Complaint Review: Carbonite - Boston Massachusetts

You should maintain multiple backups of vital data. I did not know that a company that claims and advertises that they save precious memories. A company that was started by a man who was touched by his daughters tears after her hard-drive crashed and she lost precious data would DELETE my data without a moments notice.

"I may even consider legal action."

Computer users blame others for data loss on a daily basis. That is why The Terms of Service that you agreed to state:

DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES; LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

YOUR INSTALLATION, USE AND ACCESS OF THE SERVICES IS AT YOUR SOLE DISCRETION AND RISK AND YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGES TO YOUR DEVICE, SOFTWARE AND THE LOSS OF YOUR USER DATA THAT RESULTS FROM THE USE THEREOF. I am not sure how this comment would lead me to ever know that the company that I paid to preserve photos, videos and data would just DELETE IT!!!

"NOTHING CAN REPLACE MY MEMORIES"

Maybe $2500 can. Regarding this comment, I am not sure that you can put a price on the first steps taken by your daughter.

Carbonite is a RIPOFF!! I will continue to get the word out everywhere I go about what they did to me because it is a travesty!!!

Carbonite's Code of Business Conduct reads thusly:

They have the audacity to claim that they are honest and operate with intergrity yet they have reneged on an offer to pay for a hard-drive restoration for data that they deleted from their servers. Read the information below and BEWARE!! If you care for your memories DON'T USE CARBONITE! I am not the only one who feels this way. Be sure to check out YELP reviews and general internet reviews. How they manage to keep an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau is beyond explanation. They have the gual to delete my data without a second thought but back in 2009 they themselves sued one of their vendors for deleting data. How hypocrital.

Below is the original email that I sent to Carbonite regarding the company's deletion of my data from its servers. Also below is the offer that I received from a company representative. No where in the email does it have an expiration date. But on 10/9/2013 the offer was rescinded. I could not send in my hard-drive for restoration due to my daughter being hospitalized and shortly thereafter I got sick. Now that I am ready to send in the hard-drive no one is willing to honor the agreement.

Original Email Complaint to Carbonite:

I have just had the most agonizing minutes spent on the phone with your representatives. That is after waiting almost 30 minutes for a representative to answer the phone. I have been a Carbonite client since enduring the crash of a hard drive and learning the terrible lesson of not having back-up or my files securely stored online. I always felt secure in knowing that is a crash or computer event ever happened again all of my files were backed up to Carbonite. I have just found out that Carbonite purged all of my files from a computer that crashed at the beginning of 2013. I have accessed those files as late as 8/2013. I thought they were safe until today. I don't have the heart to rehash this sad event, so I am providing you the review that I just placed on Yelp. Please read and let me know how you plan on helping me recover my families memories. "Oh My God!!! Yelp how can I give a negative 1 million stars?? I just found out that Carbonite purged (the exact word that they used) all of my files dating back to before 2000. I have now lost all of my families memories. Videos of my daughter taking her first steps, 1st birthdays. EVERYTHING. My business files. EVERYTHING. On such a historically sad day when my heart was already breaking for the families that lost loved ones on 9/11, now it is rattling around in my chest. I had NO hard copies of when my last 2 daughters were born. They were all saved to Carbonite because they were taken with my cell phone. The explanation they give me make no sense. Even to an IT person it doesn't make sense. Carbonite's 2nd tier response person, Nathan stated that when I unfroze and reinstalled Carbonite to my new computer I should have restored all the files from my old computer (that were already saved to my Carbonite account) to my new computer, so that Carbonite could back them up a 2nd time. I was under the impression that once they were stored on Carbonite they were there to stay. This makes no sense to me because in my mind all my old files were backed up and as I created new files on my new computer those would be backed up as well. When my old workhorse IBM Thinkpad suddenly gave me a "disk error message," I immediately went on my Netbook in order to be sure that the files saved to Carbonite were there and the first video I went to was seeing my last born baby girl take her first steps. I was so relieved!! I was on the phone this morning crying because first I had to wait almost 30 minutes for a human being to answer the phone in the first place. Then to be told this heartbreaking news. I am going to spend the rest of this day with my girls. I don't have the heart to tell them what happened to their memories. We will spend today making new ones. I have to keep this in perspective. On a day like this I have my family to make new memories with, many people don't. But rest assured I will be putting Carbonite on notice and all those around me. DON'T TRUST CARBONITE WITH YOUR FILES, VIDEOS, PICTURES, ANYTHING. They will purge without notice. They don't care. I will be writing a letter to the CEO, David Friend to get him to do the right thing and pay for my old computer's hard-drive to be repaired and the data recovered from the hard-drive. Luckily I hung on to the broken computer for some reason. Now I know why. I have been given estimates of $250-$2500 for a data recovery. I may even consider legal action. I will definitely report this company to the Better Business Bureau, etc. I see on Yelp that I am not the only person to have this disaster happen to them. I can assure you I won't be the last unless they are better at communicating with this their clients prior to them purging files that belong to other people. RIGHT NOW THIS COMPANY IS A DISGRACE!!! Had I missed a payment they would have emailed me immediately. If they have a new promotion they email me immediately. I got an email from them in August with a "Back To School" promotion. I am sure that when I cancel the service their customer retention team will email me. Nathan already offered me 4 free months of services. BUT NOTHING CAN REPLACE MY MEMORIES!!!"

Offer to restore hard-drive dated 9/13/2013 Hello Joi I spoke with the senior staff here and they would only be willing to consider the recovery costs if you use our vendor. You can mail the package certified mail to them and they can send it directly back to you if you agree. We will reimburse you for your shipping charges once the recovery attempt is completed. We will completely cover all charges incurred for the recovery and trust the vendor that we have used multiple times in the past. The name of the vendor is http://www.flashbackdata.com/ based out of Texas. They have been very reliable in the past, and we want to make certain that the vendor in charge of opening up your harddrive , can be relied upon. Please let me know if you will consider this, even though you will need to mail it to them. Thank you Description: Description: Description: Carbonite. The better backup plan. Marshall Milinazzo I Manager- Carbonite Solutions Team Direct: 617-587-1166 Skype: Marshall.Milinazzo Carbonite, Inc., 177 Huntington Ave Boston , Ma 02115

You should maintain multiple backups of vital data.

"I may even consider legal action."

Computer users blame others for data loss on a daily basis. That is why The Terms of Service that you agreed to state:

DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES; LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

YOUR INSTALLATION, USE AND ACCESS OF THE SERVICES IS AT YOUR SOLE DISCRETION AND RISK AND YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGES TO YOUR DEVICE, SOFTWARE AND THE LOSS OF YOUR USER DATA THAT RESULTS FROM THE USE THEREOF.

"NOTHING CAN REPLACE MY MEMORIES"

Maybe $2500 can.