Data Recovery Corporation - DB Investments, Inc. High Tech Scam Artists Cleveland Ohio

Datarecoveryvictim, 

We are in the greater Seattle area and were similarly held for ransom by a company known here as DataRetrieval.com.

It took a little research, but we finally found out through the Better Business Bureau that DB Investments also uses the web address; dataretrieval.com.

We have already posted our own report on this site about them.

Unfortunately, we were not nearly as 'tech-savvy' as you and we got the royal hose as well.

I'm not sure why some government agency hasn't set up an sting on these guys yet. I certainly hope it happens soon. It scares me to think how many others have been and will continue to be, ripped off by these scam-artists.

Maybe a few more victims need to step up and be heard?

Datarecoveryvictim, 

We are in the greater Seattle area and were similarly held for ransom by a company known here as DataRetrieval.com.

It took a little research, but we finally found out through the Better Business Bureau that DB Investments also uses the web address; dataretrieval.com.

We have already posted our own report on this site about them.

Unfortunately, we were not nearly as 'tech-savvy' as you and we got the royal hose as well.

I'm not sure why some government agency hasn't set up an sting on these guys yet. I certainly hope it happens soon. It angers me to think how many others have been and will continue to be, ripped off by these scam-artists.

Maybe a few more victims need to step up and be heard?

If you think 1900 was bad just wait till you agree to have them do the work.  I had to pay 130 bucks for a drive to send out the data on and 85 bucks for an enclosure on top of that.  Plus, the guy that I was talking to said he would not have time to look at my drive for at least 3 weeks unless I paid an additional 100 bucks.  Then it took 4 weeks to get data anyway.  Once i made the final payment they all stopped responding to calls and I had to wait for 3 weeks before I got any data back... which was missing data.
It is unfortunate that most of us have not the resources to fight people like this.  Thanks to you that do.

This model of Seagate drives has no fuses
It was blown TVS diode in power circuit- very common problem with desktop Seagates

Seagate diagnostic:


"Our lab has completed the evaluation of your unit. We have produced a full image of the drive without issue. No file system damage appears to be present.

Fee If Data Required is Recovered***: US 1100.00"

ACTUALLY THIS DIAGNOSTIC SIMPLY MEANS THAT THE DRIVE IS IN PERFECT SHAPE!!!

Well, just send it back to the customer...

After reading the original problem description, the drive basically took a power surge. This usually results in a blown fuse or chip on the PCB. In some cases, putting a temporary bypass on the PCB will allow easy access to the data. In other cases, simply removing the faulty chip results in the drive working again. It is probable that the second scenario was done, in which case the drive probable worked when the drive was returned to the customer.

So, when Seagate Data Recovery received the hard drive, they simply made a backup of the working drive and charged $1100 for doing nothing.

I agree that the first quote was likely way too much at $1900. However, I believe that $1100 for doing nothing is just as bad, if not worse. Of course, this is with the assumption that it was simply a blown chip on the PCB.

As for the diagnosis, I don't think it was smart to make the project sound harder than it is in order to justify a higher price quote. At the same time, I think it is crazy to say that no problem was found with your drive, but it will cost $1100 for our services.

Did it ever occur to you that Seagate Data Recovery charged you $1100 for nothing?

Your drive was already repaired when you got it from Data Recovery Corp, it had fried PCB (fixed) and ABSOLUTELY NO logical problems...

So you could just connect it to your computer.... and save some money


Ironic, isn't it?

This company reminds me of the Mafia. I still cannot understand how they are allowed to operate. I sent 2 SCSI drives, paid $1000 for the emergency fee, then they made me sign up for their inadequate online backup solution $799 and $399 deposit, made me pay $109 for an extra drive, the balance of $1710 and six days later I have no data. If you have something going on with the courts I would like to participate.

They lied to me by saying that the online backup works with Linux and Windows and it does not. Another lie was that the price will be between 499 to 1499 and the total is more than $3000.

This company reminds me of the Mafia. I still cannot understand how they are allowed to operate. I sent 2 SCSI drives, paid $1000 for the emergency fee, then they made me sign up for their inadequate online backup solution $799 and $399 deposit, made me pay $109 for an extra drive, the balance of $1710 and six days later I have no data. If you have something going on with the courts I would like to participate.

They lied to me by saying that the online backup works with Linux and Windows and it does not. Another lie was that the price will be between 499 to 1499 and the total is more than $3000.

This company reminds me of the Mafia. I still cannot understand how they are allowed to operate. I sent 2 SCSI drives, paid $1000 for the emergency fee, then they made me sign up for their inadequate online backup solution $799 and $399 deposit, made me pay $109 for an extra drive, the balance of $1710 and six days later I have no data. If you have something going on with the courts I would like to participate.

They lied to me by saying that the online backup works with Linux and Windows and it does not. Another lie was that the price will be between 499 to 1499 and the total is more than $3000.

Yeah,

I pretty much figured that out in about 5 seconds.... I think he's the guy I've got recorded lying to me on the phone for 30 minutes.

I'll be posting all those documents and recordings on a website soon so everyone can judge for themselves about DRC's credibility.

When I post the URL here, be sure to Digg it, del.icio.us it, MySpace it, Facebook it & Twitter it to all your Social Networking friends.

I sense momentum building here...

There's this wonderful tool called Lexis-Nexis that lets you create auto searches throughout the public records of the world and email you when say, Dave Akapow registers a new company or DBA or a new business license is issued with the address:

4162 Ruple Rd.
Cleveland, Ohio 44121

Which by the way, on MSN Maps, appears to be some sort of junkyard.

http://maps.live.com/?q=+4162+Ruple++Rd.&FORM=MSNH&mkt=en-US#JnE9eXAuKzQxNjIrUnVwbGUrK1JkJTQwMitDbGV2ZWxhbmQlN2Vzc3QuMCU3ZXBnLjEmYmI9NjEuMTAwNzg4ODMxNTg5JTdlLTM3Ljk2ODc1JTdlNi4zMTUyOTg1MzgzMzAwMiU3ZS0xNDIuMzgyODEyNQ==

I received a voicemail from "Alex Smith" last week in regards to my issues with Data Recovery Corp. He has yet to return my calls since then. Also, I would like any information you have compiled on your class action suit. I would love nothing more than to keep these scam artists from ripping off anyone else.

Hmmm.... This sounds a lot like the B.S. that DRC tried to sell me on the phone...

Regardless, of whether damaged sectors can be detected or not with one functional read/write head, the fact remains that DRC's claims of bad sectors and a bad read/write head were found to be FALSE by Seagate.

I will be posting all the documentation and the phone recordings related to this matter on the web so anyone interested can decide for themselves.

I've also sent everything to Google so their legal department can determine if DRC is in violation of AdWords terms of services which will hopefully result in the termination of their AdWords account.

I'll post the URL when I get the documentation and recordings posted online.

Regardless of the info I've posted about my experience with DRC, the key fact anyone considering using them should consider is:

THEY ARE NOT ISO CERTIFIED!!!

This report seems like it is rather unreasonable. I have worked for data recovery companies before and true they make mistakes but very rarely. Also if it seems that the PCB board has gone out then you can simply swap out the PCB board and see if the hard drive does in fact have bad sectors. Another thing about data recovery that the Seagate personel must have forgotten was that you can still diagnose bad sectors if one of the read and write heads is bad (well not if all are bad only if one is) simply by going ahead and scanning for data with the remaining read and write heads. So this company may not be in the wrong as much as this gentleman believes. Also the diagnostic from Seagate states "There may be unidentified issues that had prevented mount and access prior to our involvement." which goes along with the PCB board going bad they simply swapped it out. I am not saying that Data Recovery Corporation is not to blame, I just managed to see this report while going to google and saw it as a sponsered link and thought that that was rather odd; especially since I have been an engineer for one of the biggest data recovery companies out there. This report in itself seems to be advertising Seagate on it's own through an unusual and creative process, especially since I have never seen a ripoffreport on a Google sponsered link. Just my two cents, when you think things through logically, without emotion, you can see an understanding for most actions in this case.

This report seems like it is rather unreasonable. I have worked for data recovery companies before and true they make mistakes but very rarely. Also if it seems that the PCB board has gone out then you can simply swap out the PCB board and see if the hard drive does in fact have bad sectors. Another thing about data recovery that the Seagate personel must have forgotten was that you can still diagnose bad sectors if one of the read and write heads is bad (well not if all are bad only if one is) simply by going ahead and scanning for data with the remaining read and write heads. So this company may not be in the wrong as much as this gentleman believes. Also the diagnostic from Seagate states "There may be unidentified issues that had prevented mount and access prior to our involvement." which goes along with the PCB board going bad they simply swapped it out. I am not saying that Data Recovery Corporation is not to blame, I just managed to see this report while going to google and saw it as a sponsered link and thought that that was rather odd; especially since I have been an engineer for one of the biggest data recovery companies out there. This report in itself seems to be advertising Seagate on it's own through an unusual and creative process, especially since I have never seen a ripoffreport on a Google sponsered link. Just my two cents, when you think things through logically, without emotion, you can see an understanding for most actions in this case.

This report seems like it is rather unreasonable. I have worked for data recovery companies before and true they make mistakes but very rarely. Also if it seems that the PCB board has gone out then you can simply swap out the PCB board and see if the hard drive does in fact have bad sectors. Another thing about data recovery that the Seagate personel must have forgotten was that you can still diagnose bad sectors if one of the read and write heads is bad (well not if all are bad only if one is) simply by going ahead and scanning for data with the remaining read and write heads. So this company may not be in the wrong as much as this gentleman believes. Also the diagnostic from Seagate states "There may be unidentified issues that had prevented mount and access prior to our involvement." which goes along with the PCB board going bad they simply swapped it out. I am not saying that Data Recovery Corporation is not to blame, I just managed to see this report while going to google and saw it as a sponsered link and thought that that was rather odd; especially since I have been an engineer for one of the biggest data recovery companies out there. This report in itself seems to be advertising Seagate on it's own through an unusual and creative process, especially since I have never seen a ripoffreport on a Google sponsered link. Just my two cents, when you think things through logically, without emotion, you can see an understanding for most actions in this case.

This report seems like it is rather unreasonable. I have worked for data recovery companies before and true they make mistakes but very rarely. Also if it seems that the PCB board has gone out then you can simply swap out the PCB board and see if the hard drive does in fact have bad sectors. Another thing about data recovery that the Seagate personel must have forgotten was that you can still diagnose bad sectors if one of the read and write heads is bad (well not if all are bad only if one is) simply by going ahead and scanning for data with the remaining read and write heads. So this company may not be in the wrong as much as this gentleman believes. Also the diagnostic from Seagate states "There may be unidentified issues that had prevented mount and access prior to our involvement." which goes along with the PCB board going bad they simply swapped it out. I am not saying that Data Recovery Corporation is not to blame, I just managed to see this report while going to google and saw it as a sponsered link and thought that that was rather odd; especially since I have been an engineer for one of the biggest data recovery companies out there. This report in itself seems to be advertising Seagate on it's own through an unusual and creative process, especially since I have never seen a ripoffreport on a Google sponsered link. Just my two cents, when you think things through logically, without emotion, you can see an understanding for most actions in this case.

I emailed all the materials I have pertaining to this matter including my recorded phone conversations to the OAE. I will update this report when I'm informed of any actions they are taking.

I'm going to stay on top of this and hopefully convince them to initiate an investigation of DRC.