Customer reviews, London. Their words, not one syllable of them written here.

What they have in common

• None of them provide details regarding the hardware: no brand, no model, not even whether it lived in a machine or on the desk beside one. They simply write about the contents of the media: family photographs, accounts and vat files, work owed to clients. This provides a fairly accurate representation of how each call begins, which is why the first question here asks what the device was doing, rather than what it says on its label.
• Camden, Westminster, Merton, Newham, Hackney, Brent and Bromley: each representing a different borough of London; both inner and outer areas; north of the River Thames and south of it; no overlap exists for any. All parcels were sent by post; no counters exist in London, but you may choose to post or drop off your package at our Guildford intake lab (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, no appointment necessary).
• Neither a rating nor a date: the source provided no star ratings for any of these items and no date either, therefore neither appears. Creating a fictional number to fill in a blank represents perhaps the most simple dishonesty possible on this page, as well as the easiest to pull off.
• One had tried elsewhere first: a customer from Bromley writes about trying two other data recovery companies in London before this company, and of getting back accounts and vat files that neither of them could read. Not one other customer mentions competitors.
• What was actually at stake: photographs going back 10 years, belonging to a whole family in Hackney; a set of accounts in Bromley; and a professional in Newham who writes, “I will recommend you to all my clients”. Fantastic, reassuring and precious are their words, not our words.

Read them closely: two different customers reached for the word “yourselves”; someone else typed “daya” where “data” was meant; another person misspelt “cusomer” and “informaed” in a single sentence; and yet another listed “the fast, professional and the regular communication” but never corrected it. Each one of those is kept precisely as it was typed by the customer, as tidying a customer's sentence would convert their account into our account. When your own job is completed, you will be asked for the exact same thing and nothing beyond it: two genuine lines regarding your job, and your borough if you wish to provide us with such.