It seems pretty common practice to bring malfunctioning computers to get repaired, something that Raelyn Campbell did when she brought in her faulty laptop to a local Best Buy. Unfortunately, in the process of fixing the computer it was lost and now Raelyn is seeking a financial remedy for her situation.
Maybe she is lacking a full and current system backup? The fact that her laptop is gone now means that any data she had is also now gone with it. Of course her concern is that her privacy has been compromised, but if she was that worried about privacy why didn’t she encrypt the sensitive data that was on her computer?
A few years ago a friend of mine left his expensive Porche at a local dealership while he waited on a part that would arrive from Tallahassee the next morning. The dealership informed him that while they would secure the vehicle behind a locked gate they were not responsible for anything that might go wrong with the car sitting outside overnight.
Well, the vehicle was stolen overnight and they found it a few days later in a ditch along the expressway. The dealership was not at fault, as they had taken every reasonable precaution to ensure the security of the vehicle and informed the customer about these liabilities.
This isn’t the real problem here, however, my friend had left his checkbook in the glove compartment and the entire contents of this were missing at the scene. Basically, he had left some unprotected information about himself in the car and as a result of it being stolen it was now compromised.
Fortunately, nothing ever came of this and in fact the dealership was willing to work with him to get the car repaired. As you might imagine, they could care less about the missing checkbook and for that matter you wouldn’t expect them to.
Raelyn has a similar situation here, the Best Buy staff had her sign a document when she brought the laptop in for repair that limited their liability should the laptop get stolen. The fact that she left the equivalent of an open checkbook on her hard-drive is not the responsibility of Geek Squad to protect, and since this kind of data can be easily password protected with strong encryption she has no excuse.
Best Buy did everything in their power to remedy he situation, they were even willing to reimburse her for the expense of a replacement laptop computer. With a recent backup and properly encrypted sensitive data, Raelyn would have nothing to worry about.