What are my legal rights here?

[HalfTime]

About 9 months ago a local Computer / Coffee house as part of a marketing / good will to the local community act, donated my wife and I a home Computer that he built, and free high speed wireless internet.

He came over, set the computer up and said he needed a different part for the internet. 6 months later we still did not have the internet, and he was playing hard to contact.

3 months ago I called him and told him the computer won’t turn on. He came over that day to look at it. (Wow!) He said he had to take it back to his shop to replace a power supply.

Long storey short, he will not return our calls, when he does answer he happily asks us to call him tomorrow and he will bring it over. Then we call back, he wont answerer, or he had something come up, or the computer is still not ready.

I finally told him to at least give me a copy of the files that are on their, and we'll be done with it. The first year of my sons life is on their. All the pictures, home movies, all our bank records, and my work stuff. My wife is in tears about this now. Please help.

We never got the internet, we no longer have the computer, and to be honest that does not bother me. My wife just happened to be at the right place at the right time. We didn’t pay for it, it was free. What hurts, is that we saved everything we had on that computer. All the memory cards that were full, we saved to the computer to make room on the camera. I stored my work files from the last 10 years on there. Those are the only copies that exist. I also had our budget info, and finance info stored on their.

All I really care about or the files. But if this is considered stolen, then I want all the info I need so I can send him a certified letter letting him know of the laws, and my intent, so that he can still have a chance to fix it, or suffer the consequences. Or at least I’ll know that I have no legal rights, and I got screwed.

Thanks all.

 

[rubber duck]

Some of these issues that have been brought up on here lately are tough because they are civil matters and you're not going to get an answer that you want to hear. Your local PD will tell you to take it up in small claims court if the matter can't be resolved between you and the computer guy. They might make a phone call for you to see if they can reach out to the guy, but this is not a criminal matter, and it will be treated as such. File a complaint with the BBB and pursue small claims if nothing else happens. Try physically going down to the guys shop when you know he's there and see if that produces better results.

 

[FordSVTFan]

As noted above this is a civil matter. The computer is your property, unless you signed paperwork indicating it was a lease or a loan. Regardless the information on the computer is your property and you have the right to retain it. I suggest sending him a certified letter return receipt indicating that you own the computer and want it returned to you within ten days. If that does not occur you will be forced file a claim in the appropriate court of competent jurisdiction.

 

[Bird]

With personal information such as bank records, etc, couldn't this also be treated as an identity theft issue?

 

[RDJ]

With personal information such as bank records, etc, couldn't this also be treated as an identity theft issue?

not unless he uses the info to actually do something nefarious unless I am mistaken.

OP: first thing you do if/when you get it back is make a damn back up of your information. what would you have done if the hard drive had crapped out on you? you would still have lost all that information.

 

[HalfTime]

Thanks for the imput guys. RDJ, I here you. Lesson learned. It would be one thing if I had just lost it, but to know that someone else has access to it is scary.