Data Recovery* Computer Forensics* Mobile Phone Forensics* Cell Site Analysis* Data Erasure.

I thought the following is quite a useful post. If you want to see more comments* please go to the forum at www.disklabs.com

Originally Posted by elbitrevnoc

DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT use this company.

Please avoid going anywhere near the services of an organisation trading as Rapid-Data Recovery and/or Fields Data Recovery - both organisations registered with a Bridgend address. I fear that I have become a victim of what appears to be a simple 'scam' and* having done some on-line research* it appears that many others have had exactly the same experience. That is:

1. Send your drive for the 'no data - no fee' service (£97 if they do recover)
2. They come back and tell you that your problem is too complicated for them to resolve* but their associate company* 'Fields Data Recovery*' has the skills to do this* with an 80% chance of recovery. Note that Fields data also offers a 'no recovery - no fee' service - I wonder if they flip the script if you go that route first???
3. You hand over your £230 - what real choice do you have?
4. Communication now goes into a black hole and you spend three weeks chasing them - none of your calls or emails are returned and if you insist on waiting they will leave you on hold until you give up (14 minutes last time I tried)
5. When you've finally lost patience and insist that you are not put on hold* they transfer you to their 'Quality Control Dept'* where you speak to someone with no technical knowledge* who says they don't know any more than shown on their screen and that is that the process did not recover any data at all (some 10 days ago!). The reason they quote for this lack of success is exactly the same reason why they told you that Fields needed to be involved in the first place.
6. As much as you insist* no one calls you back to discuss your complaint and you can't get them to return your drive (which you'd be very interested now to get someone else to look at) or obtain any sight of a technical report (which you have* after all* you have paid £230 for)
7. They of course rely upon 'success is not guaranteed' line.
8. You write again and ask for the matter to be passed to a senior manager or at least for the person who handled your case to speak to you. In short* you would like a call to discuss your complaint.
9. They ignore you.

I am cross at myself for allowing them to con me in this way* but the result is a double-whammy for me. Not only have I wasted £230* but I strongly suspect that no-one has ever attempted recovery of my data and now I have lost the drive itself. I find it hard to believe that a crash of a domestic hard drive should prove so catastrophic that a professional data recovery firm could extract no data whatsoever. I'm sure if I could get the drive back I would find that someone else could and it would be very interesting to get a view of what Rapid/Fields had actually done. Perhaps this is why me and many others have found it impossible to get the drive returned?

Any other views out there???

I would welcome any action and or assistance you can bring to bear in this matter. Needless to say I am pursuing this with other trading standards organisations and the IT press.

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