Complaint Review: Dr. Derek Zupancic - Data Recovery

The business was closed in September of 2005 as I was going back to work for FEMA, there never was a customer that was in the business location at 22147 Sherman Way that ever brought in a defective hard drive.

I reponded to the original complaint as it was an insult and I was angry, it was posted by a person that never was identified, and in 30 years of business related to data recovery, the business never had a unhappy customer, nor any complaints in the several thousand jobs I did at Data Recovery.

So in closing, this complaint aka RIP OFF REPORT is a fraud and never happened, as I went to work with FEMA in 2005 for the TEXAS damages from Huriricanes Katrina and Rita.

I noticed that the address in the fraud report was one vacated in December of 2005 when I wnet to work for FEMA.

There is no identy of the person posting the complaint and your site may be responsible for SLANDER AND FALSE STATEMENT POSTED ON SEVERAL WEBSITES.

I request that you identify the poster or remove the comments as they are false and designed to create a false impression of me and my business at that time.

I have been the Data Recovery Business for almost 30 years, we try our best to help customers recover lost data. We are not GOD, we cannot bring something back is the data device is too badly damaged. We try but, sometimes it is not practical or cost effective to recover the lost data. The Company has been honest and reliable to all customers, and this customer of the thousands we have worked with just did not accept the fact that his data was not recoverable.

We normally charge a $600.00 deposit when we accept a data recovery job, the reason we do this is we have been burned several times in the past by consumers that we have recovered their data and then they simply say "the data is not that important and not worth the money" and leave us spending hours for nothing as we do not get paid in these cases. We cannot work for free and hard drive data recovery is tedious and time consuming. We charge the deposit based upon labor that is spent in recovery efforts, often we spend 10 or 12 hours in trying to get the data or even get into the damaged drives.

We only charge for real person time, not computer testing or recovery time, often recoveries can run 30 to 40 hours of computer time, we do not charge for that time, only when a person actually has to monitor the recovery processes.

This person came to us as a hardship case, did not have the full deposit and begged us to help recover his data, due to the fact that he did not have any money, we accepted a token payment that only covered two hours labor and advised the customer that we would work on his project in our spare time.

The drive was so severely damaged that we had to send it at our expense to the Lab of Seagate in San Jose, CA, our affiliate partner.

They spent several days working with the drive and concluded that recovery would be very expensive and data could not be readable if recovered. We informed the customer of the problem and he was irate and unreasonable, we contacted Seagate and had the customer go directly to them, the decided after speaking with the customer, due to his unreasonable attitude to send the drive back to him at no charge and at their expense.

Data Recovery is at best a crap shoot, we have been successful in 90% of our attempts, and often if the bill is too high, we trim what we can to help the customer by reducing the charges to the bare minimum.

In all the nearly 30 years of recovery work, we have had less than 3 complaints, often related to scrambled data due to viruses or because we did not get back certain lost data the customer needed. We can only recovery data that is written to the media, often customers lose data that is still in RAM and never had a chance to reach the media via a writing process.

Addressing the statements in the report, I am a PHD in Computer Science, I have several Patents in my name and I have always been candid with clients and often talk clients out of wasting money on recovery attempts.

We often take recovery cases for students or children at no charge, and have donated many, many hours of time assisting Law enforcement and charities with our recovery efforts on their data problems.

To be called all of these malicious names and subject to one-sided accusations without proof is hurtful and this forum will not change the posting of false lies and slander, simply based on the ravings of a lunatic that is angry because he failed to back up his data and he dropped his hard drive while it was running and of course we are the blame for his screw up and negligence. Please also not that he never complained to our company, not once, and waited several years before filing this ripoff report that cannot ever be removed, even though it is totally false.

Regards, Dr. Derek Zupancic PhD. Data Recovery LLC, A California Company.

This person who is not identified, is probably the person that had a damaged hard drive that was severely damaged. Normal deposits for data recovery work is $600.00, but, as this person we believe filed this bogus statement, pleaded poverty and had to have the music etc that was in the hard drive. We spent over 10 hours working on the drive and asked permission to send the drive to Seagate our Data Recovery Lab partner as the drive had to be opened and the platters inside needed to be removed and an attempt to recover the date if possible and a report of probability.

The drive was damaged and nearly beyond recovery, however, we conveyed the estimated costs of recovery, and if not recovery, no charges would be due, and if recovery of data was made, the price of the data found and any recovery would be a certain cost. (We have not been at the location he mentions since 2005) Also if the data recovered was not readable or what the person desired, then their would be no charge.

It is our common practice that if a hard drive could not be recovered or repaired in our local facility then we would send it to one or our two recovery labs that have clean rooms and very specialized equipment required to disassemble the complicated and micro parts within a 3.5" or 2.5" hard drive.

We have an array of computers and custom software programs that do data recovery on hard drives (often taking 30 to 72 hours that we do not charge for this time) and we are successful in about 85% of cases we receive.

However, due to the intricate and delicate nature of modern hard drives, when they have a head crash or have been dropped, or make strange sounds, we rather then cause further damage will contact the client and if we receive their OK we will send the damaged drive via next day air to our labs. We then must wait for several days or weeks as the case may be, due to work load or complexity of the recovery required, for a written quote of costs involved in the recovery efforts.

We deduct the deposit paid, (we take deposits because many times in the past we have spent many hours recovering data and get stuck without getting paid as the client decides not to pay for the work product or is not happy because not all of the data was recoverable).

We always use our best efforts and often it may take several days to even get into a damaged drive, and we never write to the drives, only extract data from the drives, and once we get into a drive and begin extracting data, we cannot stop, as if we do, we may never get that door open again. These processes are the results of over 26 years doing data recovery from customers media.

It is also very strange that this person filed this false and defamatory charge against our company and myself personally over 3 years later.

(it may be only 2 years, but, we can only guess at this point who the person is, as we have had only a few of the many, many hundreds of customer we have done work for.)

This is simply a case of "SOUR GRAPES", a stupid person that did not backup their data and when they lost it due to their laziness or disregard for prudent data protection methods, gets mad at the messenger and blames them for their problems.

As to other charges of fraud etc, they are not worth commenting on, the person is an idiot and not worth any more efforts on our part. In fact we paid shipment to and for direct return of his drive ($52.00) from Seagate Recovery Labs sent directly to him. We have all documentation and if this is the person we think it is we would be very glad to present our case in a court of Law if he chooses to pursue the false and untrue statement he has posted on Rip-Off reports.

We realize that Rip-Off reports has not liability or control over what idiots post and we appreciate the chance to respond to these false accusations and very untimely 2 or 3 years or more old allegations.

If the client had a problem with our services legal remedy would have been to take the matter to civil court or small claims court, he could not do this because, we did nothing wrong, we did our job, he just did not want to accept the his responsibility for his failure to back up his data. He also made personal attacks against me without any basis or merit and not against the Company I work for.

Simply put, "No good deed goes unpunished", we should have charged him the full 4 hour deposit as is our policy (clearly posted on a sign in our business the following statement "Data Recovery requires a 4 hour deposit of $150.00 per hour payable in advance."

To all other persons that may read the original charges by this person, please consider the source, the outrageous statements and clearly blatant false allegations without any facts or charges. Hundreds or even thousands of clients over the years, this is the first time anyone has made a complaint and charges of this nature against our company and specifically against me personally.

Thank you, Dr. Derek Zupancic, Data Recovery Expert, Data Recovery LLC.

This person who is not identified, is probably the person that had a damaged hard drive that was severely damaged. Normal deposits for data recovery work is $600.00, but, as this person we believe filed this bogus statement, pleaded poverty and had to have the music etc that was in the hard drive. We spent over 10 hours working on the drive and asked permission to send the drive to Seagate our Data Recovery Lab partner as the drive had to be opened and the platters inside needed to be removed and an attempt to recover the date if possible and a report of probability.

The drive was damaged and nearly beyond recovery, however, we conveyed the estimated costs of recovery, and if not recovery, no charges would be due, and if recovery of data was made, the price of the data found and any recovery would be a certain cost. (We have not been at the location he mentions since 2005) Also if the data recovered was not readable or what the person desired, then their would be no charge.

It is our common practice that if a hard drive could not be recovered or repaired in our local facility then we would send it to one or our two recovery labs that have clean rooms and very specialized equipment required to disassemble the complicated and micro parts within a 3.5" or 2.5" hard drive.

We have an array of computers and custom software programs that do data recovery on hard drives (often taking 30 to 72 hours that we do not charge for this time) and we are successful in about 85% of cases we receive.

However, due to the intricate and delicate nature of modern hard drives, when they have a head crash or have been dropped, or make strange sounds, we rather then cause further damage will contact the client and if we receive their OK we will send the damaged drive via next day air to our labs. We then must wait for several days or weeks as the case may be, due to work load or complexity of the recovery required, for a written quote of costs involved in the recovery efforts.

We deduct the deposit paid, (we take deposits because many times in the past we have spent many hours recovering data and get stuck without getting paid as the client decides not to pay for the work product or is not happy because not all of the data was recoverable).

We always use our best efforts and often it may take several days to even get into a damaged drive, and we never write to the drives, only extract data from the drives, and once we get into a drive and begin extracting data, we cannot stop, as if we do, we may never get that door open again. These processes are the results of over 26 years doing data recovery from customers media.

It is also very strange that this person filed this false and defamatory charge against our company and myself personally over 3 years later.

(it may be only 2 years, but, we can only guess at this point who the person is, as we have had only a few of the many, many hundreds of customer we have done work for.)

This is simply a case of "SOUR GRAPES", a stupid person that did not backup their data and when they lost it due to their laziness or disregard for prudent data protection methods, gets mad at the messenger and blames them for their problems.

As to other charges of fraud etc, they are not worth commenting on, the person is an idiot and not worth any more efforts on our part. In fact we paid shipment to and for direct return of his drive ($52.00) from Seagate Recovery Labs sent directly to him. We have all documentation and if this is the person we think it is we would be very glad to present our case in a court of Law if he chooses to pursue the false and untrue statement he has posted on Rip-Off reports.

We realize that Rip-Off reports has not liability or control over what idiots post and we appreciate the chance to respond to these false accusations and very untimely 2 or 3 years or more old allegations.

If the client had a problem with our services legal remedy would have been to take the matter to civil court or small claims court, he could not do this because, we did nothing wrong, we did our job, he just did not want to accept the his responsibility for his failure to back up his data. He also made personal attacks against me without any basis or merit and not against the Company I work for.

Simply put, "No good deed goes unpunished", we should have charged him the full 4 hour deposit as is our policy (clearly posted on a sign in our business the following statement "Data Recovery requires a 4 hour deposit of $150.00 per hour payable in advance."

To all other persons that may read the original charges by this person, please consider the source, the outrageous statements and clearly blatant false allegations without any facts or charges. Hundreds or even thousands of clients over the years, this is the first time anyone has made a complaint and charges of this nature against our company and specifically against me personally.

Thank you, Dr. Derek Zupancic, Data Recovery Expert, Data Recovery LLC.

This person who is not identified, is probably the person that had a damaged hard drive that was severely damaged. Normal deposits for data recovery work is $600.00, but, as this person we believe filed this bogus statement, pleaded poverty and had to have the music etc that was in the hard drive. We spent over 10 hours working on the drive and asked permission to send the drive to Seagate our Data Recovery Lab partner as the drive had to be opened and the platters inside needed to be removed and an attempt to recover the date if possible and a report of probability.

The drive was damaged and nearly beyond recovery, however, we conveyed the estimated costs of recovery, and if not recovery, no charges would be due, and if recovery of data was made, the price of the data found and any recovery would be a certain cost. (We have not been at the location he mentions since 2005) Also if the data recovered was not readable or what the person desired, then their would be no charge.

It is our common practice that if a hard drive could not be recovered or repaired in our local facility then we would send it to one or our two recovery labs that have clean rooms and very specialized equipment required to disassemble the complicated and micro parts within a 3.5" or 2.5" hard drive.

We have an array of computers and custom software programs that do data recovery on hard drives (often taking 30 to 72 hours that we do not charge for this time) and we are successful in about 85% of cases we receive.

However, due to the intricate and delicate nature of modern hard drives, when they have a head crash or have been dropped, or make strange sounds, we rather then cause further damage will contact the client and if we receive their OK we will send the damaged drive via next day air to our labs. We then must wait for several days or weeks as the case may be, due to work load or complexity of the recovery required, for a written quote of costs involved in the recovery efforts.

We deduct the deposit paid, (we take deposits because many times in the past we have spent many hours recovering data and get stuck without getting paid as the client decides not to pay for the work product or is not happy because not all of the data was recoverable).

We always use our best efforts and often it may take several days to even get into a damaged drive, and we never write to the drives, only extract data from the drives, and once we get into a drive and begin extracting data, we cannot stop, as if we do, we may never get that door open again. These processes are the results of over 26 years doing data recovery from customers media.

It is also very strange that this person filed this false and defamatory charge against our company and myself personally over 3 years later.

(it may be only 2 years, but, we can only guess at this point who the person is, as we have had only a few of the many, many hundreds of customer we have done work for.)

This is simply a case of "SOUR GRAPES", a stupid person that did not backup their data and when they lost it due to their laziness or disregard for prudent data protection methods, gets mad at the messenger and blames them for their problems.

As to other charges of fraud etc, they are not worth commenting on, the person is an idiot and not worth any more efforts on our part. In fact we paid shipment to and for direct return of his drive ($52.00) from Seagate Recovery Labs sent directly to him. We have all documentation and if this is the person we think it is we would be very glad to present our case in a court of Law if he chooses to pursue the false and untrue statement he has posted on Rip-Off reports.

We realize that Rip-Off reports has not liability or control over what idiots post and we appreciate the chance to respond to these false accusations and very untimely 2 or 3 years or more old allegations.

If the client had a problem with our services legal remedy would have been to take the matter to civil court or small claims court, he could not do this because, we did nothing wrong, we did our job, he just did not want to accept the his responsibility for his failure to back up his data. He also made personal attacks against me without any basis or merit and not against the Company I work for.

Simply put, "No good deed goes unpunished", we should have charged him the full 4 hour deposit as is our policy (clearly posted on a sign in our business the following statement "Data Recovery requires a 4 hour deposit of $150.00 per hour payable in advance."

To all other persons that may read the original charges by this person, please consider the source, the outrageous statements and clearly blatant false allegations without any facts or charges. Hundreds or even thousands of clients over the years, this is the first time anyone has made a complaint and charges of this nature against our company and specifically against me personally.

Thank you, Dr. Derek Zupancic, Data Recovery Expert, Data Recovery LLC.

This person who is not identified, is probably the person that had a damaged hard drive that was severely damaged. Normal deposits for data recovery work is $600.00, but, as this person we believe filed this bogus statement, pleaded poverty and had to have the music etc that was in the hard drive. We spent over 10 hours working on the drive and asked permission to send the drive to Seagate our Data Recovery Lab partner as the drive had to be opened and the platters inside needed to be removed and an attempt to recover the date if possible and a report of probability.

The drive was damaged and nearly beyond recovery, however, we conveyed the estimated costs of recovery, and if not recovery, no charges would be due, and if recovery of data was made, the price of the data found and any recovery would be a certain cost. (We have not been at the location he mentions since 2005) Also if the data recovered was not readable or what the person desired, then their would be no charge.

It is our common practice that if a hard drive could not be recovered or repaired in our local facility then we would send it to one or our two recovery labs that have clean rooms and very specialized equipment required to disassemble the complicated and micro parts within a 3.5" or 2.5" hard drive.

We have an array of computers and custom software programs that do data recovery on hard drives (often taking 30 to 72 hours that we do not charge for this time) and we are successful in about 85% of cases we receive.

However, due to the intricate and delicate nature of modern hard drives, when they have a head crash or have been dropped, or make strange sounds, we rather then cause further damage will contact the client and if we receive their OK we will send the damaged drive via next day air to our labs. We then must wait for several days or weeks as the case may be, due to work load or complexity of the recovery required, for a written quote of costs involved in the recovery efforts.

We deduct the deposit paid, (we take deposits because many times in the past we have spent many hours recovering data and get stuck without getting paid as the client decides not to pay for the work product or is not happy because not all of the data was recoverable).

We always use our best efforts and often it may take several days to even get into a damaged drive, and we never write to the drives, only extract data from the drives, and once we get into a drive and begin extracting data, we cannot stop, as if we do, we may never get that door open again. These processes are the results of over 26 years doing data recovery from customers media.

It is also very strange that this person filed this false and defamatory charge against our company and myself personally over 3 years later.

(it may be only 2 years, but, we can only guess at this point who the person is, as we have had only a few of the many, many hundreds of customer we have done work for.)

This is simply a case of "SOUR GRAPES", a stupid person that did not backup their data and when they lost it due to their laziness or disregard for prudent data protection methods, gets mad at the messenger and blames them for their problems.

As to other charges of fraud etc, they are not worth commenting on, the person is an idiot and not worth any more efforts on our part. In fact we paid shipment to and for direct return of his drive ($52.00) from Seagate Recovery Labs sent directly to him. We have all documentation and if this is the person we think it is we would be very glad to present our case in a court of Law if he chooses to pursue the false and untrue statement he has posted on Rip-Off reports.

We realize that Rip-Off reports has not liability or control over what idiots post and we appreciate the chance to respond to these false accusations and very untimely 2 or 3 years or more old allegations.

If the client had a problem with our services legal remedy would have been to take the matter to civil court or small claims court, he could not do this because, we did nothing wrong, we did our job, he just did not want to accept the his responsibility for his failure to back up his data. He also made personal attacks against me without any basis or merit and not against the Company I work for.

Simply put, "No good deed goes unpunished", we should have charged him the full 4 hour deposit as is our policy (clearly posted on a sign in our business the following statement "Data Recovery requires a 4 hour deposit of $150.00 per hour payable in advance."

To all other persons that may read the original charges by this person, please consider the source, the outrageous statements and clearly blatant false allegations without any facts or charges. Hundreds or even thousands of clients over the years, this is the first time anyone has made a complaint and charges of this nature against our company and specifically against me personally.

Thank you, Dr. Derek Zupancic, Data Recovery Expert, Data Recovery LLC.