum rather than as a way of becoming whole, except to point out that the court should sanction her, her counsel, and the firm that counsel belongs to for filing a frivolous lawsuit and falsely representing that there is a cause of action before the court.
I realize that there was a lot of inconvenient back-and-forth between the plaintiff and defendant, and so what? When you file suit, you raise the stakes while expressly promising that you are not yanking everyone's chain. When you publicly tell people that you deliberately broke that promise and are using the suit to simply advertise your cause, then you deserve to be punished under Rule 11 (or similar State rule) by the same court you thought you would "put one over on." The court system is not a playground or a forum for plaintiff to use to "get the word out" on Best Buy.
That's what vainglorious blogs are for.
You're not getting the difference between data loss (hard drive wiped) and data stolen or missing. Best Buy doesn't know who has her laptop. She is now at a risk for identity fraud. Instead of informing her immediately (there are laws requiring them to do this), they lied to her and jerked her around, putting her at further risk. Rather than offer her less than the laptop was worth, they should have offered her a new laptop and offered to pay for three years of a credit protection service. No reason to defend Best Buy - talk to anyone that's tried to use them. They make a habit out of abusing customers, and it's high time they get some punishment for it.
You're completely neglecting the intentional and deliberate fraud that Best Buy perpetrated for months, breaking the law. Not to mention statutory requirements about lost consumer information, etc.
As I said in another comment, when they claim to not be responsible for lost data, that might be true in the case of destroyed data... hard drive wipe, whatever. No way does that absolve them of lost as in negligently misplaced or stolen data.
Pervasive and systemic fraud of this nature, which I'm sure Best Buy does engage in, does occasionally result in very high punitive fines. That was the nature of the oft-cited McDonalds hot-coffee incident. I believe there was a similar case against Sears Automotive. $300 fines do not always force companies to reform abusive policies.
I love business and capitalism. Free market for the win. But that doesn't mean companies should get away without penalties when they are caught doing obviously deceptive acts.
Best Buy has a very bad practice of their employees stealing data, and them trying to cover face. They've been busted using freeware for personal use only software to diagnose and repair their issues. They also have a horrible time losing laptops. I know, I happened to receive one, a laptop I never owned, and I never owned one back then. It was supposed to go to Cali, it arrived in TN.
Best Buy needs to have it's ass handed to them in order to get this crap to stop and force them to take more stringent security measures. I watch the Geek Squad work on machines, totally disobeying EVERY SINGLE ESD PROCEDURE and not even wearing ESD straps. I won't work at a Besy Buy purely for professional and ethical reasons due to what I have personally witnessed and experienced.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Why do people still bring up the McDonald's coffee case? Go look up the actual facts of the case and then STFU!
As i understand it, her claim is that the entry was made after the first lawsuit (in small claims) was filed. You say irresponsible, I say it's at least one of: tampering with evidence, court fraud, or perjury. (Assuming her claim to know the date of the data entry can be fully proven, of course).
Who is John Cabal?
That article linked to in the summary from the Minneapolis StarTribune is the worst piece of journalism I've seen in a while. It is in stark contrast to the facts of the article as reported in Ms Campbell's blogspot entry.
... said consumers need to get smart about protecting their data to avoid such situations." This is completely off topic.
For example:
"Campbell, who could not be reached Tuesday," - Campbell's whole point of this is to get exposure. I seriously doubt she intentionally avoided the call. How long did Jackie Crosby give Ms Campbell to reply? 10 minutes?
"Best Buy Spokeswoman said Campbell was offered and collected $1110.35" if you read Ms Campbell's story BB deposited this straight into her credit card account w/o prior discussion. Would have been nice if Ms Crosby mentioned this fact in her news story.
"Melissa Ngo, senior counsel with the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C.,
Fact: Moron spills coffe on themselves and gets 2 millions dollars for it. I dont care how hot it was, or what she was wearing. She ordered it, and spilled it. There are cup holders in cars you know. Its stupid for this lady here to say that she dosnt expect to get that much, and that she just wants some sort of justice by making it public is rubbish. Anyone who sues another for that much money is either really greedy, or the case is really really big. IMO she should get a replacement laptop and a gift card, o wait she did.... Punitive damages are a joke, compensation is all that is really needed.
Are you unable to comprehend what a law means? If the law says they have to cover it they have to cover it, no discussion. Tell your local cops that the speed limit law actually may not really mean you can't drive over the posted speed and watch them laff thier asses off and write you a ticket. She wins this point slam dunk. As far as identity theft, as I recall there are laws in some states (CA is one) where if your data is lost the company has to offer you ID Theft protection, thats all they would have had to do. IBM (an ex-employer) lost a data tape with my employment records and even though the data on the tap was encrypted and you'd need a mainframe tape drive to read it they gave me a years worth of ID Theft protection. Her point that BB could have settled this situation easily instead of jerking her around is perfectly valid. The lady deserves some payback for her lost time, her lost data, her lost music and possibly puntive damages as BB deliberately misled her about the status of her computer. Maybe 50K would do it, I don't know but the $54M did grab headlines, got her noticed, got 1000's of people to read her blog and gave BB a small black eye.
I think that after 2 months I would have filed a police report charging the store with theft and ask for criminal charges to be brought against the manager and geek squad.
She is not concerned about losing her data. What you fail to realize is that it is a Washington DC law that requires Best Buy to inform her that her laptop with her sensitive data had been lost while under their service. It doesn't matter whether she took responsible precautions with her data or not--it's the LAW that Best Buy has to do this, even if it wasn't their fault and the lady was negligent with her data. Not only did Best Buy not do what is required by law but they also lied to her for THREE MONTHS about her laptop. She should at least get the value of the laptop, the value of losing time with the laptop for three months (an unreasonable length of time to fix a simple power button), and the value of having to pay for monitoring services because of Best Buy's negligence (something Best Buy could have avoided being liable for if they had informed her when they should have). No one is saying she deserves 54 million, not even her. But Best Buy should have to pay punitive fees.
Scorta futuere amo!
"McFact No. 7: On appeal, a judge lowered the award to $480,000, a fact not widely publicized in the media."
Which seems to reinforce the GP's assertion that the original judgment was unreasonable.
McFact No. 1: For years, McDonald's had known they had a problem with the way they make their coffee - that their coffee was served much hotter (at least 20 degrees more so) than at other restaurants.
::sigh::
Fact: McDonalds did not have the coffee 'too hot':
The National Coffee Association recommends coffee be brewed at "between 195-205 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal extraction" and drunk "immediately". If not drunk immediately, it should be "maintained at 180-185 degrees Fahrenheit." Coffee makers for your HOME brew at a water temp of 200+ degrees.
McFact No. 2: McDonald's knew its coffee sometimes caused serious injuries - more than 700 incidents of scalding coffee burns in the past decade have been settled by the Corporation -
Fact: 700 cases, in the last 10 years, nationwide. But that doesn't take into account how many cups are sold without incident. A McDonald's consultant pointed out the 700 cases in 10 years represents just 1 injury per 24 million cups sold! For every injury, no matter how severe, 23,999,999 people managed to drink their coffee without any injury whatever. Isn't that proof that the coffee is not "unreasonably dangerous"?
McFact No. 3: The woman involved in this infamous case suffered very serious injuries - third degree burns on her groin, thighs and buttocks that required skin grafts and a seven-day hospital stay.
Appeal to Emotion. It is irrelevent how severe her injuries were.
McFact No. 5: A McDonald's quality assurance manager testified in the case that the Corporation was aware of the risk of serving dangerously hot coffee and had no plans to either turn down the heat or to post warning about the possibility of severe burns, even though most customers wouldn't think it was possible.
Fact: McDonalds coffee cups have ALWAYS had a "Caution: Hot" warning on them.
McFact No. 6: After careful deliberation, the jury found McDonald's was liable because the facts were overwhelmingly against the company
The jury found for the poor little old lady with the great big, painful burns. It's called basign their decision on their Emotions instead fo the facts.
McDonald's consistently keeps its coffee at 185 degrees, still approximately 20 degrees hotter than at other restaurants
Wrong, wrong wrong.
http://www.coffeeserviceplus.com/perfect-cup.html
"Brewing temperature should be 195 to 205 degrees Fahrenheit. "
http://www.auniquecoffeeservice.com/brewingsystems.html
"205 F Brewing Temperature "
http://www.morekitchenappliances.com/asp/show_detail.asp?sku=ZOJ1066&PiID=2259383&refid=MP108-ZOJ1066_2259383#ProdDetails
"Heat Retention*: 169F at 10 hrs./136F at 24 hrs.
*Rating is based on water at a starting temperature of 203F (95C) at a room temperature of 68F (20C) "
http://www.bunn.com/retail/dos_donts.html
Do: "us[e] a brewer that keeps water at 200 Fahrenheit (the ideal temperature) "
also
Don't: "Re-heat for serving any coffee with a temperature below 175 F "
http://www.homeclick.com/1/1/13032-velox-travel-coffee-maker-yellow-7027y.html
"Just plug in and the coffee automatically dispenses at the correct 180 degree temperature"
Do I need to continue???? All these references show that the 'proper' temp for brewing coffee is around 200 degrees. Several references show that the coffee should be served hot, around 180-190 degrees (ie: Bunn says if it's below 175 degrees, it is too cold).
Except even if they are not liable for her data being stolen, they are responsible for notifying her of the fact that it was stolen. Nothing trumps that. The damn instant they were sure that the laptop was missing, their #1 priority in regards to that customer was letting her know the truth - her laptop was stolen.
Instead, what did they do? They lied about it. Again and again and again.
That is completely unacceptable.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
It says PERSONAL INFORMATION maintained by the business.
Well, no, it says "person or business." Which includes the woman who lost her laptop, since she's a person.
There's simply nothing in the statue that appears to let BB off the hook, here, which is why even the local AG thinks they're not off the hook.
Obviously BB has liability here. I simply can't understand how you're reading the statute to apply only to data BB personally maintains; that's not what it says at all. BB's actions allowed "breach of the security of the system", period. It's those actions that expose them to liability, regardless of who was "maintaining" the data.
Try not just reading the part that you bolded. If you read the entire paragraph, as you seem loathe to do, it's obvious that it doesn't define liability, nor restrict it only to data BB personally maintains. It's simply a definition of the term "breach of the security of a system", and it's obvious that happened here. Because it happened by BB's actions, they're the ones who are liable.
I never have frustrations, the reason is, to wit:
If at first I don't succeed, I quit!
Fact 0: Regardless of whatever temperature other places serve coffee, everyone who has a kettle at home makes tea and coffee at just under 100 C. It's just not possible for McDonalds to server coffee significantly hotter than it would be at home.
Despite the litigation culture, most people accept that spilling your coffee is *your* accident - unless they've served boiling hot coffee to a 3 year old, it's an unfortunate accident for which no one should be liable.
Did your source not seem reputable enough to link?
"National Coffee Association" my achin' ass. Anyone claiming no liquid that won't burn your skin is worth putting in your mouth is, by definition, a tit.
another article suggests industry standard is 160 to 185 degrees...in the early 1990's home coffeemakers only brewed up to 130-140 degrees...Stella Liebeck suffered terrible third-degree burns
Whether or not you have teflon lips that allow you to drink liquids at the "expert-recommended" just-shy-of-boiling, only an idiot would suggest McDonald's coffee and proper brew temperature have anything to do with each other.
McDonald's took responsibility when one of its employees spilled coffee on a customer and settled cases of burns from such spills
Either this guy is the clumsiest burger-flipper in world history, or the article's authors have an axe to grind.
you can have my violent video games when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
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