The repairer would have given him the advise. Or maybe he can take it to a different repairer.
Pi of that amount should worth around $65 right now. But it is not as easy as you think. There are times that the data may not be recovered but not bad to try it. Have you done it before? I have seen someone fall into this problem before and nothing good came out from it.
You do not expect a random phone repairer without deep data recovery knowledge to give such advice- thy just want to make repairs and take their money.
I've not been in such situation but data in eMMC are 99% recoverable with the right tools. I've had the privilege to witness forensic procedures at the EFCC so yeah even data on burnt devices can be retrieved..
I wouldn't go through these hussles for $65 worth of $Pi coin though.
Anyone with basic mobile repairing skills can pull out storage chip from a motherboard- just a little heat on it to melt the base that's all.
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Due to device differences, the ability to recover data depends on the device. If you want to recover data from the memory slot of an iPhone it may be easy but from an Android phone it may be a complicated process. I saved important apps on external storage which were accessible on some other android device but lost them due to processor and motherboard problems. Actually, most of the recovery depends on the ability of higher Android version and phone companies.