Woman sues Best Buy for $54M in alleged lost-laptop coverup

Computerworld - How much does it cost to teach a company a lesson?

One Washington woman thinks $54 million might do the trick. Raelyn Campbell is suing retail giant Best Buy Co. for not only losing the laptop she brought in for repairs, but also for allegedly lying to her for months to cover up the loss.

"Their response has been … there is nobody responsible for this," Campbell told Computerworld. "I would love to see [the store manager] walk out of his house and see his car missing and think, 'Well, it's just lost. Nobody is responsible' … All I'm asking for is compensation for my expenses and my time and punitive damages to get them to address shortcomings in their practices. It should not take a lawsuit to do this. You are responsible for your customers and their property. They've denied liability. They've denied doing anything wrong. They've denied needing any changes in their practices. It should not take $54 million to motivate them to change their practices."

Campbell said the now-lost laptop, which cost her about $1,100, held a copy of her will, copies of her tax returns downloaded from H&R Block, about 200 albums' worth of music and a list of expenses related to the renovation of her house. Much of the information was either backed up or stored in hardcopy form, but a lot of it is still now lost, she said.

And some of the information that was on the computer, such as her will and tax returns, easily could be used to steal her identity and empty her bank accounts, Campbell said.

After months of what Campbell said have been countless phone calls, letters and visits to her local Best Buy store, she contacted the Better Business Bureau, the Washington D.C. Police Department and the attorney general's office. After getting no satisfaction, she filed a lawsuit and is getting ready to take the case to Superior Court in Washington on Feb. 22.

"We've done what we can to try to learn about went wrong," Nissa French, a spokeswoman for Best Buy, said in a statement. "We're obviously embarrassed and disappointed that we were unable to resolve this customer's issue. We've tried to resolve this dispute and feel badly that it escalated to a lawsuit. Unfortunately, we are unable to share additional details about this case. More information will be provided in court."

Raelyn Campbell

It all started in May of 2007 when Campbell, who had a three-year service warranty in hand, brought her year-old, 14-in. Compaq laptop into her local Best Buy store in Washington. She said she was told that it would take two to six weeks to fix the faulty on/off button on her computer. She handed the machine over and began to wait.