Apple Recovery Gone Wrong

A customer (from Singapore) had a crashed hard disk from his Apple Computer. He sent in the hard disk to one of the service provider in Sim Lim Square. He was then made to believe that the vendor was one of the authorized Apple Service Centre. He was then quoted around S$1500 and also being promised that he would get back the data in 3 day's time.

On the day he went to collect the data, he was told there and then that the data was "suddenly" not recoverable. As soon as the anxious customer asked for more details of the job, he was told that the disk was serviced by expert and such professionalism should not be doubted. The vendor further told the customer that the laboratory report was only for internal usage and would not be disclosed, not even the name of the "data recovery expert".

The customer then sent the disk to ADRC. Upon evaluation, we immediately confirmed that the disk was serviced in some "carpeted" office as we saw traces of minute carpet fibers on disk platter, not to mention the dust contaminants. The disk read-write head crashed badly and damaged the platter completely. The head crash might had happened before the service or could be caused by the contamination of data platter. As far as we could see, such work quality is un-acceptable. We had to relate the sad findings to the customer finally.

We were equally puzzled as the Apple Service Centres will normally direct the customers to us for recovery job. We then contacted the Manager in Apple Service Centre and was surprised to learn that there was no authorized Apple Care Centre around that area.

With this lesson in mind, we were asked to spread the news that Apple customers are encouraged to go to authorized Apple service providers for repair. Such info is available at www.asia.apple.com/buy/