A broken Trezor does not mean lost Bitcoin — and neither does a forgotten passphrase or a seed backup with mistakes in it. I evaluate Trezor cases across both the physical device and the wallet backup: screen issues, passphrases, seed mistakes, and migration problems.
Locked out and want to try the safe steps yourself first? Start with my guide to restoring a Trezor after a lost PIN, wiped device, or broken hardware — it covers which situations are do-it-yourself and which need the bench.
Situations I handle
Dead or damaged device, seed lost. If your Trezor won't display anything but still powers on, the wallet data is usually intact — the display is the problem. I've repaired Trezors by transplanting working screens; read the real case: repairing a Trezor Model T with a touchscreen swap.
Forgotten passphrase (hidden wallet). The passphrase ("25th word") is the most common way Trezor users lose coins — see how hardware wallet users actually lose their Bitcoin. If you have the seed and remember fragments of the passphrase, I brute-force the rest on dedicated GPU hardware.
Seed backup with missing or wrong words. Miscopied words, missing lines, water damage, words in the wrong order — incomplete BIP-39 backups may be repairable when enough structure remains. See the seed phrase recovery page for the service path.
Shamir backups. Trezor's Shamir (SLIP-39) shares raise their own recovery questions. I've written about choosing between single-share Shamir and BIP-39; if your shares are incomplete or confusing, describe exactly what you have and I'll tell you whether the case is viable.
Forgotten PIN. Options depend on your firmware version and model — ask, and I'll tell you honestly what's possible for your specific device.
Why send your Trezor here?
Shipping a hardware wallet to a stranger requires trust. Here's what makes that rational: you're sending it to a named founder (David Veksler) at a Colorado LLC with a physical address, under a written contract, with published pricing — 20% of the recovered amount for wallets under 10 BTC, and nothing at all if I don't recover your crypto. You can visit in person in Denver, or watch the work over a video call. Devices and data are returned or destroyed, your choice, per the terms of service.
Follow the shipment instructions when you're ready — or start with a photo and a description of what happened.