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You are here: MacNN Forums > News > Mac News > Customer wins in lawsuit over data loss caused by Apple Store repair

Customer wins in lawsuit over data loss caused by Apple Store repair
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NewsPoster
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Nov 30, 2015, 03:10 PM
 
An Apple customer has been successful in suing the company over the loss of photos and contacts stored on an iPhone 5, took in for repairs at a London Apple Store in the United Kingdom. Deric White wanted £5,000 ($7,500) from Apple for the deletion of the photographs, which were wiped when a Genius Bar employee at the Regent Street store looked at the device, with White receiving £1,200 ($1,800) in compensation for the loss and £770 ($1,100) in court costs.

White claims he took the iPhone 5 to the store last December to fix the issue, while also buying a present for his wife, reports the Mirror. After receiving the iPhone back, he returned to the store the next day after discovering the loss of data, including photographs and video from a honeymoon and 15 years worth of contacts, after staff reset the phone to factory settings. Initially, White reduced the compensation request down from £5,000 and also offered to settle out of court for a new screen and printer, but Apple refused.



"This could easily have been settled if common sense had come into the arena," said District Judge Ruth Fine. "The defendant's employees were negligent in the treatment of the claimant's telephone, causing the claimant loss of photographs of particular sentimental value and the loss of all his contacts. I'm satisfied he was unable to retrieve the lost photographs and contact details."

Representing Apple, lawyer Victoria Nottage advised to the court that the "claimant made the affirmative decision to take the phone into the Apple Store" for servicing or repair, and "he made the decision to hand the phone over to them knowing the iPhone was not backed up and the pictures and videos were therefore at risk." Nottage explains that store staff did warn White that the data on the phone was at risk during repairs, and it "is something we inform all customers of before they carry out any action on phones or iPads." White told the Evening Standard he was only informed of the potential loss of data after it had been worked upon by staff, not before.

While MacNN staffers' experience at Apple stores regarding verbal notification of the possibility of data loss during repair has been mixed, we have never been presented with a document before service notifying us of the potential. However, several of the MacNN staff has worked in repair shops. In all cases in our past, customers have to at least initial a section of a "terms of service" document absolving the technician of responsibility for the customers' data. It is unclear why Apple does not have a similar process.
( Last edited by NewsPoster; Nov 30, 2015 at 03:17 PM. )
     
ElectroTech
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Nov 30, 2015, 03:53 PM
 
That 'customer' didn't deserve any compensation. Apple clearly states in the user manual that you should sync it with your computer or the FREE Cloud service.and the staff at Apple always ask you if you backed up your data. There is no excuse for this person to blame Apple for their own laziness.
     
climacs
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Nov 30, 2015, 04:01 PM
 
what insanity. Surely by now everyone knows that you back up your shit before taking it to the computer store for any kind of service.
     
koolkid1976
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Nov 30, 2015, 05:02 PM
 
iPhone backup is dirt cheap. 99cents a month for 50GB. 99cents a month. I pitch that to people all the time because they always run to me when their phone crash, breaks, and they lose their data because their phone stopped backing up after they exceed the free 5GB. They always act as if I'm pushing some protection plan that they'll likely never use, that is just pure profit for Apple. Really? You can pay hundreds of dollars for a phone, hundreds of dollars for a cell phone plan, but refuse having a daily backup for 99cents a month?
     
koolkid1976
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Nov 30, 2015, 05:03 PM
 
I meant iCloud.
     
iSkippy
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Nov 30, 2015, 06:26 PM
 
Granted, I'm in Canada and not the UK like the person in the story, but I have two forms from Apple Store repairs (one for my iPhone in 2013, and one for my iMac in 2014), and both of them state, in slightly different wording, Apple is not responsible for any "loss, corruption, or breach of the data...during service," and, "as loss of data may occur as a result of the service, it is my responsibility to make a backup copy of my data before bringing my product to Apple for service." If the gentleman signed off on the repair (which I see they're now doing on iPads) without reading the terms and conditions of the repair, then it's all on him. A bummer, to be sure, but not at all Apple's fault.
     
Ham Sandwich
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Nov 30, 2015, 07:10 PM
 
Huh? Deleted off the phone, or deleted off his iCloud account as well?

Does he have a copy of those pictures on his Mac?

Why is he storing precious photographs on a small, little display?

Do many people print out such precious moments anyway?

I don't get it.
     
ghporter
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Nov 30, 2015, 07:37 PM
 
There is no requirement for either an iCloud account or to sync your phone with a computer. Perhaps this guy had neither.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
Charles Martin
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Nov 30, 2015, 11:15 PM
 
I'm not siding with Apple on this one because they certainly DID warn the customer (but possibly not verbally), I'm siding with Apple because sheer unmitigated idiocy should not be rewarded. If this customer had signed up for the FREE iCloud account, he would certainly have his contacts at least, and quite possibly all if not most of his pictures. If he had backed up the device at ANY POINT in his ownership of it, he would have lost little if anything. The Apple Store geniuses are not his mommy -- he needed to put on his big boy pants and take responsibility for his (lack of) actions. The judge in this case is simply sympathetic to the man's loss of irreplaceable pictures, but I would argue that they clearly didn't mean much to him if he never ever considered protecting them from harm -- which he clearly didn't.
Charles Martin
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Jeronimo2000
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Dec 1, 2015, 04:26 AM
 
I agree with the above. You should be able to assume at least a tiny amount of tech-related common sense. If people refuse to edcuate themselves, out of ignorance or laziness or stupity or whatever, it's their own fault and they simply have to put up with the consequences.

At my local Apple Store I witnessed something similar yesterday. A lady brought in her daughter's iPhone for repair. The genius detected a water damage (he showed her the sensor) and also noticed that the battery was an unauthorized third-party-replacement. Her warranty was, thusly, fucked. She wouldn't have any of it, shouted (unconvincingly) that it is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE that liquid could have gotten into the iPhone, and that she insisted on a free warranty repair. Her excuse (about the third-party-battery voiding her warranty) was simply "I did not know". At some stage, I couldn't help it and casually noted that "Not knowing is no excuse". Of course I shouldn't have said that. It didn't help much.

In short: customers are the worst.
     
davoud
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Dec 1, 2015, 12:32 PM
 
What kind of writing is this? The iPhone was "took in." The photos were lost when an employee "looked at" the device. I doubt that was the case. The court should have held the iPhone owner liable for a frivolous lawsuit because he didn't have a backup of his iPhone.
     
   
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