Fields Data Recovery – Fraud! Avoid at all costs!

by admin on Aug 24th in Uncategorized

As a company that deals often with data recovery solutions, we have had dealings with many different companies.  When a critical drive recently needed recovery, we found a new player in the game and decided to give them a try.  Fields Data Recovery had a wonderful website and it said all the right things.  We called and got a ‘generalized’ quote, which we appreciate, and we understand it can change drastically.  We sent the drive off (only after taking necessary pictures of drive, showing serial number and packaging – been burned by this more than once!).

Their claim of diagnostics within 24 hours was the first sign things weren’t going well.  It was 72 hours before we got any communication.  During the time of no response, we then vetted the company…which we should have done first.  Nearly all Yelp reviews were one star, and listed a ‘scam’ of all situations being a $1,000 upcharge (originally $300-$600, with a 94% success rate) and drives not being returned, customer service nightmares, etc.

When they did finally contact us, what a surprise that they claimed it would require a $1,000 upcharge, and it would have to go to R&D, where the success rate is 82%…and it would take from 15 to 30 days.  If we hadn’t read all the Yelp reviews we may have bought into it…but since it matched exactly all the other complaints, we decided we would take the drive back and send it to a reputable company.  That’s where the real nightmare began.

We were told that it would take between 5 and 30 days to get the drive back.  The explanation was that they just put all the returns on a pallet and had to wait until the pallet was full to send them back.  However, if I was willing to pay $20, they would use a courier service to get it to me in 3 to 5 days. (now, understand that we are in the Chicagoland area, and Fields is in the St. Louis area, which is in the ONE day range for regular ground UPS).  After 10 BUSINESS days of hearing nothing, I checked the tracking number (they actually used UPS, not a courier service as they claimed).  The drive (which contains extremely sensitive business data) was delivered to the wrong address (completely wrong state!).  We are now involving our legal team to determine what can be done, since our data has now been compromised extensively.  We’re utilizing data forensic specialists to determine if anything has been done to the drive from a data perspective from the time the drive was sent in until we retrieve it.

Fields Data Recovery has shown itself to be nothing more than a front for an illegitimate data recovery service.  Their only successes probably come from utilizing software recovery options (similar to the ones listed on this site that you can do yourself).  Anything that requires actual physical drive work is either farmed out or probably not done at all, since the guarantee only works on the first level recovery…anything that requires their “R&D” requires full payment in advance and NO guarantee of data being recovered.  AVOID THEM AT ALL COSTS!

Leave a Reply

Please note: Comment moderation is enabled and may delay your comment.

Powered By Wordpress Designed By Ridgey