Although the amount of $54 million seems exorbitant in a lawsuit regarding a lost laptop, the woman who filed it believes that the figure had to be high in order to put some pressure on the retail store she purchased it from and to generate some publicity regarding her case against Best Buy.
It all started when Raelyn Campbell bought a laptop from Best Buy in 2006. Apparently she was pressured into buying a $300 extended warranty for the machine. When it broke a year later she took her laptop in for servicing and was told it would take about a month to repair. But two months later and a lot of runaround from Best Buy, it finally surfaced that the store had lost her laptop.
The Best Buy management continuously tried to cover up the fact that her computer was lost, which had never left the store to the repair center. When she was finally told that her computer was missing, Best Buy offered her a $900 gift card, as restitution, even though the cost of her laptop and installed software, she estimated, was at least $2100.
It wasn’t until she filed her $54 million lawsuit that she got the attention of the electronics retail chain. Best Buy then offered her $2500 in cash, but by then Campbell says that the amount didn’t cover her time regarding filing police reports, consultation with lawyers, and trying to keep herself from being a victim of identity theft due to the loss of her laptop computer. She had sensitive documents on the laptop related to income tax returns.
Because Best Buy did not inform her of the apparent loss of her computer and data, it was in violation of Washington, DC’s laws about notifying customers about potential security breaches related to lost computer devices.
At the moment the two parties seem to have reached an impasse and no further details about the outcome are available at this time.
[via arstechnica]
