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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.
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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
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.)
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.
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.
Why do people still bring up the McDonald's coffee case? Go look up the actual facts of the case and then STFU!
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.,
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).
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.