datatrack-labs.co.uk Reviews 184

TrustScore 2 out of 5

2.2

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Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Like many others I had a terrible experience and failure of retrieval. They had it 19 months! Slow responses, no data, tedious to get it sent back. Opted for the "gold" no win no fee servic... See more

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

​I had a deeply distressing experience with Datatrack Labs. ​The Bait: I was given a professional quote of £99 + VAT. Based on this, I sent them my hardware. ​The Switch: Once they had my propert... See more

Company replied

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

I sent a hard drive to Datatrack labs in that I was unable to access. Their initial attempt to fix the problem failed and they suggested another approach that might work but wasn't guaranteed success,... See more

Company replied

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

I managed to lose some precious videos and photos and searched online for ages to find someone who could help without costing an arm and a leg. I contacted datatrack labs before reading reviews so whe... See more

Company details

  1. Data Recovery Service

Written by the company

We believe in providing you with the very best opportunity to recover for the lowest possible fee. Our services are used globally to restore lost critical data. We are pioneers of data recovery and are one of the longest established data recovery companies in the UK which annually submit accounts, are VAT registered, registered with the ICO. Trust real experts with your critical data. Trust Data Recovery.


Contact info

2.2

Poor

TrustScore 2 out of 5

184 reviews

5-star
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1-star

Replied to 83% of negative reviews

Typically takes over 1 month to reply

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Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Awful experience with this company

Awful experience with this company. They are not clear and transparent. They advertise an offer that is not real. Also when I asked to have driver back as I wasn't happy to pay for just the evaluation £120, they asked me to pay for the delivery. After several emails, they replied saying that I should pay for the evaluation as the driver was previously opened and checked. Of course, they didn't mention this before! I had to chase them several times to have the device back and after a month and paying £20 for the delivery they finally sent the driver. When I opened the parcel, the driver didn't have its original case! You could have told me that you would have sent the driver without its original case! The service that you offer it's horrible. Worst company ever in UK!!!

December 26, 2021
Unprompted review
datatrack-labs.co.uk logo

Reply from datatrack-labs.co.uk

Thank you for your review. All feedback is appreciated and investigated. Following our investigation it is clear you did not inform us that you had already molested the disk, you declined to mark a checkbox on your quote submission which asks if the disk has been opened or not. Also, it is clearly stated we do not offer free assessments on any disks which have been opened in our terms and conditions. I am sorry we do not work for free on disks which have been molested and compromised, we are not a charity and have overheads to meet. Overheads which we prefer to service dealing with less ignorant and malicious clientele.

You describe the service as horrible, it is only horrible because you didn't get what you wanted after stamping your feet and throwing your toys out of the pram, we would not perform a free assessment for you. It only cost you £20 to completely waste our time. Why should we pay for postage for complete timewasters?
Our policy has served us well for the past 15 years, I look forward to reading your reviews of other data recovery companies as I have no doubt you will seek services elsewhere and you will then realise how fair and cost effective our services actually are.
In regards to us being the worst company in the UK, I'm afraid I have to disagree, there's a place in Eastbourne.....

Any perspective clients reading this reply, we have been established for over 15 years, offer free collections, free evaluations (unopened disks!) and no data no fee services and have an outstanding recovery rate. We have access to the best data recovery technology available and have thousands of hours of repairing and recovering data from all hard disks. Get a quote online today and have a conversation with us www.datatrack-labs.co.uk

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Successful Recovery of USB Data

Datatrack is one of the very few businesses to be found nowadays that actually 'does what it says on the tin'. Michael is efficient, a good communicator and produced the result I needed.

I lost a document that I had just emptied my head into - and kept no back-up.... I spent the next 48 hrs trawling through various online downloads proffered as recovery tools, which just corrupted the document making recovery more difficult.

The document was inadvertently deleted from PC and USB, and so I took both to local traders around Birmingham (obviously a large city). I quickly realised that whilst most say they can recover data - most can't.

Very happy and relieved customer. Great service from Michael, and I will recommend Datatrack to others without hesitation.

August 21, 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 3 out of 5 stars

So here is my story as to why 3 stars

So here is my story as to why 3 stars .
I sent these guys my hard drive in February they looked at it gave me a price I agreed and of the journey went...
1 month went by I emailed for an update got told as it is an old hard drive it will take a bit longer ok fair enough another month another email same stock answer ok ok another month I sent another 2 emails as the 1st no reply then I get another email back saying we have been very busy but will work on the drive this week ... we get to June so I send another email saying look if you guys can not fix it just sent it back no biggie 1 month later another email send finally they say that they can not fix it again fair enough and they will send it back to me again fair enough one week later get my hard drive back well half of the hard drive back minus the casing which after a few emails they point out it is in there T&Cs again fair enough so why 3 stars well after 6 months yes 6 months of me having to chase chase and chase I have all the emails saved by the way why did it have to take so long .This is not a dig by any means just saying it how it was for me I am sure they have a lot of very happy customers and work hard for there customers so before you dismiss this company read more reviews as all is not bad just saying this how it went for me .

July 7, 2021
Unprompted review
datatrack-labs.co.uk logo

Reply from datatrack-labs.co.uk

Thank you for your feedback.

I am sorry the communication was not to your satisfaction. We generally actively update clients at the end of the process but welcome contact from the client if you would like an update. The reason why it took so long is because the disk which failed is over 16 years old, parts were very difficult to source. Also the disk had previously undergone unsuccessful recovery at a competitor so this hindered recovery prospects. We wanted to exhaust all avenues before informing you the recovery was not commercially possible. It would have been very easy to declare the disk as beyond recovery at the first sign it would be difficult and problematic which is what other companies would do. Our experience tells us when you go the extra mile then sometimes it can be rewarded when others have previously tried and failed. The plastic casing is purely an interface to convert a standard hard drive to a USB hard drive, it was not required for the data recovery, is it serves no purpose and had no commercial value it is disposed of as explained in our terms and conditions.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Avoid at all costs

Avoid at all costs - WANT TO GIVE ONE STAR BUT GOOGLE BLOCKS IT UNFAIRLY!!!

Just look at thier very low reviews and they only have 4!

Sent me back my broken hardrive (price was toke clean or so didn’t go through with it) without the casing! How crazy is that. It’s already in a abs state as it is so to take it out of its casing and send it back with all the internals exposed and prone to damage was very distressing, surprising and bad.

Where is my plastic case? Why didn’t you send it back to me?

No other company does this as i sent it off to two before them but thier prices were very high just liek this place.

They also tried to charge £20 postage tk send back two very small external hardrives but I got him down to £10 only to clearly see a £4 postage cost sticker on the label! Send me back my £6 aswell!

Also, it took over a month after a lot of emails back and forth to get my hardrives back still broken and possibly now even more broken then when I sent them in due to how they handled it.

Bad communication also.

Truly s h o c king.

July 6, 2021
datatrack-labs.co.uk logo

Reply from datatrack-labs.co.uk

Thank you Nicholas Miltiadous for your feedback.

As you are fully aware, you sent your 11 year old hard drive to two previous companies before us who quoted treble what we did. You refused our quote of £249.99 ex VAT. You agreed to our terms and conditions, these clearly state the return charges etc, we charged you £10 for the return of the item. We returned the hard drive in the same condition as you sent it, except the worthless, plastic casing which we removed the hard drive from was disposed of. Again, this is stated in our terms and conditions. We dispose of them because they are not needed for the hard drive to function and we have to remove the disks from them in order to complete an assessment. I am sorry you could not quite grasp this and you proceeded to be very vile, abusive and racist towards us.

I am deeply sorry you ever managed to find us and we had to be subjected to your racism, foul language and abuse.

For transparency here is an extract from one of your emails...
"No wander why wales is the shittest country in the uk and one of the worst int he world. It’s idiots like you.

I used to give you people the benefit of the doubt but the reality is your all a bunch of dumb and useless idiots.

I’ve left some negative reviews on various sites and I hope they stick and detract from your business so you feel what it’s like to have something taken away from you.

If the cases were not useful why would companies put them on!

It’s for a reason you delusional Welsh fool.

Now send it back or fuck off. "

We wish you well in getting your files recovered in the future and pity the 4th company you will send the disk to.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Hard drive recovery

My old Toshiba laptop died and I sent the hard drive to DTL. The final charge was £479.60 for data recovery, but most of my pictures and files that I wanted were intact.

So - well done DTL !

June 25, 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

I contacted DTL Data Recovery after a HDD fail

I contacted DTL Data Recovery after my hard drived failed. They managed to recover all my data and on top of that they were super helpful. They have a great customer service too. This might sound silly but I hope I don't have to contact them again, but if I do need some data recovery I will give these guys a call.

Thanks

June 11, 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

low cost data recovery

Datatrack kept the cost of my data recovery very low. I beleive there was more work involved than anticipated however they kept to the agreed price and worked with me. All the files i needed were available.

June 7, 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Horrible service

I sent my hard drive to DTL for a 'free evaluation' after being quoted ~£190 for the repair. I arranged a collection using their service, which then happened on the complete wrong date (useless service). After they received my hard drive they then told me that the repair would cost £700- I declined. After unanswered emails and calls (as many other reviewers experience), I wrote a negative review; this causing them to get in touch with me immediately (convenient).

I was quoted three different return prices- £40, £30, and £10 (apparently a goodwill gesture after my review) before deciding that they would charge me £40, royal mail postage being £3.50. The tone used in their emails verges on threatening and if they replied to communications in the first place they wouldn't have these issues. In their correspondences they are highly unprofessional and after being told that in this industry I should be wary of cheap quotes- I wish I had listened.

After this exchange of emails and the price had jumped back up to £40, they told me I had 28 days before my hard drive would be considered for disposal- I made payment within this time and am yet to receive any reply to my confirmation (as with other communications).

I have now paid the return fee and will be interested to see if they actually send the device back or even reply to my emails/calls. Like other reviews, I would recommend that you avoid this company and search elsewhere for a reliable, professional service & correspondence. There are also many companies who truly offer a free evaluation (including shipping) and I'm sure will be much more professional and reliable in answering calls and emails. When I have previously written a poor review, this was the only way to prompt a response out of this company, if that fails to work this time I will begin the process of reporting the incident through my bank as fraud.

I'm not upset about the contents of the drive, just the horrible attitude displayed by this company, I have never encountered such a lack of customer service with a professional company.

According to the reviews on this site, it's 50/50 whether you will get a response and a useful service or a headache and no replies- scroll down and see for yourselves, this is clearly a running theme.

- In their reply they state that they replied to me, this is an aboslute lie and when they did choose to finally reply they actually acknowledge this themselves. The reply states that returns take 21 days, it has been 33. They have tried to discredit my review but if you spend 30 seconds scrolling you will see this is the consistent service provided. They clearly spent a while writing this reply but failed to mention where my hard drive is and when it will be returned... Also the reason the last review was deleted is because they flagged it to say I had never used the company- another lie but I didn't add further information, I decided to wait the "21 days" to see if they would be true to their word before writing an accurate experience of their services.

May 30, 2021
Unprompted review
datatrack-labs.co.uk logo

Reply from datatrack-labs.co.uk

Hi Dylan, many thanks for taking the time to review our service even though it is so far form the truth we don't really know where to start. This is the second review you had submitted for the same service as your previous lies were deleted by Trust Pilot.

Your quote was £560 ex VAT. It was a no obligation quote. If you send the disk yourself and arranged your own pick up then you would not have had to pay us a penny so therefore you received a completely free assessment and a free no obligation quote. We don't mind the odd negative review if it is a true account of events but when you blatantly lie to suit your own agenda then we take great issue with it. You admitted you only left a negative review last time because you claim we did not respond to your emails. Our sent items says differently, you need to check your spam settings and junk mail folders.

Your main gripe is paying the return postage fee, you knew you had to pay for the collection which is £20 if you declined and also the return postage. We offered half price return postage for £10 because we could not get under our 'maximum fee' for the quote as a goodwill gesture. You could not understand half of £20 is £10, plus £20 for the collection is £30. It took several emails to try to make sense of this for you and we still failed. You just didn't seem to 'get it'. You are also fully aware returns can take up to 21 days to process but have still decided to leave another 1 star review.

There are over 100 reviews on this platform, over 80% of these are 5 star reviews, and only 10% of the 20% of 'negative' reviews are factually correct and a true reflection of events where we would admit to not meeting the expectations of the client. Unfortunately we have a whole generation of people out to damage a business without second thought if they don't get their own way, as data recovery can be so emotive, the data loss frustration is taken out on the very people that were trying to help them. We wish you the best of luck with your recovery and hopefully an apology will be forthcoming when you are quoted in excess of £700 to recover your files.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Data recovery from Damaged Hard drives

Sent two of my HDD's for assessment and data track said they would recover the data from which ever drive showed the most promise.They gave a very detailed assessment of the damage to both HDD's which included failed read/write heads on both discs. They ordered up parts and were able to fully recover all of my data. Data was returned to me on a new drive which i sent to them. Service cost a bit more than I would have liked but in the end they gave me a full appraisal and a fixed price and to be honest was worth the money to get it back. I would recommend this company to anyone who asked.

April 29, 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Where is my device??

I sent my SD card to Datatrack Labs for recovery in Sept 2020. I was prepared to pay the £400 quoted for recovery of my data as it was precious to me and I felt confident after reading the reviews on here. I should have seen a turn around in 14 - 21 days but after 3 months of Datatrack Labs having my device I had heard nothing. I sent multiple emails asking for an update which were responded to once stating that the recovery was trickier than anticipated and to bear with them on the matter. Again after having heard nothing after 5 months I emailed again, got no response and then left a voicemail on their business line. The same day I then had an email stating the recovery had been unsuccessful. I requested at that point for my device to be returned to me because I was unhappy with the service I had received and wanted to get a second opinion, but after requesting this via several emails and calling I still dont have my device back after 7 months. My final email gave Datatrack Labs 7 working days to send back my device or I would be seeking legal advice over them not returning my personal data (corrupt or not) and they have failed to respond or deliver the item back to me.
I will now be pursuing the matter formally and urge any potential customers to avoid this company completely.
1. Terrible Service
2. Terrible Communication
3. Terrible All Round
From the recent reviews on here it looks like I am not the only one.

April 28, 2021
Unprompted review
datatrack-labs.co.uk logo

Reply from datatrack-labs.co.uk

Hi Victoria, we have contacted you about this case and we are currently addressing the issues raised. We apologise for the service not meeting our own expectations but are happy you entrusted our no data no fee service.

The device proved to be beyond recovery, we even contacted industry leaders in the Ukraine for a second opinion on this case and they confirmed our fears.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Reported to my bank for fraud and…

Reported to my bank for fraud and action fraud crooks take your money and promise to give you the data you require and do not supply it and do not contact once they have your funds they also do not return your item you sent.

I would urge everyone who has been duped by these terrible people to do the same. Eventually police will catch up with them.

Reply: Not sure whom this Alisha is whom you speak of but rest assured this review will remain here as it has been verified by trust pilot. Thanks for confirming I am not the only one to bear witness to your scam of a service. Who in their right mind pays for a service and then says they don’t want the service they paid for??? Again I urge anyone who is conned by this company to report to your bank and action fraud my review is a true review and not sure as to why this scam of a company would suggest otherwise.

April 19, 2021
datatrack-labs.co.uk logo

Reply from datatrack-labs.co.uk

We have no idea who this person is. We have no record of anyone called 'QueenofComplaints' and the contact details left to Trust Pilot are false.

Trust Pilot have refused to provide any further information so unfortunately we cannot provide a balanced response to this fictitious review.

Update : Following an investigation we have managed to identify the reviewer by reading their other reviews.

Hi Alisha, we explained to you that it was not possible to recover the footage of your road traffic accident you have been blamed for as the data had been overwritten or it had never been recorded to the card. The only footage we could recover is of you smoking a cigarette whilst driving. You clearly stated in writing not to bother to send you any other footage except the car accident. You paid us £79 ex VAT for the analysis of the card and data recovery. We can only recover what is actually on the card. I request you remove your other anonymous review as it is in breach of Trust Pilot guidelines. You should submit one review per experience. If you had contacted us direct we would not have had to respond in the public domain.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Excellent service, above and beyond!

My usb drive gave up whilst browsing photos for my wife's funeral and was utterly devastated. Decades of photos lost. I found these guys and decided to use them after seeing the companies that had used them and simply couldn't afford to lose the precious memories. Best decision ever! Communication was always extremely prompt over email and after the drive was collected, a report was quickly returned with several options. These guys managed to recover thousands of irreplaceable photos and returned the items to me in time to be able to be included within the funeral plans. Absolute above and beyond level of service to me and couldn't recommend them more. Thank you!

April 8, 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

My data

I am very grateful to the data recovery team for the work they did for me. My life like that of many others has been taken over by the computer and although I did not have any world changing stuff on my computer, there was a lot of me on there. Without it I had the choice, spend money or start again. I am so gld I decided to spend the money.

March 23, 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Can't fault them

Can't fault them. I decided I had to leave a review after reading some of the negative reviews that I read AFTER I sent my hard drive to them, they had me a little worried.

My external hard drive died, what made it worse that I was in the process of consolidating and tidying my data so that I could back it up! It was primarily my photograph drive, so had lots of sentimental photos, baby photos etc. I had a go trying to retrieve the data via software myself, but no joy.

I contacted DTL, they emailed and called me, explained the process. They did send me a quote but I didn't put much faith in that quote as they hadn't seen the drive yet.

I had it picked up on the day I specified. I heard back from the company quite quickly, informing what was wrong and given a quote for the work. It was a lot higher than the original speculative quote but like I said, I wasn't expecting that quote to be accurate.

They did the work, returned the data on a new drive to me faster than expected and I've gotten almost all of my photos back. Honestly couldn't be happier but mostly relieved!

My only critique is to not bother sending the speculative quote as some people might not realise that might not be accurate depending on what the problem is.

But I've got my data back, precious memories that are priceless really so I didn't mind paying the money to get my data back.

February 27, 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Excellent Service from Datatrack

After taking my Laptop to my local computer repair shop, I was informed that any data retrievable from the hard drive would require a company that specialises in data recovery. A search on the internet provided a few eye watering quotes. The Company that stood out for cost, and took the trouble to contact me and explain their service, was Datatrack. They arranged the collection of my hard drive, and within a few days I received detailed emails informing me, without any request for payment, the cost and plans for the retrieval of my data. Not all the time the company answers the phone, but found leaving a message or email, they called back. I cannot find any negativity with Datatrack and would recommend their services without hesitation. Their time and patience taken with a 'silver surfer' whose knowledge of technology is limited, was exceptional. Thank you Datatrack.

February 18, 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

hard drive died on 2012 iMac

I had a hard drive pack up on a 2012 iMac taking with it all our photographs. Although we had backed up via time machine to a time capsule we were unable to read the backup after replacing the hard drive.

As a last resort, we sent the original disc to Datatrack and they were able to retrieve all of our data.

This was not a cheap episode but we now have all our history back so I guess that is priceless.

I would definitely recommend them. Michael Owen was extremely good at replying to emails. My only criticism was that I never did manage to contact them by phone and nobody ever returned a call. As this was in the middle of a major COVID outbreak this is perhaps understandable

February 9, 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

This company has performed an excellent…

This company has performed an excellent service in recovering ALL the lost data. It was carried out in the stated time and the experience woud have been perfect, but for one aspect---they never returned any of te phone calls I made to them. I left plenty messages, but not one call was made in return to me.

February 3, 2021
Unprompted review

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