Backify’s 512GB cloud service disappears, takes all user data with it
Back in October, a new service appeared that seemed a little too good to be true. It was called Backify and offered a Dropbox-like cloud storage solution for just $5 per month. The killer feature was the fact you got 512GB of storage, which is way more than the popular alternatives such as Dropbox and Box.net offer. And if you didn’t have any cash to spare, there was a completely free backup-only 512GB service tier too.
As you’d imagine, a fair few people signed up to gain access to that mass of storage at such a low price. Now they are all regretting transferring any information on to the Backify service.
Ivo Flipse, of Flipse R&D, posted on his Google+ account about what has happened to Backify, and it’s sure to leave users both angry and frustrated.
Backify was actually a reseller of the Livedrive service, which offers its own online storage and backup solutions, but also allows other companies to rebrand their products and offer them to consumers or business customers.
It turns out Backify had legitimately become a reseller of Livedrive products, but that Livedrive has now terminated their contract due to complaints and fraudulent practices. Livedrive this week decided to contact all Backify customers in good faith and informed them of this fact.
The bad news is, if you signed up for Backify you may have been charged for services you didn’t agree to purchase. The only way to get your money back if that happened is to contact your credit card company and demand a refund. Just as bad is the fact Backify is now defunct, and therefore so is all the data you uploaded to the service.
Being a Backify customer does not automatically make you a customer of Livedrive, so they can’t do anything to get your data back. The only advice Livedrive can offer is to delete Backify from your machine immediately and ensure your credit card linked to the account is severed. Your data seems to be lost forever.
They say when something looks too good to be true, it probably is, and this is certainly a perfect example of that. Although Backify is at fault here, we’d like to think Livedrive is reviewing what happened and coming up with a solution for aiding customers with data retrieval if this happens again in the future.
(Source: geek.com)
