Data Doctors 200% mark-up on PC repair Gilbert Arizona

The computer repair industry is virtualy unregulated and people/companies that repair computers can charge whatever they want. Those of you that know nothing about computers have to rely on the "experts" and I hate to say it but data recovery/transfer DOES take TIME. The bigger the hard drive the more time it takes. TIME IS $$$$$ not to mention it can take specialized tools in some cases......

In your case it seems you found the answer to your own problem but bagging on a company for how much they charge is not right. They have to pay their techs as wellas all of their other overhead costs. Kudo's to you for fixing it yourself though!

I visited the Data Doctors on Higley and Pecos a while back. Asked how much it would be to run a diagnostic on my slow Dell, was quoted $265.00! Bought another computer (used) for less, would never use these overpriced, arrogant crooks. Jake, QC

Beth,

Based on your report, it sounds like you may have had what we guessed to be a Data Transfer need at the least and a Data Recovery need at the worst. In trying to be as up front as possible about what costs you might incur, it sounds like our employee gave you a range that would cover the most likely scenarios for either situation.

Generally speaking, we charge a small diagnostic fee ($59-$99) up front when it is unclear what final path a particular service might take. It sounds like in your case we would have been unclear as you stated your device did not even boot up, leaving us only to "guess" about the condition of the data (in some cases, the cause of the complete failure of the device causes severe damage to the hard drive, which can greatly complicate and thus increase the cost of data rescue/transfer).

Further, we are generally a place people come to for a complete solution - one that does not involve a whole lot of "Do it Yourself" (DIY) work. The fact that you were able to purchase a $10 part and obtain what you needed via a DIY method is fantastic, however, to be fair I think most would agree that it is not the same as paying someone to remove the hard drive (many don't even know what this device is), mount within an external enclosure (one of the various ways to gain access), ensure the device is visible within a Windows OS, verify the integrity of the data, check for viruses/spyware and remove if found (so that another system is not infected), and finally help to instruct the user as to how to proceed to import/copy/transfer needed information.

All of this is to say that from what I can tell by reviewing your report, we made a "guess" based on what little information we had to go by up front and gave you some pricing guidelines. You were able to find a do it yourself solution that saved you money. My guess is that had the laptop actually been checked in, the charges would have been less than the max amount quoted based on what you were able to do to gain access to your information.

We have spent years (since 1988) building a business and brand based on trust and have thousands of repeat customers who regularly refer and recommend us to their friends & family. I'd hope that you'd give what I've written here some thought and hopefully realize that we're truly not out to take advantage of you or anyone out there. If you have any questions or would like to talk further, I'd be happy to continue a dialog on your particular situation at any time.