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Most people who find themselves in need of hard drive data recovery services don’t consider how or where to shop for data recovery services until they’re already in a bad situation.  Their hard drive has just crashed and they need their data back immediately.  There are many companies advertising data recovery services online for as little as $149.  The problem is that you have to ship the drive to them first to determine the price and these companies are all listing their data recovery services as “from $149” meaning that’s where it starts and it goes up from there depending upon what type of failure it is.  What is typically referred to as a ‘tier 1’ failure is the lower price, and a tier 2 or tier 3 failure can go into the thousands.  This is where a new spin on an old scam comes in– what’s known as the “bait and switch”.

What many of these unscrupulous internet advertisers do is to have the hard drive shipped to them.  When they receive it they then recover the data, do something that kills the drive and then call the unsuspecting customer with a price quote of anywhere from $1500 to $3000.  Should the customer decide that they’re not willing or able to pay it then the company simply ships their hard drive back to them knowing full well that from that point no other company will be able to recover it.  This means that the customer ends up either losing their data entirely or paying what is essentially a high-tech ransom.

When shopping for data recovery services a well-informed consumer will shop locally, make sure that the company has the right tools to do the job (i.e. they have a class 100/ISO 5 certified clean room) and that they will be able to get a free diagnostic report and a firm price quote on the data recovery job before turning over possession of the drive to the would-be data recovery company. Local companies rely on their local reputation and are far more likely to be reputable than internet businesses where the company is located in a distant place where dissatisfied customers (or victims as it may be) are unlikely to come knocking on their door.

If you are local to southeastern Wisconsin, then IT Connect provides data recovery service in the Milwaukee and Waukesha metropolitan areas including an on-site ISO 5 certified clean room.  If you are not local to southeastern Wisconsin then the best way to find a data recovery service provider is to look locally first– make sure that the company has a class 100 or ISO 5 certified clean room and that they will provide free diagnostic services that you can be present for and receive an exact price quote before entrusting them with the crashed or failing hard drive containing the only existing copy of your irreplaceable data.