A woman in Washington D.C. has filed a $54 million lawsuit against Best Buy after the Geek Squad lost her $1,100 laptop when it was taken in for repairs. When Raelyn Campbell purchased the laptop she was persuaded to buy Best Buy's $300 extended warranty which offered three years of free repairs. In under a year the laptop in question developed a fault with the power switch so she took it to Best Buy where she was told it would take two to six weeks to repair. Campbell made numerous calls to Best Buy to check on how the repair was progressing and was continually told it should be fixed soon, however nothing happened so she left a message for the manager of the branch but received no reply.

Eventually one worker she spoke to revealed that the laptop had never been sent away for repair and had been lost in store - and all Best Buy were willing to offer was a $900 gift card, leaving Campbell $500 out of pocket. She then demanded $2,100 in cash, which Best Buy rejected, before contacting the Washington D.C. attorney general's office who contacted the store. The compensation was then raised to $1,100 cash and a $500 gift card, however Campbell discovered that her identity was at risk and filed a $54 million lawsuit against the firm, rejecting a further offer of $2,500 cash and a confidentiality agreement. Campbell admits that she doesn't expect to win a multi-million dollar settlement but is still chasing substantial damages.

Electronics retailer Best Buy saw its profits increase by 52% in the third quarter of this year compared to 2006, helped by reduced corporate expenses and an extra week of post-Thanksgiving holiday shopping due to a bit of luck with the calendars. Best Buy managed profits of $228 million for the third quarter of 2007, up from $150 in the same quarter last year. The company also saw a successful third quarter for its international operations in countries such as China and Canada, with combined profits in those areas increasing from $7 million to $22 million. However, the company has also lowered its expectations for the final quarter due to the extra week of post-Thanksgiving shopping that was included with the third quarter.

Dell today announced that it will sell a variety of award-winning XPS and Inspiron notebook and desktop computers, including the new XPS One through more than 900 Best Buy locations in the U.S. in the next few weeks.

After Wal-Mart decided to sell the Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player for just under $99 today, Best Buy decided to follow suit and was offering the same player for $99. However, the company met a problem when it let more people order than it had stock for - and Toshiba has now discontinued the HD-A2. You might expect a firm like Best Buy to simply cancel the orders and apologise to customers for the mistake, but Best Buy decided to go one better. Instead, every customer that ordered the HD-A2 after the stock was gone is having their purchase upgraded to the new Toshiba HD-A3, retailing at $299, for no extra charge! Best Buy does say that if you don't want the new HD DVD player you can have a refund instead, but as that's a saving of $200 I doubt too many customers will be interested in that option.

For those of you that still subscribe to analog television services, and still use old-fashioned "analog" televisions, you finally have a legitimate excuse to go to your local electronics store and splurge: by February 19th, 2009, all analog broadcasts to consumer televisions will be prohibited in America. All broadcasts from then on will be all digital. Consumers with analog televisions can approach this two ways. They can buy a digital-to-analog converter box, which should cost about $70. Or, the consumer can buy a brand new HDTV. Best Buy is hoping that consumers will do the latter. To help sway consumers in favor of dropping large amounts of cash to a brand new television, and to make sure that their new television customers will be satisfied for years to come, they've stopped selling analog televisions altogether.

Customers can now be sure that any television they purchase at Best Buy will be fully compliant with the digital television transition. And for customers who aren't in the market for a new television, we can help you find the best solution to meet your needs

As The Inquirer so eloquently puts it, "only in LA". After answering a Best Buy Geek Squad call, technician Hao Kuo Chi was accused of hiding a camera phone in the shower of Sarah Vasquez. Sarah Vasquez got suspicious when she saw a little red blinking light in her shower. Thinking quickly, she found the camera phone, disabled it, and ripped out the memory card. Taking the thing to her local Verizon store, they quickly discovered all the steamy shower footage. However, in a move that Hao Kuo Chi will probably regret later, he left footage of himself setting up the camera phone on the camera phone. The Best Buy store knew absolutely nothing about this camera being hidden in one of their customer's showers, so this is going to get very interesting very quickly.

The Inquirer also points out that if this had happened in the UK, it would have been quite embarrassing, since the Carphone Warehouse is promoting Geek Squad heavily.

Speakeasy, one of the largest DSL providers in the USA, has been bought by Best Buy for $97 million, in a deal that should go down in the first quarter of 2008. Best Buy aims to benefit from this deal by promoting Speakeasy Small Business DSL via its Best Buy for Business program, but there is unlikely to be any real changes in the service provided to most customers. "We have a high regard for Speakeasy's employees, their culture, and their valued relationships with customers and vendors," said Darren Jackson, Best Buy executive vice president and CFO. "They have a strong customer service-oriented approach, which is an excellent fit with Best Buy's culture and direction."