website thubmnail of ProtonMail
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California
2 reviews
3 helpful votes
Follow Leroy F.
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Be very careful not to buy one of proton's plans and then let it set dormant, because they will fill your space with messages from proton - and then if you don't renew your paid subscription, they will charge you an exorbitant fee to cancel and move to a free subscription.

Date of experience: September 9, 2023
Florida
15 reviews
15 helpful votes
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Im sick of proton "services"! Instead of helping when you reach out to support, they deny there's any issue and divert by asking you a million technical questions because they think they may throw you off, but their not remembering if you're using proton you're probably tech savy to say the least.

VPN stinks because it's not stealth and gets blocked by everybody

Calendar stinks because it's bare bones and doesn't even have search which makes it useless

Email stinks because you can't use it with your own domain successfully.

Date of experience: January 26, 2023
Illinois
1 review
6 helpful votes
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I've been using them for about a year. My big issue is that their customer service is basically non-existent. I have a couple of issues that I can't get resolved. Either they don't respond or send me the same instructions that aren't working in my account. I hate to think if I got blocked from my account somehow all my emails would be gone because there's no customer support to reach out to. I guess I'll be looking for another mail service.

Date of experience: August 21, 2023
North Carolina
1 review
3 helpful votes
Follow J G.
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The worst email support ever! There's no phone number to call, so your only option is to open an online support ticket.

I lost my password, and I've been locked out of my account for days. I opened a support ticket right away and finally got a response after three days!

I replied to their request for information this morning. It's now ten hours later, and I'm still waiting for a reply. WTF? Am I supposed to wait another three days?

This is outrageous and totally unacceptable! You shouldn't offer a service if you can't handle your customer load.

Do yourself a favor and find a different email provider. I wish I did. It would've saved me a lot of undo stress and frustration.

Date of experience: March 22, 2024
Nevada
1 review
3 helpful votes
Follow Todd D.
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I had signed up for a few email accounts for my Lineage 2 game. They suspended those accounts saying I violated their TOS. I looked at their TOS, point by point, and not one single violation. I asked them what point in TOS did I violate and they would not tell me. So I lost my game accounts, at least for now, because of this nonsense. I never misused or abused those accounts and it was only so I could sign onto my Lineage 2 game. Just doesn't make sense and their support was terrible. I would stay as far away from ProtonMail if I were you, unless you don't mind just losing your accounts at any moment, for any reason...basically because they said so. Sad.

Date of experience: September 3, 2023
California
2 reviews
2 helpful votes
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Horrible "service"
March 31, 2023

I took out a ProtonMail subscription as I wanted to have a more secure email for client communication. So far so good.

Where ProtonMail horribly fails is in their "service". Even with a paid subscription you can't communicate with tech support other than through email, and typically they send you an email that only an IT support person would understand.

So you have a tech problem, like the ProtonMail emails not downloading into ApppleMail on my MacBook Pro, you contact tech support and you only get an email you don't understand!

That would be fine or perhaps even great for a free program but not for a paid subscription.

I am currently looking again for another email provider since the lack of service it just not working for me.

Date of experience: March 31, 2023
Missouri
1 review
10 helpful votes
Follow Isaak C.
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I've been blocked from accessing my proton email, I've tried 100s of times, I contacted proton support over 100s of times, no response, proton was my main email that I use for almost every thing.
It's completely unacceptable, unprofessional, unethical and totally scams, and fraud.
Please don't use this mafias's service, use another USA based services.
Proton ruined my life, I've lost all my documents in ProtonMail.
I hope Switzerland will punish these criminals.

Date of experience: April 28, 2023
West Virginia
1 review
5 helpful votes
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Beware of ProtonMail
September 5, 2023

I purchased a year subscription for their password manager thinking I could review it, and if I didn't like it, I could cancel it. After trying it for less than 30 minutes, it wasn't user friendly especially if you are not a computer guru so it did not fill my needs and tried to cancel it. They refused to refund me, and instead locked me out of my account that I now can NO longer access because of my dispute. Don't trust a company that will not refund your subscription, especially after trying it for less than 30 minutes. I'm a senior citizen, and a disabled veteran, and they stole my money by also overcharged me using Euro $$ not US currency. I have contacted Paypal,and filed a dispute to see if they can return my money. Users BEWARE of this Fraudulent Scam email service!

Date of experience: September 5, 2023
California
1 review
1 helpful vote
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ProtonMail
October 26, 2023

I signed up for a free account at the urging of a lawyer. "The cops hate it and the baddies* love it! It's completely unhackable!" This is not true. It is totally hackable and it certainly is not free. It is also slow, confusing, and the service is flaky.
Do not recommend.
*This was the sales pitch, not a reflection of my needing a secure email account.

Date of experience: October 26, 2023
Oregon
1 review
3 helpful votes
Follow Mark J.
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If you forget your password, and use your recovery email to reset your access, then get access, you can't see or read your emails unless you can remember your old password, which is a circular loop function that means you will never see your emails again. The workaround for these lame idiots appears to be some encryption key that you were supposed to download to your system, so that you can upload that to unlock your emails, which makes your own computer system the very thing that can be used to hack your Proton security system. I deleted it, not worth the trouble, and I will never recommend it to anyone, ever.

Date of experience: September 22, 2023
California
1 review
1 helpful vote
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Dishonest Promotion Terms
July 21, 2024

As a technical product it's good but they run a dishonest promotion and getting an account cancelled and some support is mixed. The product doesn't work well with existing email programs but I gave it a try anyway because of the "30 Day Money-Back Guarantee" listed on all their plans on the website. I didn't like the lack of integration and wanted to cancel. When I finally found and contacted support to cancel they offered a reduced refund. I asked about the 30 day Money-Back and sent them a screenshot but they replied:
"Please be advised that, as per our ToS:
You may cancel your subscription within 30 days of the initial purchase and receive a refund for any unused portion of the service period. Here, any unused portion of the service period refers to the prorated remaining full days of the subscription period. Refunds will be processed within 30 days of the request."
SO THERE IS NO MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE, and if you forget to cancel by the 30th day you won't get any of your one year subscription back. This is a policy worth of a scam company, not a decent software company. Although my money loss was small I'm very disappointed and wouldn't trust them in the future.

Date of experience: July 21, 2024
Georgia
3 reviews
1 helpful vote
Follow Anna W.
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I'm sure there are other services out there but Protonmail being widely adopted and having years of operation behind them made me choose them. I've found they're much less heavy on the marketing than other services once you've signed up and have used the VPN services as well without issue. Overall highly recommended.

Date of experience: May 3, 2021
Canada
1 review
33 helpful votes
Follow not a.
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I tried login to my Proton account, and got a message that it was disabled.
No warning, no nothing. I have very important email documents, receipts, contacts and copies of bank transactions, all lost! $#*! you Proton mail. Shame on you for treating your customers like that.

Date of experience: June 15, 2022
Michigan
1 review
11 helpful votes
Follow Flac A.
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I have been waiting for a response from Protonmail for over 10 days now, for a question that may be solved fairly easily. This is the first time for me that this takes so long. Their initial response was almost a blanket mail, basically saying I needed to reinstall the app. I have wrote again two times and there has been NO answer. I'm surprised, and honestly bothered by it. I hope they respond.

Date of experience: March 4, 2022
Illinois
1 review
7 helpful votes
Follow D M.
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This is the worst email service. I migrated my personal email to proton mail and I was initially thinking of getting the paid version. After 2 days, my account was suspended. Apparently, their anti-abuse flagged my account. I tried to write to support but they are either non-responsive or they do not read my messages and just copy and paste default questions and basic answers about not able to overturn the account suspension. My support request is *******.

I read their entire terms of service. I did not violate any rules. This is my one and only account with Proton mail. I did not spam anyone. I did not sent any junk emails or bulk emails. In those 2 days, I already had correspondence that are sensitive in nature as well as time sensitive. Since they suspended my account, I can't access anything so all my email conversations are dead...

Please make sure to back up all data and contacts because you can get suspended at any time. In fact, just don't even migrate your email over to them.

Date of experience: November 16, 2022
Netherlands
61 reviews
94 helpful votes
Follow James H.
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I've had a free account with ProtonMail for years. Not particularly for the security features, but for the same reason I refuse to feed Google so they can read my emails and extract advertising data. Up until recently, I thought ProtonMail was fairy secure and private. However, they recently agreed to spy on an activist for the Swiss government. At the government's demands, ProtonMail logged a french activist's IP address and gave it to the authorities. You can read about it here... https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/06/protonmail-logged-ip-address-of-french-activist-after-order-by-swiss-authorities/

Date of experience: October 24, 2021
Illinois
8 reviews
15 helpful votes
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No-BS email service.
December 21, 2016

I really like ProtonMail. First, it's convenient. The design is a bit old-school, but it loads fast and works fast. Second, the encryption: no way someone can break in. Third, storage is plenty: 500mB for email only.

Date of experience: December 21, 2016
Washington
1 review
12 helpful votes
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Now Big Scam
April 15, 2022

Read the recent reviews. One of the first customers now shut down by Proton due to refund request on paid upgrade suscription never activated. Got all the money back from Paypal and not looking back/.

Date of experience: April 15, 2022
Ohio
1 review
3 helpful votes
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I WAS ABRITARILY KICKED OFF AFTER A FULL DAY MIGRATION PROCESS. THIS COULD HAVE BEEN DEVASTATING. I WOULD HAVE LOST ALL EMAILS FOR THE PAST 26 YEARS. DO NOT USE THIS SERVICE. THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING.

Date of experience: May 5, 2023
Romania
1 review
4 helpful votes
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This is a SCAM
June 15, 2023

Yesterday I created a Protonmail account, then I upgraded it to Proton Unlimited.
I received few emails from proton (Welcome, Payment Receive, Unlimited greetings).
I AFK few minutes and when I came back to my proton account: "This account has been suspended due to a potential policy violation".
I haven't send a single email or do anything with my account but receiving the emails from proton itself! Haven't even have the time to use the VPN I paid for.

I contacted the support (*******), explaining there might be a mistake, thinking my account will be restore in few minutes.

However, after more than 12hours later, here is the answer I got:
"Please note that our system has detected your account to be in connection with accounts that are in clear violation of our terms and conditions, and our system blocks all direct connecting accounts to prevent potential further misuse of our service.
We apologize for not being able to assist with your request."

No assistance at all, I have no idea what they are talking about... But they clearly don't want to help, and just stole my money.

It is sad that protonmail which had a great reputation of being a freedom service, became just a lame scam...

Date of experience: June 15, 2023

Overview

The company has garnered a reputation for offering technically sound products, particularly in the realm of email privacy and security. However, a significant number of customers express dissatisfaction with their customer service, citing long response times, unhelpful support, and issues with account management, including abrupt suspensions without clear communication. Concerns regarding the misleading nature of their refund policy have also emerged, leading to feelings of distrust among users. Overall, while the product quality is acknowledged, the lack of reliable customer support and transparency poses a considerable challenge to customer satisfaction.

This summary is generated by AI, based on text from customer reviews

service
24
value
21
shipping
4
returns
7
quality
20