PSX5Central
Non Gaming Discussions => Off-Topic => Topic started by: Paul2 on February 18, 2008, 09:03:04 AM
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Link (http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/72016)
Don\'t dismiss Raelyn Campbell as a crackpot. Not yet. Listen to her story, and then decide if she\'s doing the right thing by asking Best Buy to compensate her to the tune of $54 million for a laptop that went missing when she took it in to Best Buy for repair under the store\'s own extended warranty.
Like many people, Campbell bought an extended warranty for her laptop when she bought it from Best Buy, and she took advantage of that when the power button broke off after a year. Best Buy accepted the machine for repair and said it would be ready in two to six weeks. But six weeks passed and the computer wasn\'t ready. After three months of ruthlessly hounding the company, Best Buy finally admitted it couldn\'t find the machine.
Ultimately, Best Buy offered to pay her $900 for losing the machine... as a gift card. She countered that it had originally cost over $1,100, not to mention all her data that was now gone for good. She demanded $2,100, and Best Buy simply ignored her.
At this point, Campbell was made aware that all her personal data on the machine could lead to a major identity theft issue, though Best Buy never filed their legally required notice that she was at risk. That was the last straw, and she filed suit for $54 million, representing herself. Best Buy has since upped its offer to a total of $4,100 if she withdraws the case. She says she doesn\'t expect to win, but wants to go to court anyway to force Best Buy to explain how her laptop was lost.
I have to agree that $54 million seems wildly optimistic, but it\'s amazing to hear how smug Best Buy has been throughout this process. Lowball, "go-away" offers that don\'t even value property properly, much less the value of the data inside it, are frankly embarrassing, and good for Campbell for making an issue out of it... even if she doesn\'t ultimately prevail.
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Wait, how does she figure $54 million as a fair amount? I\'m not against her suing per say, but $54 million is nuts.
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Wait, how does she figure $54 million as a fair amount? I\'m not against her suing per say, but $54 million is nuts.
She pretty much hinted she doesn\'t think it\'s a fair amount. She\'s said she knows she isn\'t gonna win but she wants to create a headache for them and hopefully have them admit what happened in front of court to embarrass the company. She\'s just trying to get them back and I applaud her. Companies need to take responsibility when they mess up.
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^^^
yep.
last month i bought a dvd recorder from best buy and the msrp was $250 but best buy sell it at $260. $10 more than MSRP. But their ads for this model was $212.49.
I was surprised on why they didn\'t update the price tag though. I had to price match it with the ads, and after the payment, I realize it was an opened box model with the tape saying "inspected by best buy" on the opening of the box. The guy couldn\'t find anymore left, so he opened up the box and said everything was in it, and said it wasn\'t used.
I didn\'t worry much after i brought it home because if i am not happy with it, i can return it before the expiration date. I know this unit was used, but eh. So after about 3 weeks try out, there are some stuffs i like about it and some that just sucks like disc just froze inside the player and i have to unplug the power and plug it back in to get the disc. and when playing cd audio disc that was in perfect condition, the player would sometimes froze and skips.
So, I decided to returned it and get Tivo HD-DVR instead. And I like Tivo a lot more. Its does change the way i watch TV.
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She pretty much hinted she doesn\'t think it\'s a fair amount. She\'s said she knows she isn\'t gonna win but she wants to create a headache for them and hopefully have them admit what happened in front of court to embarrass the company. She\'s just trying to get them back and I applaud her. Companies need to take responsibility when they mess up.
I don\'t mind her getting them to own up to their mistake, but they already offered her over 4000 dollars. For arguments sake let\'s say she wins and BB has to pay $50+ million - where do you think that money comes from? The other customers. So she\'s basically screwing the honest customers.*
*I don\'t think she\'ll get paid $50 million, but I don\'t like the principle of suing for ridiculous amounts.
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I don\'t mind her getting them to own up to their mistake, but they already offered her over 4000 dollars. For arguments sake let\'s say she wins and BB has to pay $50+ million - where do you think that money comes from? The other customers. So she\'s basically screwing the honest customers.*
*I don\'t think she\'ll get paid $50 million, but I don\'t like the principle of suing for ridiculous amounts.
Agree.
Shit happens, they lost her laptop. They tried to pay her for much more than the laptop is worth.
Attention Whore.
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but they didn\'t initially offer her $4,100, it\'s not until she file a lawsuit it\'s when they offer her that deal.
At first when they told her it was lost they offer her $900 in gift cards. And she was upset that it was less than the $1,100 that she paid for the laptop. So she demanded $2,100. Which I think it a fair deal since her laptop been in bestbuy hands for 3 months already, and during those 3 months she could have use it had Best Buy not lost it. Also, the data in her computers are lost too. But best buy refused the offer.
So, she got even more upset and sued for $54 million. But I think doesn\'t matter if she wins or she loses, she at least get what she really wants. I doubt the court would have best buy to pay her that much either if she wins, they probably going to give her around $2,100 that she initially asked for or the $4,100 deal.
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They tried to pay her for much more than the laptop is worth.
Only AFTER she brought a lawsuit against them. You shouldn\'t have to threaten legal action to be treated fairly.
And by the way, if a jury were to award the plaintiff punative damages in the millions, that money would NOT come from Best Buy\'s other customers. They are a mass retailer in a competitive marketplace. There is no way they could significantly increase their prices to offset the loss because their competitors would chew them up.
The primary effect of such a penalty would be to reinforce to Best Buy that they should update their policies and treat their customers fairly when compensating them for lost property.
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^^^
heh, this guy said it better than me.
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I guess they\'d just try even harder to sell you an extended warranty. :)
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Agree.
Shit happens, they lost her laptop. They tried to pay her for much more than the laptop is worth.
Attention Whore.
Well I was about to lay into this post but then realized Cored did it for me.
What a slap in the face to offer her less than what the laptop was originally purchased for when they lost it. If they offered $3,000-4,000 initially with identity theft protection they\'d more than likely not be in this situation.
I\'d love to hear that they have to pay the 54 mil. I work for a sales company that represents a bunch of different electronics products such as Panasonic plasmas. Most of the time I\'m placed in Best Buys. They pay their home theater full timers between $7.00-9.00 an hour while hounding them to sell thousands every shift. I know every business works this way but I see this first hand.
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eh....whoops...delete this post. i said something like 5 people said :)
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Still, why couldn\'t she have sued for a more reasonable amount? Would that not have made her point?
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Still, why couldn\'t she have sued for a more reasonable amount? Would that not have made her point?
Maybe 54 million is her lucky number!
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My lucky number is 3. Too bad for them they didn\'t lose my laptop instead.
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I usually abhor useless lawsuits but I feel for the woman here. Echoing Cored, no one should have to legally threaten a company to be treated fairly. Especially a company as huge as Best Buy.
They have more than enough resources to properly deal with this situation and had the opportunity many times.... too bad kharma\'s a bitch.
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From April 2002
http://www.psx2central.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20470
On Wednesday, April 3rd, my girlfriend bought a Nokia phone from Best Buy as a birthday gift for her aunt. She wrapped it up and gave it to her that night but when her aunt opened it, there were items for the phone missing: the battery and the back plate to the brand new Nokia phone. My girlfriend promised she’d go back to Best Buy to get an exchange as soon as she had the free time to do it. Because the next day was my birthday and she spent her free time with me.
It wasn’t until Friday, April 5th that she was able to go back to Best Buy to get an exchange. She and I spoke to the manager there and she told us that there was nothing they could do! We were stunned! We bought the phone from them and it had missing pieces and they wouldn’t allow an exchange? It didn’t make sense to us.
Now, mind you, we went there on good faith that they would trust us as honest people and it never occurred to us that they thought we were there trying to get an extra battery and back plate for free. But they didn’t out right accuse us of this but they just said, “There’s nothing we can do.” So they gave her the 1800 number to their corporate office she could explain to them and hope that the upper management could straighten things out for us. While my girlfriend spoke on the phone, I went to the shelf that had the same phone as the one my girlfriend had purchased. I opened one box up and noticed there was no phone there. I thought that it wasn’t there for security reasons, since the box had no plastic or seal. I went back to my girlfriend and listened to her conversation and they too said that there was nothing they could do!
So my girlfriend was out $75 for an incomplete phone.
Frustrated, I decided to get the box from the shelf to show the employees that they should seal their boxes so this wouldn’t happen to other customers. When I picked up a different box, this one was noticeably heavier. Suspicious, I opened it up and this box had a complete set! At first, I thought they pulled the phones out to avoid theft (like how some video game stores have the jewel cases of the games but without the CD in it). But this was not the case. I opened another box and that too was complete! So I took the box with the missing phone and showed it to the employees.
Eventually, they found that there were two more boxes with missing items. We spoke to other managers at the Best Buy and they kept saying that since the corporate office said there was nothing they could do, they could not give us the missing pieces. While I was speaking with the managers, one of the employees named Ahmed told my girlfriend that if we weren’t going to buy anything, that we should leave! What an ass hole!
Anyway, to make a long frustrated story short, one of the managers decided to relent and give us a replacement for the missing back plate and battery. It wasn’t until I got home I realized that they thought we were there to try and scam them for a free battery and back plate and that’s why they did not want to help us.
I wish there was more I could do coz I feel so disrespected.
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You guys are missing my point....
She WON by getting the 4 grand. congrats.
NOW she is an attention whore.
"wait, you mean if best buy loses my laptop I can sue them and they will give me 4 times what my laptop was worth? OK, NOW I AM SUING FOR 467 BAZILLION DOLLARS!"
P.S. Anyone who buys a computer from best buy is a moron anyway.
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Luke,
you do realize that she was insulted when best buy try to offer her $900 in gift cards. Hell, she spent over $1,100 for the laptop, not to mention another $300 on the warranty and all best buy can do is only pay her back $900? Its not like Best Buy is a small poor company or something. She suggested $2,100. But Best buy refused and had she not file a lawsuit, best buy wouldn\'t offer her $4,100.
Sure, she wants media attention. But so what?
Here is a link that get more in depth about what happened.
Link (http://redtape.msnbc.com/2008/02/a-lost-laptop-a.html#posts)
it also appears best buy had lied about sending the laptop for repair when is still in the store.
here is her reasons for suing:
Wants an explanation
While Campbell has no expectation she will win a multimillion-dollar judgment, she feels she is entitled to damages related to store negligence and an "explanation as to how my computer could have been stolen from a secure area" of the store.
She also wants a promise from the company that it will train employees on privacy issues and on procedures for preventing loss or theft of returned items.
“I can\'t help but wonder how many other people have had their computer stolen (or) lost by Best Buy and then been bullied into accepting lowball compensation offers for replacement expenses and no compensation for identity theft protection expenses,” she said.
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You guys are missing my point....
She WON by getting the 4 grand. congrats.
NOW she is an attention whore.
"wait, you mean if best buy loses my laptop I can sue them and they will give me 4 times what my laptop was worth? OK, NOW I AM SUING FOR 467 BAZILLION DOLLARS!"
anyway.
No, I got your point. I just thought it was idiotic.
"Boy Best Buy can repeatedly insult me but once they offer me an ok amount of money I better take it!" :rolleyes:
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Look, you can do what you want.... If you were in her situation and decided to spend all this time to "prove a point" then more power to you.
This kinda shit is going to happen to everyone at some point in thier life. When it happens to you by all means make a huge stink, file lawsuits, prove all the points you want.
If this were me, I would take the 4 grand and move on with my life.
Seriosly dude, when this kinda thing happens to you, AND IT WILL SOMEDAY, and your going to take this kinda thing as a "personal insult" then your going to spend your entire life being insulted by companies.
Wait untill you have insurance to manage, different student loans to take care, 3 different banks for loans... car payments, house payments. Kids daycare payments.
At some point they ALL are gonna fuck something up, and youll have to take action.
But by all means, sue them all for billions of dollars. Because you were "insulted".
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I\'m not saying I would go the same route but to frown upon her doing it is stupid.
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I do frown upon it.
The judicial system is fucked up enough in this country without people abusing it like this.
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Point is, not only did they fuck up, but they low-balled the fuck up to try to get her to go away. Not everyone is going to have the time, money, or patience to give a company a wake-up call, but more power to them when they come along.
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Its not a wake up call though. I garantee she is going to lose this lawsuit, and Best Buy is going to go back to buisiness as usual.
Also, I just want to add that I\'m not defending Best Buy here, in fact I hate Best Buy with all my heart.
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Yes or No, she\'ll be compensated, and Best Buy is going to be cast in a negative light. The optimist in me says that they\'ll change some sort of business ethic so they don\'t end up in the same situation.
And as far as abusing the judicial system, have you ever been to court? They really have nothing else better to do.
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Its not a wake up call though. I garantee she is going to lose this lawsuit, and Best Buy is going to go back to buisiness as usual.
Also, I just want to add that I\'m not defending Best Buy here, in fact I hate Best Buy with all my heart.
she said she doesn\'t care if she loses, because at this point, money is not important to her anymore. Even if she loses the court, she had won what she really wanted is to get best buy in court to explain itself on work ethic and that is what really gives her the closure. She also get media attention on this and the media attention is enough to make best buy looks bad.
If that\'s what is really important to her, then let she have it.
Also, she be doing consumers a favor that chances of this happening again would be less likely.
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Maybe less likely at that exact store with those exact people, but on the whole? no way jose.
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but we don\'t know the result of the court hearing.
either way, it does makes consumers think twice about purchasing the "extended warranty" especially from Best Buy...
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I would never buy and extended warranty that didnt come from the OEM anyway.
Anyone who buys anything extra from best buy is a sucker.
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I would never buy and extended warranty that didnt come from the OEM anyway.
Anyone who buys anything extra from best buy is a sucker.
I had an employee flat out lie to me to try to get me to buy an extended warranty from them. Told me my Xbox 3 year warranty was worthless and that if it broke it would take 4-6 months to replace. I just smiled and said no, I didn\'t feel like acting like a douche when other people were waiting in line to check out.
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I haven\'t so much as walked into a Best Buy in a long time.
No, I don\'t need a magazine subscription, and no I don\'t want a extended warranty on my $10 mouse. No matter how many times you ask me "am I sure" the answer is no.
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I had an employee flat out lie to me to try to get me to buy an extended warranty from them. Told me my Xbox 3 year warranty was worthless and that if it broke it would take 4-6 months to replace. I just smiled and said no, I didn\'t feel like acting like a douche when other people were waiting in line to check out.
They asked me for an extended warranty for my new PS2 a few months ago. I said no and they kept pushing me and I was getting annoyed. Then a year ago, I went in to buy a CD and the clerk asked if I wanted a magazine subscription. I said no thanks and she kept saying its really worth it and I said no I didn\'t want it. Then she was like "seriously, its a good deal and your first month is free. I\'d get it". Then I said "look, I told you I don\'t fucking want it".
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...Then a year ago, I went in to buy a CD and the clerk asked if I wanted a magazine subscription. I said no thanks and she kept saying its really worth it and I said no I didn\'t want it. Then she was like "seriously, its a good deal and your first month is free. I\'d get it". Then I said "look, I told you I don\'t fucking want it".
lol. how did she responded back?
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I haven\'t so much as walked into a Best Buy in a long time.
No, I don\'t need a magazine subscription, and no I don\'t want a extended warranty on my $10 mouse. No matter how many times you ask me "am I sure" the answer is no.
Sadly around here there isn\'t much of an alternative. I mostly order online but big purchases I feel safer going to a brick and mortar.
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lol. how did she responded back?
She told Titan that he was gay....she stated "how could you not fucking want it?....my wet Poos-say is pulsating for your love muscle".....;)
Anyway....i think she did the right thing,... i honestly probably wouldn\'t have went that far as to hire a lawyer,...i probably would\'ve caused a scene at most at best buy and gotten my money back. Don\'t be suprised if she gets a nice judgement,..because that old lady that sued mcdonalds got 4 million because she got burned by either driking or holding coffee that she stated should have had "hot" on it....not sure if she really got 4 million but i think she did get 1 mil out tha deal...
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except the mc donalds lady was an idiot with a stupid lawsuit - not some chick that got screwed by the company - she got screwed by her own stupidity and took it out on mc donalds
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except the mc donalds lady was an idiot with a stupid lawsuit - not some chick that got screwed by the company - she got screwed by her own stupidity and took it out on mc donalds
Oh i agree 100%....i was just sayin\' that if that old lady got paid from something so crazy, this lady at best buy should get a nice package being that her lawsuit is alot more legit...
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Opened box is 10% off of shelf price. You should have gotten 20 bucks off.
^^^
yep.
last month i bought a dvd recorder from best buy and the msrp was $250 but best buy sell it at $260. $10 more than MSRP. But their ads for this model was $212.49.
I was surprised on why they didn\'t update the price tag though. I had to price match it with the ads, and after the payment, I realize it was an opened box model with the tape saying "inspected by best buy" on the opening of the box. The guy couldn\'t find anymore left, so he opened up the box and said everything was in it, and said it wasn\'t used.
I didn\'t worry much after i brought it home because if i am not happy with it, i can return it before the expiration date. I know this unit was used, but eh. So after about 3 weeks try out, there are some stuffs i like about it and some that just sucks like disc just froze inside the player and i have to unplug the power and plug it back in to get the disc. and when playing cd audio disc that was in perfect condition, the player would sometimes froze and skips.
So, I decided to returned it and get Tivo HD-DVR instead. And I like Tivo a lot more. Its does change the way i watch TV.
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Opened box is 10% off of shelf price. You should have gotten 20 bucks off.
Unfortunatedly, I didn\'t get the 10% off because of the opened box. I didn\'t know that either. Best buy sure is trying to ripped consumers off as much as possible. But either way, I returned it already so i don\'t care.