A 68-year-old O.A.P. has been awarded £1,200 ($1,800) in compensation after Apple Store employees accidentally deleted the photos and contacts on his iPhone.
Newly-married Deric White took his iPhone 5 to the Genius Bar at Apple’s flagship London retail store after it suffered a technical fault — only for staff to delete his data, which contained photos of his recent honeymoon and 15 years of contacts, without White having a backup. A judge ruled that Apple staff had been “negligent.”
Speaking after the court case, White described it as, “a victory for the common man who sought to stand up against multi-national corporations. They should be brought to boot when they do wrong, but they are usually too big for anybody to take on.”
Personally, I can see this case splitting public opinion — between those who think White should have backed up his data and Apple is not therefore at fault, and those who will view this as a victory.
White has said that part of his issue is that Apple Store staff purposely ignored the problem after deleting the data.
“They knew they had done this and [sent] me on my way,” he said. “This is where my anger is — they sent me on my way like an imbecile.”
White had initially asked for £7,000 compensation, but later reduced his demands to a new “computer screen and printer” — although Apple refused to settle out of court.
“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,” said District Judge Ruth Fine, adding that, “This could easily have been settled if common sense had come into the arena.”
Do you think justice was done here, or should Apple have not been forced to pay out damages — plus Deric White’s costs for the case?
Source: Mirror
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
14 responses to “Apple pays $1,800 damages after retail store wiped pensioner’s iPhone”
Why the hell didn’t he back up his data to the iCloud. Seriously.
I have never once NOT been warned by an Apple store employee that there is a possibility data may be lost, and therefore should be backed up, and I’d be VERY surprised if this stupid old cretin wasn’t told the same.
+1 for making me laugh on a dreary Tuesday afternoon.
Seriously, that made you laugh? Wow, you really need to get a life.
Sure he didn’t back up his stuff.
But that’s not the core of the case. It’s whether or not the staff were negligent. The judge found that they were. What that means is that they most likely failed to tell him his data could be lost. This has never happened to me – staff have always insisted that backups are performed before any inspection of a device. But it seems that in this case that didn’t happen.
So yes, the man should’ve backed up his data. But that’s not what the case is about.
As the discussion was getting out of hand yesterday aboiut this subject…. here’s what this means.
1) You ARE responsible to make backups of your data and Apple does provide you with ways (iTunes, iCloud) to make these backups
2) You MUST be asked by the store staff if you have a backup. In the event you don’t
2a) Staff must warn you of the possibility of losing valuable data BEFORE engaging
2b) Staff must get your ack to proceed BEFORE deleting data
2c) Staff may, if possible, backup your data for you (depending on store capability & capacity)
3) Store is responsible for taking EVERY precautions possible
It’s not a debate of wether you MUST make a backup and being ignorant or anything else. Not everyone is aware even that iCloud saves some data on their iPad (my father for example) simply because they aren’t tech savvy at all. I cannot blame them for not making backups. I can only educate them. Wether they retain the lesson or not is out of my control. However, I know that if they go to an Apple Store without me, they will have the best service (in the vast majority of cases) and Geniuses will ASK BEFORE deleting data on the iPad.
And YOU should STOP YELLING throughout your POSTS!
RIGHT!…. Oh Lord.
Could you possibly be more of a wanker, dcj001? Adding EMPHASIS to individual words is NOT “yelling” Duh.
I wonder how he proved they didn’t warn him beforehand? Or did the judge just take his word for it? Or is it a case of the judge wanting to stick it to a big company? And when you read the full article you can make your own call. Apple said they did warn him, the guy said they didn’t. So the judge decided to compensate the claimant. I don’t see much here other than a he said/she said and a judge who wanted to rule out of sympathy.
I’m just going to go ahead and assume the judge just took this greedy opportunist’s word for it.
I have worked on friends phones and asked them when the last time you backed this up. The answer is usually NEVER and so I usually do it for them. Some of these people have YEARS of photos and stuff on them. This is just stupid. What if you lost your phone? Who do you blame then?
In these days everyone, even older folk should realize the importance of backing up your data because sometimes – “Stuff” happens.
I think Apple should have won. Firstly who doesn’t back up there data to iCloud? And secondly one of the national papers here in the UK said that the employee asked him if he had backed up his data, if he answered no I’m sure they would have backed it up for him. I also hate when they come out with some douche like speech. You hardly won, £1200 isn’t enough for a good MacBook Pro.
Data is the responsibility of the user. In my experience with the Genius Bar the technicians are very up front about data as to protect themselves. If the user doesn’t have a backup of data the interaction ceases until the user has a confirmed backup. If the user decides to proceed then data loss is 100% not the technicians issue. This allows them to focus on solving the issue. What usually happens here is a mis-understanding of what data loss means. Questions like “You said data loss, does that mean my contacts and pictures too ?” or “My contacts are on my SIM card right ?” are typical in scenarios where users see smartphones as phones and not the micro-computers they are. Ownership of technology in general comes with a sense of responsibility. iCloud is one of the easiest and fastest ways to save your contacts and pictures. I have sympathy towards Deric but I side with Apple on this. You should have backed up your data no matter what my friend.