Am i being ripped off?

[SE14man]

Few months back my Mum was vacuuming and knocked the S-ATA Seagate 300GB HDD onto the bottom of the pc which shorted outthe circuit board.
Send it up to North London for a replacement circuit board.
Personally i think thats all the drive needs!
It didnt go down hard on the PC plus it was a slave and was not being written to which i told the people.
They are now saying yes we are replacing the circuit board and they insist on doing a data recovery syaing that 99.9% of our drive with crashed circuit boards have a data loss/corruption situation which i dont believe for one minute.
Well they insisted on recovering it all to an IDE 300GB Seagate and are now charging me for that plus the recovery and board replacement coming into 560 pounds.
What did need doing do you think?

Am i being ripped off by these people?

Cheers.

[mats.hogberg]

Moving you to Computer forum.

/Mats

[Paul_G]

I have to say it sounds like you are being ripped off, i personally hate computer shops because of the scamming.

My aunts harddrive (she knows nothing whatsoever about computers) died and she took the tower to a repair shop (PC Casualty, Manchester) they told her it would cost that much to repair because it was a old machine, it was not worth doing and it would be better for her to buy one of their budget (£300) computers.

She (thankfully) did not fall for it and got a cheapo 10 gig hd for £10 and i put that in.

[SE14man]

cheers Paul.

Btw ru the Garage DJ Paul G?

[Paul_G]

Btw ru the Garage DJ Paul G?

Nope.

[ROF]

I don't believe you are being ripped off, of course I haven't seen the drive personally but given that the drive suffered a fall great enough to cause damage to the logic board and was more than likely on at the time and the drive heads not in a parked position it's a good bet that you some of your data was corrupted by the heads slamming it the platters which were spinning at a minimum 5400 Revolutions per minute.

You maybe being ripped off if your data isn't worth recovery. You could probably buy an entire new drive for the cost of this repair. I know 300GB SATAI drives here in the US are around $125.00

[BobK]

Few months back my Mum was vacuuming and knocked the S-ATA Seagate 300GB HDD onto the bottom of the pc which shorted outthe circuit board.

Based on what you wrote I'd say you're being ripped off a couple of ways.. First, you say "they insist" on data recovery. If you specifically asked them to replace the circuit board and then told them you didn't want the data recovery then I don't think they have any right to "insist" on doing something against your wishes and charging you for it.

Second, before doing data recovery they should have simply replaced the circuit board and checked to see if data recovery was necessary before doing it (or charged you for replacing the board and let you worry about the data). Just because it might be needed 99.9% of the time doesn't mean you're not the .1%.

[RLT69]

Yes you are bring ripped off.

If they insist on peforming a service that you did not request, you are being ripped off. They may have good reason to believe that your data will need their special data recovery methods BUT unless you requested it, they should not perform it, unless you authorized it!

I'd get the damn thing back with the new circuit board and see if you can recover the data yourself. If you can't get the data back then and only then, have them or some place else try and recover the data, assuming you want the data back.

The fact they want to stick you with the cost of a new hard drive is fishy in of itself. I would have thought they would ask you if you want to purchase a hard drive from them for the data recovery procedure and then asked what type of hard drive you want or if you can provide them with a hard drive.

You are being ripped off. Come one people read the post. He did not ask for data recovery, let alone a 300 GB IDE hard drive! He asked for a replacement circuit board.

[waheed]

At £560 (thats just under $1,000), I think you are being ripped off big time. Some shops would do anything to make more money from you, as you have suggested, they insisted on a data recovery though you never mentioned you wanted it done. For £560, you can get a new PC.

...she took the tower to a repair shop (PC Casualty, Manchester)...

Is that the shop near the university hospital, on Upper Brook Street. Im familiar with the shop, though never purchased anything from there. I prefer Micro Direct further up the road.

[dcahoe]

Your poor Mum.

All she does is cook and clean for you and you accuse her of ruining your hard drive. tsk tsk

[marshalljames]

For $1000 you could buy a new kick a** puter with the works!
The computer market is saturated.These people are desperate and probably going out of buisness.

[Paul_G]

Is that the shop near the university hospital, on Upper Brook Street. Im familiar with the shop, though never purchased anything from there. I prefer Micro Direct further up the road.

I think that is the shop, not sure. I prefer Scan (reebok stadium) or if i buy a lot of stuff i go to Bowlers (computer fair, old trafford).

[rhegedus]

At £560 (thats just under $1,000), I think you are being ripped off big time. Some shops would do anything to make more money from you, as you have suggested, they insisted on a data recovery though you never mentioned you wanted it done. For £560, you can get a new PC.

Exactly.

Even if you wanted the data recovered, I bought Recover My Files for about £40. Their time is hardly a factor since a HD can be connected and unconnected in minutes and they sure as hell aren't going to sit in front of the PC while the software is working overnight and has a set of files ready to copy in the morning.

At worst they should only be charging you for a replacement drive and a nominal fee for the recovery of data. This is assuming, they told you what they were going to do in the first place.

Ask them for your drive back and pay them for a diagnostic charge - if they get shirty, speak to the Citizens Advice Bureau.

These people sound like cowboys, and will most likely back down if you threaten legal involvement.

[RabidDog]

You are being ripped off .. they (probably) know that your data is not worth £480 (£80 cost of new drive) where is this shop ? SE14 is sydenham isnt it?? I know the SE london area well its my Manor mate. Unless they got the Ok from you to incur such a large bill then they dont have a leg to stand on. I would personally not pay them anything at all and let them keep the drive. If they act this bad who's to say they havent siphoned off the data and are extracting all your personal/financial stuff this very minute. Trust is a very good thing to have and easily lost.. ripping off customers like this very bad practice. Pm me if you need further advice. ANd anybody who doesnt believe that people in PCworld etc dont look on your hard drive should ask Paul Gadd.