Advantage Computer Services

Review: I brought an external hard drive to Advantage Computers for repair late last summer (2013). He informed me that I need to pay $300 down for him to take it into a clean room and assess his ability to repair it. Of all the places I called to get an estimate on repair, I chose to use Advantage Computers because they claimed to have a recovery rate of over 90 percent -- which was by far the highest of any place I called. Per my credit card statement, I paid the $300 deposit on Sept. 20, 2013 and then I waited. By December, I began to wonder what had happened to my drive as I had received no news, no phone call, no report of any kind on the status of my repair. When I followed up, I was informed that they had been unable to recover any data from my drive and had sent it to another drive recovery service to see if they were able to extract any data from it. So I waited. By the beginning of April 2014, I began to wonder why I hadn't heard anything about my drive. When I called to get some follow up on what had transpired with my repair, they claimed they couldn't even find me in their computer system. I spoke with the owner who said that if I could find my invoice number they might be able to find me in their system. So I dug up my credit card statement, called back with the date of our transaction and he promised to look into it and call me back within a couple of days. It has been 2 WEEKS since that conversation and I still have not received a phone call.

Not only did I lose years worth of pictures when my drive was damaged, I am also out $300. What did I get for my $300? Nothing. Not even a phone call. Not even a report.

Without a report on the work that was performed on my drive, I wonder -- did they ever even take it in a clean room as was promised? Do they have a high recovery rate simply because they bury the files of any drives they deem unrecoverable? If a business takes money to perform a service, they have a responsibility to report on the work that they performed to show that they did indeed provide a good faith effort in that repair.Desired Settlement: I would like to receive at least one phone call on the status of my drive, a report on the work performed which includes an assessment of the damage and if they deem it unrecoverable, I would like my drive returned so that I may explore a different data recovery service. Absent these things, I would expect a full refund as I have no evidence that they did any of the promised work on my drive.

Review: I purchased a computer from Advantage Computers in November 2012 and within a week of purchasing the system, the computer had begun shutting off on its own. I returned to Advantage Computers and they switched out the memory, which had already gone bad. Then just a few months after that, I had to bring the system back to the shop because it had begun shutting off on its own again. It took over a week for one of the employees to get back to me and my wife, at which point we had determined the issue was with the power supply. I asked them to swap out the power supply for a new power supply which took an additional three days because they had to order a new one. All in all, I have spent upwards of over $900 for this one computer system. Then two days ago, my computer system crashed again and would not restart. I have since taken my computer system to a new shop to be fixed because of the lack of communication and the unreliable equipment used by Advantage Computers. This most recent repair cost me another $100.Desired Settlement: I would like to be reimbursed for the last $90 I spent on the newest power supply I purchased from Advantage Computers back in March 2013 because clearly the equipment or the repair solutions they used were faulty and/or unreliable.

Business

Response:

Dear [redacted],

I am writing this letter to respond to the complaint that you received in regards to my customer, [redacted]. I showed the complaint to my husband who was

the point of contact for the work that was done on the computer. First of all, my husband, [redacted] was very surprised that [redacted] filed a complaint.

The reason why he spent $84.00 in our store on March, 9, 2013 (please see the invoice that I uploaded) was because he chose to have his power supply upgraded to a 1000-watt

power supply instead of waiting a few days for the warranty work to be performed on his computer and replaced with a 700-watt power supply. [redacted] and his wife

did not want to wait and given the fact that his computer has two video cards installed in his system. They opted to go with the larger power supply and he only paid the

difference in cost between the two power supplies.

[redacted] has been a long time customer of our company since 2010 and we value his business. However, my husband feels that his complaint and refund that he is asking for is not

warranted due to the fact that [redacted] did everything possible to please [redacted] and his wife. As for the computer not restarting now and he took it to another repair company, I am very

sorry that he felt that he had to do this. We stand behind our work and products.

I hope that we can resolve this complaint with [redacted].

Respectfully,

Owners-Advantage Computer Services