Request # *******
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Monday, 05 April 2024:

Here the official message from their Proton Mail Abuse Team:

"We can see that your account was reported and disabled due to unsolicited and spammy messaging.

These actions are not allowed on our service and are strictly against our terms.

Please explain your actions and provide us with details about the purpose of your account, so our team can reassess this case and assist you further." -

No forewarning, strikes, etc., nothing, my entire account access was suspended immediately.

No word about who reported, which message(s), when, frequency, etc., nothing.

Not innocent until proven guilty, not able to face the accuser, no due process. -

I did not sent any group, list, etc. type of e-mails.

I only sent individual e-mails to persons, organizations, etc. that I am directly engaged with and/or transacting with.

I am using webmail since over 30 years, and 4 years ago switched to a paid and supposedly more private & secure Proton Mail account.

None of my e-mail accounts have ever been suspended. -

I am a professional & international traveler, and literally my private & work life depends on this e-mail address; incl. Work, travel, visa, finance, etc.

I am devastated and stranded.

Help please.

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Saturday, 06 April 2024:

In a follow-up e-mail marked as urgent I asked Proton Mail to restore viewing access to my account so that I can at least continue monitoring my inbox while transitioning my work & private affairs to an alternative e-mail provider.

I also asked them if they could please assist me to defend myself against this fraudulent or erroneous spam reporting.

No response.

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Sunday, 07 April 2024:

Still no response from Proton and/or at least e-mail viewing access to vital personal e-mail data.

Proton's apparent list of priorities:

1. Somebody somewhere filing a fraudulent or triggering an erroneous spam report about something.

2. Proton company concerned about their domain name reputation.

5. Proton customer loyal, paying, promoting and without any history of any issues over all the years.

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Monday, 08 April 2024:

Here the official response from their Proton Mail Abuse Team:

"Thank you for your explanation.

Note that we can't disclose how our anti-spam system works, for security reasons; in this particular case, we have proceeded with your request and have restored access to your account.

If you need additional assistance, do reach out." -

Given the above response from the Proton team I have bumped up the rating for this review from very negative to neutral. -

During the next couple of days I will also follow-up with them as to:

1. Why they cannot or do not want disclose what had just happened in my particular case, so that at least there is a learning curve for both sides, and so that such an unacceptable situation can be prevented in the future?

2. Whether there are currently any workarounds and/or solutions; e.g.

2.1 Using a custom personal domain name in my e-mail address in case the Proton team is very concerned about the cleanliness of their own proprietary domain names.

2.2 Using Proton and/or public tools which can (pre-)scan e-mails for potential spam violations.

2.3 Using Proton and/or public tools which can assist in the cleanup of spam blacklists.

2.4 etc.

3. Whether there is potential for future process improvements; e.g.

3.1. Including the Proton Mail customer into their own internal automated Proton anti-spam system workflow, similar to how companies like Facebook are organized in case of potential media copyright violations (e.g. Audio posted together with a video clip), so that there is an automated collaboration before an entire account is being shut down.

3.2. Etc.

For now, back to work, catching up with my e-mail inbox...;-)...

Worse...

Absolutely terrible. Refuses to delete an account I've already said that I won't be using, due to its utter lack of user-friendliness and absence of very basic features.

Would you believe I've been in contact with "support," trying to understand how to delete emails, for SEVEN DAYS? They've only offered one single response to a ticket on any given day.

I partially completed an import from Gmail, and wanted to dump the inbox/imports, since even a small percentage of what was in Gmail used almost all of my storage.

They claim they can't dump the email on their end. And they refuse to just delete the account.

They claim that the only way to delete 18,000+ EMAILS in total is if *I* do it -- by deleting them FIFTY EMAILS AT A TIME, going PAGE BY PAGE:

***Yes, they expect me to delete 366 PAGES of emails one at a time -- EIGHTEEN THOUSAND individual messages!***

Who has time for this? How ridiculously inconvenient and unreasonable.

Further, I've consistently gotten different wrong answers from different "support" reps on the same issues on something as simple as what happens when email addresses are deleted. In my view, they don't even seem to care that I HAD a concern, and they certainly didn't go out of their way at all to actually help you.

Ex: The very first rep I was talking to about the issue, Borislav... I had to keep suggesting different options TO HIM to see if they'd work. He'd just tell me, (paraphrasing): "No, you can't do that. That won't work. No. Do this very time-consuming thing (described above). Sorry, out of luck."

Very lackadaisical and un-useful.

I completely wash my hands of ProtonMail. On Dec. 9,2020, I told them that I don't even want a free account any more. I requested a refund and complete cancellation, along with deletion of my data from their servers.

However, they demand that I "downgrade" the account to free... by deleting 18,000+ messages manually... *so that* they can delete the account.

How does this make sense? Why is my request so confusing?

THEY REFUSE TO DELETE MY DATA, saying that they "can't" unless I delete 18,000+ messages manually. That's complete and utter nonsense.

If I run a company, OF COURSE I/we can delete ANY user's data, even if I/we have to go to the database / server level to do it.

So they, and I quote (from their Terms), "reserve the right to suspend or delete accounts that are inactive for over three months"... but they will NOT delete your data if you REQUEST that they do?

I thought this company's foremost interest was the privacy of my data?

I was trying to get my family on ProtonMail. I'm so glad I encountered these inane issues *before* I got others entangled with them by referring clients to them and doing article write-ups. I'd hate for anyone else to go through this circular, time wasting nonsense.

DISCRIMINATION AND FRAUD BY PROTONAMIL!
A. Why have you failed to allow me access to my old emails, holding them at ransom? The issue regarding charge back is settled.
B. Are you legally allowed to hold and stop a user from viewing the old emails?
As previously, you have discriminated against me and my request for. You to make reasonable adjustments under the Equalities Act 2010 and respond behind each point i raised.
1. Why are you not allowing me access to my old emails?
2. Why have you failed to provide any higher level complaints or anyone outside of Protonmail that i can complain too? Someone must oversee you or there must be an ombidsman? Or some governing body?
3. You had my money for over five weeks. Why did you fail to provide a service within that time?
4. The charge back was initiated after nearly six weeks, when i raised a dispute to paypal. Within which time you failed to respond to them, why did you allow this time to pass without a response?
5. You also had several tickets/issues raised why i was not receiving my allowance, when i did pay, why did you fail to respond?
6. The above has occured because of protonmail. The issue is Protonmails fault! Protonmail should pay the fees in which you are requesting. Why should i pay fees for something you have created? Confirm you will pay the fees and I will consider my account?
7. Provide here, your higher level complaints.
8. Rather than trying to charge me for a problem you have created. Most companies would be apologise for the inconvenience caused. If you had paid for example your electric and it wasnt supplied for five weeks and you contacted the company several times, but they failed to respond and you done a charge back. But now they want you to pay an additional fee to put you service back on. Plus they are not allowing you the heater or equivalent to that of me retrieving my old emails. What would you say to these exact events. Companies not acting or providing a service.
9. I have asked several times for my contract... provide it here! Your guidelines where it specifically states doing a charge back relates to FRAUD as you have noted on my account. Can you provide these details here and nowhere else?
10. What gives you the right to not allow me access to my previous emails?

Proton email promises security and non-disclosure, but if you ask for complaints about safety you will read the distraut people who have trusted this site. Besides this fact, emails are erased, documents removed. Emails you sent may never arrive, emails you receive may never load. Is it always like this? No, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't but who can count on something like that?.

Once you sent several emails say to John Doe, it all clumps together (it seems nice and clever at first but the problem is that you won't be able to unfold the other emails, most likely one or two, then the 'sent' file does not register what you sent, the list goes on and on as Protonmail is by far the most disfunctional email I ever had.

Nevertheless, had they not hacked my computer, I probably would not be writing this review.

After I told I was not renewing my subscription (Overall this was a horrible service the worst I ever had or heard, but I sent a nice "thank you letter for their service") in response Protonmail erased 3 pages of old emails I had with their service, but I was rarely using proton because of all the technical problems including inability to mark "Spam" or Junk ( which means if a 'seller' gets your email you can't get rid of them, unless you contact them and perhaps after one million times, they agree to remove you from their list).

Never did I think that by telling Protonmail I would not renew, their hackers would damage my computer. I had about 10 emails with documents from my attorney (they had erased 3 pages AFTER I told them I would not renew my subscription, but since proton doesn't work properly I never thought it was an act of revenge for not renewing the email and then I made a fatal mistake:

I FORWARDED my attorney's email that were in the Proton account to my regular email account (I wasn't sure I needed to do that because I had over 100 documents from my attorney sored in my regular email and certainly would have a copy of those from Proton, as well, but just in case I didn't, I chose to forwarded it).

Now Protonmail criminals not only had access to my account, they knew I only forwarded those particular emails (which means it was important to me) and they also new now my private email and the email from my attorney.

Now Protonmail thugs and hackers erased all the documents from my attorney from another account, my private account.

Those are one of the most dangerous people on the web and to think they have my IP number and even my private email address and a free access to my computer? I'm sure I'll be receiving their visit again but, I'm beefing up security.

Proton technicians are cyber criminals who access your computer with your permission and with a fee, only to hack and destroy your computer if you don'r renew their failing services.