Unfortunately, my first experience with a data recovery company was not a positive one. I have a Western Digital Mybook that went bad, and began searching the web for a decent recovery company. I am a REALTOR and store a large number of critical files on my external drive, so the loss of this data has the potential to seriously impact my income. Also, I had all of our family pictures stored on the drive, so my wife was not very happy with me. I found Data Recovery Corp on the web and emailed a quote request in to them. They responded quickly, which I found to be positive, and sent me details on how to send them my drive. I forwarded it to them and hoped for the best.
The first response I received was an "offer" for same day diagnostic service. Apparently, their "technician" was not busy and they could do same day diagnostics for 20% off their normal fee. I asked why, if the technician was not busy, could he not diagnose it today for no additional cost. The phone rep said he had too much work to do. I should have had them send the drive back immediately, but unfortunately let convenience get the better of me and left it there for a full evaluation.
Three days later I received another call. The diagnostic was done, and the "technician" felt like he could repair the drive. I had to sign some forms, fax them back and pay a $299 fee. I asked if I would receive a refund for the full amount if the data was not recovered, and was told yes. I was also told that if I signed up for off site data storage I would save 20% off the quoted price of $899. Since I had been considering off site storage anyway, this seemed like a good idea. I paid 2 payments, since the phone rep did not really seem to know what he was doing. The first payment was for $299 and the second was for $625. I asked the rep what the extra $25 was for and he didn't have an answer. I was beginning to get suspicious, but my suspicions were partly allayed by the positive report from the "technician."
I didn't receive a response, in spite of repeated phone calls, for a full 7 days. When I did receive a response, it was an email from my sales rep. It is pasted below.
Having performed all possible data recovery operations, I must regretfully I inform you that after many hours of intensive work carried out by our technicians; we were unable to retrieve any data from your.
While the initial issues with the head stack assembly have been addressed successfully, it has become apparent that the drive is also suffering from a bearing failure which has caused the platters to shift and resulted in damage to the platters from contact with the heads. While numerous attempts to bypass this issue have been made, the drive remains unresponsive and the data remains inaccessible.
There is no charge for our diagnostic evaluation and the recovery attempt; however there will be a $25 shipping and handling fee if you decide to have the drive sent back. You may choose to recycle the drive in which case we will make sure that it is properly disposed of.
If you would like the drive to be sent back please fax us your credit card number with expiration date, billing address and your DBI number, or Contact your sales person by phone.
Naturally, I was quite upset. I telephoned my sales rep, was shunted off to someone named Brian who knew next to nothing, could not transfer me to my sales rep or a supervisor, and could not refund my money. He was authorized to refund the $625, but not the original $299. That was the fee for "parts." I asked Brian why in the world I would want parts for a defunct hard drive and told me that the parts were necessary to recover the data. My response was that since no data had been recovered, they could remove the parts and keep them. Furthermore, they should reassemble and ship my drive to me immediately.
That was on April 1. After multiple phone calls, complaints and the like I finally received my drive back on May 11. It is destroyed. The seal is broken, the power source to the drive itself has been removed, the board is damaged and the casing is in pieces. There is no way anyone with any technical competence worked on this drive. I also, after numerous requests to Brian, received a call back from a "manager" named Alex Smith. However, I only received one call, and that was not a very sincere attempt at communication. Alex has refused to return any of my subsequent calls.
So I have contacted American Express and disputed the charges. I am in the process of gathering information to keep this company from ever receiving a payment from American Express, and will forward any of my dispute items to Visa and Mastercard as well. If anyone knows how to shut these people down, please contact me. Thanks to these fools I have lost critical business files and irreplaceable memories. Steer clear of these shysters.
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