Apple has been made to cough up £1,200 ($1,800) in damages after its Genius Bar accidentally deleted all the data from a customer’s iPhone. Deric White, 68, had honeymoon photos and 15 years’ worth of contacts on his iPhone 5 before taking it to the Apple Store with a technical fault.
When White left the flagship London store, all of that data was gone, and staff did not make a backup before restoring the device. White claims that Apple purposely ignored his problem — even after he refused to leave the store and demanded they call the police.
“We had beautiful pictures of the Seychelles and other pictures as well,” White told Mirror. “All my contacts had gone and they had vandalised my phone. They knew they had done this and send me on my way. This is where my anger is – they sent me on my way like an imbecile.”
A judge at the London County Court called the Apple staff involved “negligent,” and ordered the company to pay compensation. White was initially seeking £7,000, then reduced his demands to a new computer and printer, worth around £1,000.
Apple refused to settle the case out of court, and so it was forced to pay White £1,200 instead, plus £773 in court costs.
“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.”
If you ever have to take your devices into an Apple Store for repair, it’s always best to make a backup at home beforehand if you can. If you don’t have a computer to backup to, you can always backup to iCloud instead.
