Some mistakes don’t seem like a big deal until months later when you suddenly need something you thought would still be there.

One tech support worker dealt with exactly that when a former customer came back looking for emails from an account he had canceled nine months earlier.

The problem was that the customer had already agreed that everything would be deleted when he closed the account.

Still, he was convinced the company had backups somewhere and demanded that they restore them.

Desperate, he started explaining that the emails were tied to a lawsuit and could potentially save him thousands of dollars.

Read on to see what ultimately happened.

Not even lawsuits can restore files that were deleted 9 months ago. Much to this ex-customer’s dismay.

Oh my. These are the customers I live for.

I used to be a nice person. I used to be caring, sympathetic, and understanding. And then I got a Tech Support job. My rage started when I did phone support for a major US provider of fiber optic phone, internet, and TV service. My heart turned cold, and it never came back.

But alas, I have moved on to slightly less stinky pastures, where about 90% of people I talk to know what they’re doing, 5% are willing to learn, and only 5% are idiots.

The company offers backup storage as a courtesy service.

Customers use our services for storing their website files, emails, etc. We have tools that allow them to download backups of all of this content as often as they please for free.

A backup of their entire account is made every night, and we keep one of those backups as well for up to a week, and another for up to a month, so at any given time, they have 3 potentially different snapshots of their data that they can download and that we can also restore from. Totally free.

Whenever I get a call about restoring something from a backup because something broke, I make sure to point out this tool and say, USE THIS ****, YOU WILL THANK ME SOMEDAY.

Because I work with probably 10 people every week that think that “once it’s on the internet, it’s on the internet forever” actually applies for paid hosting services. Nah, bro—you stop paying for storage space, we stop storing your crap.

He offers a better way to look at it.

Think of it like renting an apartment in a busy college town. Rent is cheap, and everything is great. And then think about what happens when you go on a backpacking trip to Europe for 6 months and don’t pay your rent.

Your landlord probably hauled all of your stuff out so someone else can move in and actually pay rent. Your stuff is long gone, and there is not a thing that your landlord can or will do about it.

Yelling at them that those were YOUR belongings and the landlord had NO RIGHT to get rid of them is kind of silly, because it’s actually the landlord’s property, and when you stop paying the rent on it, if you didn’t care about your stuff enough to take it to a storage unit or drop it off at your parents’ house, as far as the landlord knows, you just don’t care about your stuff. It’s abandoned.

If you wanted it, you would have moved it somewhere safe, and that landlord probably has no sympathy for your stupidity either.

Then, he has the pleasure of speaking with this customer.

But alas, I stumble across this ticket. It has gone back and forth a few times, and I’ve had the honor of talking to this guy.

Customer: Hello, I need you to send me all of the emails from my email account from January 2011 to January 2013.

I check his account. What does it say?

“This account was deleted on 02/16/2013 at 12:59:05 p.m.”

02/16/13 12:59 p.m. – – – – – Automatic Note – – – – – DELETED!

After hearing what the customer needs, he tries to explain it to him.

Me: I’m sorry, but it looks like your account was deleted in February. My notes show that you contacted our Billing department, requested to cancel, and completed the cancellation form. The cancellation form states, “I agree that I have backed up any important files, and that once I cancel my account, these files will be deleted from my account.” You did that on 2/15/2013. We no longer have any data on your account that we could restore.

Customer: WHAT?!?!?!?!?! The last time I contacted you, you said you have these backups:

Daily Backup (February 10, 2013)

Weekly Backup (February 6, 2013)

Monthly Backup (January 14, 2013)

Frustrated, he tried to explain it a different way.

Those files should definitely be able to be restored! Restore them IMMEDIATELY or send me a copy of the backup!

Me: I’m sorry, but we do not have any files in your account—backups included. We are not a free storage service. You agreed in the cancellation email that all of your data was not only backed up, but that you knew we would delete it. We don’t have enough storage space to keep backups for people who are no longer paying for data storage—and if you’ll see our terms of service at [http://our-company-site.com/terms](http://our-company-site.com/terms), we also state that our backups are a courtesy service. That service is limited only to paying customers. You have not been a paying customer for almost 9 months now. We do not have any data to restore for you, and those backups are long gone.

Customer: YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND! I AM BEING SUED AND THESE EMAILS ARE BEING SUBPOENAED AS EVIDENCE! YOU ARE LEGALLY REQUIRED TO PROVIDE THEM!

The guy just wouldn’t accept the answer.

Me: Actually, we aren’t legally required to store anything for people who are not paying for service, and you are the one who is being subpoenaed for files you didn’t back up. There is nothing we can do to help you. You agreed that you had a copy of your files, and you agreed that you understood your entire account was being deleted when you canceled. That means backups too. We can’t help you.

Customer: YOU GUYS ARE IMBECILES! What a ******* joke! You are a storage service, and I know you have backups! Just send it to me!

Me: I’m sorry, sir, but I simply have to disagree with that. We only store data for people who pay for that service. We have backups for paying customers ONLY. Which you are not. Furthermore, even if you WERE a paying customer, our backups would only be daily, weekly, and monthly, so even if you paid the bill today, files that were deleted 9 months ago would be gone. You haven’t been paying for the storage space, so we haven’t been storing anything.

Then, the customer tried a different approach.

Customer: This is the WORST customer service I have ever seen!!!!! I can’t believe the nerve… how dare you delete those files? They were my files!

Me: If those files were important to you, you should have used our Backup tool to download a copy of those files to your own hard drive or your own data storage account with another service. You’re right. They were your files. So why don’t you have them? They’re not our files to keep if you’re not paying for the space to store them.

Customer: Ok… I’m sorry… please… just please restore the backup… I know you have it. If I paid for my account again, would you be able to restore it? I am desperate. These files could save me thousands of dollars in this lawsuit… please….

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Me: Even if you did pay for your account again, it would be an empty account. The only way that there would be data in it is if you had downloaded your own backup and used our tool to restore that backup to the server. We have nothing to restore for you, regardless of if you are a paying customer right now or not. That data has been gone since February.

And here’s the moral of the story.

Customer: Wow… just wow. I can’t believe you won’t restore my files. I guess it’s time to post this email history on forums everywhere so people can know what a horrible company you are… you guys are demons……………….. **** you, dude…! **** YOU!

Me: Yes, please go post on the forums so people understand how important it is to download a free backup through their account with us. We would be delighted to see other people learn from your misfortunes and use this free backup tool to make copies of their important files. Have a great day, and good luck with your lawsuit.

So, folks, I hope you learned his lesson: If something is super important to you, have multiple copies of it.

Wow. It’s understandable why the guy was freaking out, but still. There was nothing to be done.

Let’s take a look at what Reddit readers had to say about this situation.

This could be true.

It sure did.

Here are some good thoughts.

It does seem like common sense.

This guy learned a pretty expensive lesson.

If something is that important, you really shouldn’t leave the only copy sitting on someone else’s server.

And when it comes to files you absolutely can’t afford to lose, it’s probably a good idea to have more than one backup.

Hopefully, this story saves someone else from learning the same lesson the hard way.