Student sues US Airways for $1m over lost Xbox 360

by Alexander Sliwinski { Mar 11th 2009 at 10:23AM }

A 21-year-old man has sued US Airways for $1 million over the alleged theft of his Xbox 360. He claims that after he picked up his luggage following a flight home during the holidays, he noticed how light the bag was and discovered that his console was missing. He also claims that his system had a specialized hard drive and components worth more than $1,000 ... um, okay.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports the suit seeks $1,700 for the loss of the system, "non-economic distress" of $25,000, or just the cool million, which is the "maximum amount allowable by law." A US Airways spokesperson stated that federal loss limit per bag is $3,300. Not that any of that matters because she goes on to say that policies specifically exclude liability for electronics checked in luggage. The lesson here: Don't ever check in baggage with electronics.

[Via GamePolitics]

Tags: culture, lawsuit, us-airways

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)

Alex @ Mar 11th 2009 10:28AM

Damn, i'm from cincy and was just getting ready to send this in the tip line....curse you joystiq and your speedy response times...

opifex @ Mar 11th 2009 10:30AM

Bloody Ninjas!

waves @ Mar 11th 2009 10:32AM

Don't travel with electronics? Yeah, that might have worked 20 years ago, but in 2009 that's not a reasonable request.

Mike @ Mar 11th 2009 10:34AM

It's not "don't travel" with electronics, it's "don't check in baggage" with electronics. Makes sense to me. Keep it in your carry on bag.

BxGT @ Mar 11th 2009 10:44AM

The chances of me getting onto a plane with an xbox is slim to none.

bearcall @ Mar 11th 2009 11:20AM

i actually know someone who has taken their xbox in carry on before... twice.

Charlie_Six @ Mar 11th 2009 11:42AM

ya i've taken my 360 in my carry on bag twice. Gotta have 360 at the hotel!

david @ Mar 11th 2009 12:22PM

BxGT,

Why? Because an Xbox is packed with explosives?

Their sniffers can detect explosives, and the xray machine can take care of the rest.

I get stopped and checked every time with the sniffer because of my camera (D300) and multiple lenses, as well as the rest of my electronics.

Mr Khan @ Mar 11th 2009 12:19PM

I brought my Wii with me on-board for Spring Break. Might be a bit harder to stuff in a carry-on if it were a 360 (or PS3 for that matter) but still doable. Just run it through security separately like a laptop

BananaBoat @ Mar 11th 2009 12:45PM

Shouldn't that policy only cover DAMAGE to checked electronics and not outright THEFT of electronics? What is the difference between the theft of a 3,000 dollar necklace or something in a checked bag, and a 3,000 dollar laptop for instance? What difference does it make what type of item was stolen?

I'll agree that it's not a good idea to treat checked luggage as a cheap alternative to FedEx'ing things between places, but good lord, if you check something you should at least have protection against things being stolen out of your bag, since the only people handling luggage are the employees.

Obviously the part about the "1000 dollars worth of specialized components" is a scam, which does add a layer of doubt to his story, so I don't know if I buy his version of events or not. If his 360 was stolen, I hope he gets at least enough money to pay for a new one.

HitNRun @ Mar 11th 2009 12:54PM

""Not that any of that matters because she goes on to say that policies specifically exclude liability for electronics checked in luggage. The lesson here: Don't ever check in baggage with electronics.""

I'm pretty sure she was talking out of her ass. The laws exclude liability for DAMAGE to electronics, stemming from the fact that the baggage hold endures extreme temperature and pressure swings. My sister's Mac got fried recently when she checked it.

It doesn't cover *theft,* I'm pretty sure.

Ignatius @ Mar 11th 2009 10:32AM

Specialized hard drive and components?

Well, here's hoping he's stupid enough to give out his serial number so Microsoft can ban him from Xbox Live.

Jay @ Mar 11th 2009 10:40AM

Mmmm.. Cereal..But yeah this is just crazy come on.. suing for 1 million dollars? Isn't that kind of... stupid?

CyberKnight @ Mar 11th 2009 11:22AM

I know. A million dollars isn't exactly a lot of money these days. Virtucon alone makes over 9 billion dollars a year. He should be suing for... ONE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS!

SoulBlade @ Mar 11th 2009 11:36AM

Or maybe he spent way too much on MS's already overpriced HDDs?

Latin_Trident @ Mar 11th 2009 12:33PM

What the student really was saying was that he had a modded xbox 360 with the crystal clear enclosure and he had 3 wireless adapters connected to all the slots and he had the 120gb attached to the console and 3 games in the DVD slot (Gears of War 2, Fable 2, and Halo Wars). Microsoft had an agent take it from the airport.

Chris D.(PSN: Aggie_CEO | XBL:The Aggie CEO | Steam: Aggie_CEO @ Mar 11th 2009 10:34AM

ummm yea, so the lesson here. Use the Overhead slot for anything EXPENSIVE!!

John P @ Mar 11th 2009 10:35AM

Shouldn't he be talking to the people who would inspect such a bag - the TSA? In fact, with all the security at an airport, I would bet somewhere down in the depths of the airport's baggage sorting there is a little camera that caught this. But maybe I'm just an optimist.

robert @ Mar 11th 2009 10:37AM

why put it in your checked luggage, getting through security with it in your carry on isn't a hassle at all.

Jay Voorhees @ Mar 11th 2009 11:20AM

Just as long as you dont say anything about it...

JaneWellsJr @ Mar 11th 2009 11:57AM

The first rule of taking Xbox 360s on carry on is...

loof @ Mar 11th 2009 12:02PM

I don't know what you're talking about but when I travel with a console (usually my Wii) I have to put in a separate bin to be x-rayed, along with a bin for my laptop and another bin for my shoes and jacket. Don't forget the bag filled with whatever other electronics I'm carrying: camera, DS, Zune, etc.

Flying with electronics is a huge PITA.

vanuslux @ Mar 11th 2009 10:39AM

If he wins, I think I may sue him for my lost faith in humanity.

Rhamsey @ Mar 11th 2009 12:27PM

Otis Whitaker @ Mar 11th 2009 10:39AM

Man, this reminds me of when my friend went to his grandma's funeral, and he got her dreamcast (It was sort of a memorable thing to them, they played it together and stuff) and on the flight back, the airport or whatever lost various parts of it, and he was pretty bummed out about it.

OMGOMG @ Mar 11th 2009 10:41AM

Shouldn't he be suing for, you know, $500 bucks at the most?

What a douche.

OMGOMG @ Mar 11th 2009 10:45AM

Yes, I read the article. I call BS on his claim.

xenocidic @ Mar 11th 2009 11:40AM

what about the lost save games that can never be recovered?

that's emotional distress right there. years of gaming down the drain !

Ignatius @ Mar 11th 2009 11:55AM

If he ever signed onto Xbox Live, his gamertag is saved as is his gamerscore. It's not a huge loss. Loss of time, yes, but not that significant.

xenocidic @ Mar 11th 2009 12:18PM

what about meticulously crafted Viva Pinata gardens?

what if he was at 499/500 agility and 299/300 hidden orbs - without using maps - in crackdown?

his Keflings Kingdom????

the list goes on...

saved games are priceless!

but i'll settle for a cool million.

Mr Khan @ Mar 11th 2009 12:24PM

Yeah, the hours put in to create game saves are a somewhat reasonable excuse for a court of law, probably similar to if someone who enjoyed writing (but not professionally) had a laptop stolen and lost hundreds of pages of a novel or something

Tiptup300 @ Mar 11th 2009 1:57PM

Read the article, he says he had $1000 worth of special hardware for it. Duh

meth0dical @ Mar 11th 2009 2:34PM

@Ignatius
ya his gamerscore is saved to his gamertag, but the physical save files would still be on the hdd...

butaneko @ Mar 11th 2009 10:42AM

It's pretty dubious for an airline to have a baggage policy that excludes liability for electronics. Maybe that's something that should be challenged by a colossal cash grab lawsuit.

.. and maybe the kid didn't want to set off a nerd alert while going through security with a 360 in his carry on.

Mike @ Mar 11th 2009 10:49AM

This is exactly the point. These airlines have a policy, combined with not being able to lock your luggage anymore, that allows baggage handlers to steal whatever they want with a free pass.
I hope he wins the suit, or at least draws more attention to these terrible policies.
And yes, I'm pissed at this because I've had shit stolen from my luggage last year and was told by piss off by US Airways because of their policy. I however don't have the money to sue them over a $200 camera.

SearchX @ Mar 11th 2009 11:19AM

@Mike

I agree with you. I hope this teaches the airline industry a lesson that they can't waive all responsibility for their employees. I checked in a couple of Gamecube games in my luggage a few years back while flying on American Airlines. They gave me the run around and told me to complain to the TSA. In the end, the TSA gave me about $50 for what amounted to about $400 worth of games. This was out of Newark airport. Some time later, I read on the Consumerist that a baggage handling employee had his apartment raided and found that he had thousands of dollars worth of stolen goods.

ehisforadam @ Mar 11th 2009 3:51PM

There are TSA approved luggage locks that you can use.

I don't see how the electronics damage liability waver is any different from going to a sports venue and them saying if you get hit by a baseball that they're not liable. You're taking risk by putting something breakable in checked baggage. The bags can move around in flight and the handlers can't treat every bag like it has a vase packed in it.

Michael Paul @ Mar 11th 2009 10:44AM

I don't think an exclusion on electronics being STOLEN should stand up in court. Stolen *jewelry* excluded? Don't THINK so...

ScottG13 @ Mar 11th 2009 10:46AM

Specialized hard drive = pirate

He can suck it.

Duke @ Mar 11th 2009 10:53AM

Actually it doesn't mean that. You can buy hard drives with led's in them and other crap if you are into that sort of blinking light thing.

ScottG13 @ Mar 11th 2009 11:21AM

Lets play the odds...

% of 360 owners that are pirates vs. % of owners with a product I've never heard of or seen advertised

Duke @ Mar 11th 2009 11:56AM

OK, but just an fyi, if you search for a 360 hd on ebay, you will see different after-market drives for sale with lights and crap. What you have previously never heard of isn't really how a thing’s existence is measured. I don't know why you assume someone is a pirate.

ScottG13 @ Mar 11th 2009 11:59AM

Because I know that the odds of someone adding a LED to his HD is much lower than the odds for buying modified hardware for pirating. Seriously, its not rocket science.

Yousty @ Mar 11th 2009 12:44PM

You're an idiot for assuming he's a pirate just because he has a modified hard drive. You do realize that modifying a 360 to play burnt games has absolutely nothing to do with modifying the hard drive, right? Oh wait, you obviously don't know that.

For your information, I've modified my 360 to have a quieter/faster fan to help avoid RROD and also manually replaced my 20GB HDD with a 120GB HDD because I refuse to pay MS's outrageous prices. Does that automatically make me a pirate?

So please STFU Scott before accusing somebody of piracy just because he's modified his 360.

ScottG13 @ Mar 11th 2009 1:46PM

Man, you guys are crabby and in denial today.

Its like looking at the ratios of copyright violating to freeware/open source content on BitTorrent.

Also, I'm allowed to accuse anyone I want of anything. Especially a douchenozzle who's sueing because he can't read the terms of his contract (plane ticket). Tardbiscuits like that raise the costs of goods and services for all of us.

BlaqueBeird @ Mar 11th 2009 3:25PM

What terms? He's paying for a service, not entering into a contract. It's pretty cut and dry. Bag with 360 goes in, bag comes back, sans 360. Whether or not his mods are legal doesn't affect you or the case, so why argue about things you are obviously uneducated about.

Terms, that's a good one.