Best Buy Sued For $54 Million For Losing A Laptop 
 Friday, February 15th, 2008

A woman named Raelyn Campbell is our hero of the day , for standing up to electronics giant Best Buy and suing them for $54 million after they completely lost her laptop, lied about it, and gave her the runaround for three months.  She was forced to purchase an identity theft protection plan that costs her monthly, and lost all of her personal and tax information over the ordeal that she couldn't even get the company to admit to.

She had purchased an extended warranty on the machine, but after taking it in to Best Buy's Geek Squad to get the broken power switch fixed, she never saw the laptop again.

"We've definitely heard some horror stories about Best Buy, but it looks like a DC woman named Raelyn Campbell has had enough," Engadget.com wrote.  "She's opening a big can of America Sauce on the retailer...The best the Buy would offer for losing an $1100 machine with all of her data on it was a $900 gift card."  Which was after she raised a holy fuss about it.

TechDirt.com posted that the woman had friends contact the store manager and he responded with, "We strive to deliver the experience that every customer deserves to receive," but "Not every customer can be satisfied."

To which the first reader response, from a reader in Michigan, was, "The Geek Squad sucks as it is.  Paying young geeks low pay and reaping in the insane profits off of the repairs and stuff they do."  Amen!  IT personnel can make far more as independent contractors.

I've had my own unfortunate experience with Best Buy:  after purchasing a plug adaptor there that was supposed to connect American appliances to European outlets, I took it overseas, and it proceeded to permanently short circuit my $80 CD player/alarm clock and several other appliances that totaled a couple hundred dollars.  I took the thing - and the stuff it destroyed - up to Best Buy, with receipts and a demand to be reimbursed for the product, the products it ruined, and my trouble of having to repurchase a hair dryer, alarm clock, plug adapter, battery recharger, and more in a third world country.

I was essentially told to contact the manufacturer and sod off.  Best Buy could have offered me a gift card for my trouble - they were selling the product, after all - they also could have filed a claim with their insurance company (or the manufacturer's), and been reimbursed.  I would have no luck in going after the Chinese manufacturer of the plug adapter, and they knew it.

After a heated argument with the manager of my local location, I was dismissed without the offer of even a coupon, after all the aggravation the product they sold to me caused me.  I was hardly the first.  I will hardly be the last.

I hope that you get your $54 million, Raelyn.

She doesn't necessarily expect to, and was doing this in an attempt to get media attention for the little guy; but career-wise, Campbell is a Director for a non-profit, non-partisan research company, and we have a strong feeling that if she did get it - or any portion of it - she'd use it for good.

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