A woman in Washington DC is suing Best Buy for $56m (£28m) after the US retailer lost her laptop.

Raelyn Campbell took the computer in for repairs and spent the next six months trying to find out what had happened to it. Best Buy eventually admitted that it had lost the laptop.

The lawsuit matches exactly the amount of money a US judge tried to sue a drycleaners when it lost a pair of his trousers.

"What in the world is a sane number? What is it going to take for this company to take this issue seriously, to get them to change their policies so the next customer won't have to go through the same thing?" Campbell told The Examiner.

"It shouldn't take a $54m lawsuit to get Best Buy to do what it is legally required to do."

Campbell also pointed out that $54bn is lost through identity theft every year. The woman claimed that the laptop contained personal information and that Best Buy violated DC law by failing to warn her about a possible exposure to identify theft.

A spokeswoman for Best Buy said that the company had already paid Campbell $1,110 for the laptop and awarded her a $500 gift card to apologise for the experience.