Best Buy losses laptop, customer sues for $54 million
Best Buy customer Raelyn Campbell has filed a $54 million dollar lawsuit for the loss of her laptop. The story starts out innocent enough, Raelyn had purchased a laptop along with an extended warranty from Best Buy, after a while the laptops power switch broke and she had thought that warranty would prove to be useful. That is where it began to go downhill, originally told the repairs would take roughly two to six weeks it ended up going much longer. After several months it was determined that the laptop had never left the store and to make matters worse the laptop had been stolen, not to mention Best Buy had lied to her about the status for months.
In an attempt to make this right, Best Buy had initially offered her a $900 gift card. Which sounds nice until you find out that she originally paid $1,100 for the laptop. She had also software and other irreplaceable items such as photos, music and personal information on the now lost laptop.
One nice bit is that Raelyn will admit that she choose the $54 million figure for the sole purpose of attracting media attention and according to her she is the “first to admit that it is a ridiculous sum of money.”
I have to admit that when I first read that she was suing for $54 million I thought she was just plain crazy, but after reading more of the story its nice to see she admits its a “ridiculous” amount of money and she is using this in an effort to get Best Buy to make changes and hopefully prevent this from happening to another customer in the future.
Read [Best Buy vs. Consumer Protection Blog] Via [The Consumerist]
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It would take something like that to get their attention. I’ve never received decent customer service from Best Buy and go there as a last resort. I bought a flip video camera last November, was told it would be there on a certain date and to pick it up then. Of course, it wasn’t there when I got there and showed up days later. I was then told I couldn’t have it, even though I already PAID FOR IT. After a lot of hassle I was finally *allowed* to take my camera home that I paid for a week ago. It doesn’t surprise me that the Geek Squad lost her laptop at all or that they tried to not give her a full market value replacement. Truthfully they should end up paying the full cost of the machine and the cost of licensing for every program installed on the device, plus anything else replaceable. As for the personal stuff, how can you put a value on it?
on February 13, 2008 at 08:36 PM - LINKI say “Right On!”
Companies like Best Buy push their customers around. I never get any of those warranties or anything because I’d rather buy a new computer than deal with their customer service.
It looks like from this case that I am wise to do so.
on February 14, 2008 at 03:59 AM - LINKbest buy.. needs to be renamed WORST BUY....I had a HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE with THEM as well.. they took my lap top for repair and then gave me the run around about what was wrong and kept it forever and then they told me what was wrong with my lap top… i paid whatever it was for the geeks squad to tell me that ...i got it home and took it else where ... they were TOTALLY WRONG about the laptop .. then i called them and tried to get my money for the worng diagnosis they said we did what we said we would do and no your not getting ur money back…
last resort ? they are a no way ever again resort for me
on February 18, 2008 at 08:12 PM - LINK