but I got a letter from a third party company called CIOX stating there are no records for the time period I requested. And CIOX sent me a bill for $25.88 for the trouble of checking for them and responding to me.

I emailed and asked nicely for CIOX to waive the charge since they didn’t send me anything. They said no, its a valid bill. I was thinking like you: My time is just as valuable as theirs. So, I replied to the email and explained that my charge for replying to their email is $25.88, so the two charges actually cancel out. Anyway, there is a 0% chance I pay their invoice.