That listing actually makes the data recovery business look good.

I asked them if the price was negotiable and they said for me to send them an offer. They said they would only be willing to negotiate a little off the price because they don't want to sell unless it's a good deal for them. They have a week to consider their current offer.

The more I look at it, while it is still laughable, I guess I kind of see where they are coming from. I'm not saying it's worth that much, but it looks like they are being pretty up front about everything and they don't seem to really care whether they sell it or not. You would think if someone was trying to scam they wouldn't be so "take it or leave it". I could be wrong. All I can say is, if they get that kind of money, more power to them.

But, how can you make an offer if you really don't even know what you are making an offer on? The least they could do is mention the value of the equipment and the annual sales volumes.

_________________
Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

I skimmed it again. It looks like it's around $150,000 to $200,000 is what they have listed for sales and I guess that's without any advertising?? I don't know what others are doing, but I'm lucky to do $50,000 and I do advertise.

From the ad re equipment:



I also see my question and answer got posted. If nothing else they seem to be prompt with that.

Maybe these guys aren't so far out in left field as I thought. Reading this article there seems to be a lot of companies out there valuating themselves based on revenue that is equal to about 1/10th their valuation. This is like 1998 all over again.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/80a5279e-39f3 ... z1EDvl7M3p

My guess is that this is the same guy with the youtube videos describing the need for a high torque screwdriver to conduct data recovery.....

Well, buyadatarecoverybusiness.com resolves to 69.65.33.126.

Also resolving to that address are over 1,000 others. But one of them is "datarecoveryreport.com" which linkes to three different data recovery vendors:

ACS Data Recovery
http://www.acsdata.com
Toll-Free: 1-877-646-0546

Drive Savers Data Recovery
http://www.drivesavers.com
1-800-440-1904

Vogon Data Recovery
http://www.vogon-data-recovery.com
1-800-392-5373

We know it isn't Drive Savers. The ACS site says they started in 2003. I did a google for "data recovery" and sure enough, ACS doesn't seem to be buying any google adwords. I have no idea how large ACS is. I think I've heard of them before, maybe they're > $150,000/year?

Vogon's site seems to be down.

The entire thing is interesting.

Vogon was bought by IBAS who was bought by Ontrack

That IP address appears to just belong to a generic web hosting service

_________________
You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

Who was bought by Kroll

_________________
SAN, NAS, RAID, Server, and HDD Data Recovery.

My theory was, if you are going to setup a new domain (buyadatarecoverybusiness.com), you'd probably use a hosting outfit you are familiar with.

(1) It is interesting that within hours of making my guess, the auction was ended.

(2) Comparing this page: http://www.acsdata.com/data-recovery-1.htm to this page: http://www.datarecoveryreport.com/ proves, I think, that ACS is behind datarecoveryreport.com. The content is about the same. So we know ACS has hosted content at the same hosting company that hosts buyadatarecoverybusiness.com.

(3) datarecoveryreport.com and buyadatarecoverybusiness.com were both registered at godaddy.com, are listed by proxy only, and are hosted at webhostingpad.com. Their records look nearly identical.

(4) I called ACS, it seems like a small outfit, and I was offered a 45% discount if I link to them on my page. Kinda sounds like the "organic" web searching mentioned in the eBay auction, no?

This is just my opinion, but I think it was ACS for sale.

I think you're right cgallery. The site has a post from March 10 that says "Sale Pending. Under contract. Thanks for looking."

The only thing about that report site is that article has been floating around for years now. It might be there's or it might be just one of many sites that have posted it. It used to be any time you searched for the term "hard drive crash" there were 3 or 4 variations of that "report" on the first couple pages of the results.

I may call or email and just ask if they are selling just to see what they say. It certainly can't hurt.

Looking into this a little further, I just did a google for the title of that report website ("essential data recovery report"), and it backs up what I said. I knew I had seen that before. There were over 34,000 results, and most of them are repro's of the original. However, it does appear the original was written by someone from ACS. They may have submitted it as an article and it got picked up on many sites.

Looking at acsdata.com the domain resolves to 69.167.146.216 which appears to be the only domain on that IP, or maybe I'm reading it wrong. It looks like it's hosted at Liquidweb

I'm still going to contact them.

Just after Marsh & McLennan (MMC) acquires Kroll in Q2 2004. :O)

_________________
All went well until I plugged the drive in.