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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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QuickBooks Error Caused Huge Data Loss, Class Action Claims

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - Intuit sent a faulty code to its "QuickBooks for Macintosh" users on Dec. 15, which deleted all of the QuickBooks data and all other data on users' computers when they opened the program, a class-action complaint claims in Federal Court.

Named plaintiffs are three businesses, based in New York, Florida and California. They claim that the faulty code was sent "to all QuickBooks for Macintosh users" on Saturday, Dec. 15. "Though the cause of the faulty code sent out by Intuit is still unclear, the impact on users was uniform - upon opening Quickbooks, users received a message that an update was available, and were asked whether the used wished to download the update. Regardless of whether the user clicked 'yes' or 'no,' the damage had already been done - the faulty code had already deleted all files on the user's desktop. Intuit has represented that there was no update available, and that its server simply sent out a code. Intuit has provided no explanation for why the code was sent out from its servers.

"The resulting loss of data was catastrophic to members of the Class." It was even more devastating because the data wipeout came at the end of the accounting year, during the Christmas rush, the complaint states. It claims that Intuit was barraged with emails from horrified customers, telling them of the destruction of data and begging Intuit to close down its server, but that Intuit ignored their pleas until Wednesday, Dec. 19, when it told them to go to an Apple store and offered to reimburse them for a $99 data recovery program.

Named plaintiffs are Create-A-Card of New York, AGSJ Inc. of California, and Philanthropic Focus of Florida. They are represented by Michael Sobol with Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein.

See complaint.

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