It sounds more like the company is just incompetent. I've had that before where they just ghost you. Ordered stuff from a site once, it was medical stuff and was legit, but they just would not answer my emails, since a month+ and I never heard anything from the order. Going through Mastercard lit a fire under their ass though. Might be what OP needs to do.
It would be incompetence...if they didn't me tell they finished the work and said only a partial recovery could be done. They then told me they would be sending an email with the file list. Nothing arrived. No link to files that were recovered. This was on June 20, 2022.
I called and emailed on July 14, 2022, requesting the return of the drive but left the demand open-ended in the email. In the call, the blocked with the excuse "they were only taking calls today". Fucker, the guy obviously cooked it up in response to the email because I sent the email first. Today, i sent a request demanding response by the end of the week. They made a shipping label real quick. However, I'm still waiting for the package to enter USPS's system, as it is only at the "Created Label" stage.
Back in Feb and March, they were giving me the "we need more" because things are going slowly shitck. If this lame ass operation is running offices in 50 states....well they have to be able to sustain business...
I emailed on March 3, 2022, simply stating "what is the status of my drive". I received crickets.
I suspect they, bare minimum, swapped all the "elite" parts in my Gold drive to repair more "valuable" client drives and might have cannibalized some crappy ass Blue heads or whatever if I get a drive back(just because a label is made DOES NOT MEAN the drive is coming). I wasn't a total fool. I did write my last name in Sharpie on the exterior side of the drive with the label, but not on the label.
And dodging my state's taxes isn't incompetence either. I reported that to the Comptroller because the Comptroller's field enforcement division is supposed to enforce the business license laws. The Comptroller isn't going to help me but maybe lost money to the state might interest them. I do not expect much more than a slap on the wrist.
Oh, and yeah, the contract has an arbitration clause. This means either they've been following the Supreme Court or they did hire a competent attorney to draft that. The quote expires in 72 hours(I sent it on the fourth day). A clause that "more time is needed in some cases". But there is also an "if the media is unclaimed in 30 days, we can dispose it any way we wish". When it comes to the contract, not incompetent at all.
I must emphasize that arbitration clause. Due to our illustrious lawyer's orgy called the Supreme Court, it is interpreted as the law of the land and whatever intuitions of judicial fairness you think you have DOES NOT APPLY to arbitration clauses. And this expansion is not necessarily correlated with justices being on a political side.
You being a Canadian might not be aware of that.
My drive is too small for them to want arbitration, so I escaped it.
In business, politics, and law, Hanlon's razor does not apply. It's always, "we're trying to take your shit or violate your rights, and if you don't enforce the rules yourself, we're getting it".
