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ProtonMailReviews 48

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ProtonMail Reviews Summary

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
GB
1 review
4 helpful votes
Follow Astrid G.
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Abysmal email system
August 29, 2022

Unbelievably bad. It does the following

Sends emails without warning, as you write them.
Sends emails then saves - in sent mail - an earlier draft of the email than the one you actually sent, confusing you entirely.
Actually sends an earlier draft of the email than the one you pressed send on, confusing your recipients and occasionally causing massive trouble - eg that angry email you were drafting, the one you decided to tone down, and then rewrote so it was really calm and sensible, well protonmail sends the early angry draft! That's one relationship/business deal ruined - thanks protonmail!

Tiny storage capacities even on the lowest cost paid service, so you have to upgrade to a really expensive service
Outages, conks out, stalls, freezes, can't do stuff, has weird moments when it isn't functioning like an email service etc

Just a really, really bad, cataclysmically bad email service that has genuinely caused me to lose business due to all these mess ups above. It's not just me - have heard similar stories from lots of people.

Really sad, because people pay a lot hoping it will be a really good efficient service. And it's terrible.

Date of experience: August 29, 2022
Alabama
1 review
6 helpful votes
Follow Nichole L.
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PROTON USED OT BE GREAT! NOT ANYMORE!. OUR COMPANY STAFF HAS SEVERAL E MAIL ACCOUNTS, AND THEY CONSTANTLY GO DOWN AND WILL NOT ALLOW LOG IN! PLUS PHONEY FRADULENT SCAMMERS ARE TRYING TO CHARGE $ 1.0O FOR BULL$#*! HELP, JUST TO GET YOUR INFORMATION! DO NOT USE PROTON! THEY DO NOT RESPOND TO COMPLAINTS EITHER!

Date of experience: August 18, 2022
Luxembourg
1 review
7 helpful votes
Follow George T.
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Proton unlimited was everything I wanted. I subscribed for one month in order to try it. I was planning to replace Google with proton, but this is impossible. The result was that I would still have to use Google or Microsoft and proton. So what's the point? The main problem comes with contacts. You cannot use your contacts in anything else other than your protonmail. Whatsapp, signal messenger, messages, phone calls you have to use a different contact list. So this whole amazing package crumbles down... To something quite insignificant, secondary, replaceable... Basically irrelevant to my initial task.

However, the worst experience was that I could not stop my subscription and their support was not helpful. I subscribed on purpose for one month in order to avoid such a problem. However, there is auto renewal in place, they do not allow me to downgrade for some reason and the support is not helping either.

I can now also tell you the reason I cannot downgrade: it is because of the better proton drive. If you have quota - used megabytes - you first have to delete and then downgrade. After deleting everything in my proton drive, it's still shows quote used: 42 GB. The support knows this is a defect. They have told me so in the emails we exchanged. They know it is their fault I cannot stop my subscription. And they still provide no help, which obviously leads me to believe they use the very same cheap e-commerce tactics, US companies used 20 years ago...

Date of experience: August 18, 2022
Slovakia
1 review
5 helpful votes
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They are monitoring all your activity and after a while youare just become a message like this when logging on: This account has been suspended due to a potential policy violation. If you believe this is in error, please contact us at https://proton.me/support/abuse. After contacting: Please note that your account was found to be in connection with another account disabled for violations done to our Terms of Service. That means: "Big Brother watching you" They will close you email accont if you send a message to persons that violating their terms of service. All of my contacts, stored keys, loging options to services as second mail are gone. Not worth get mail service from this paranoiacs.

Date of experience: August 12, 2022
California
3 reviews
5 helpful votes
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I've had to email the team a few times and they're always been responsive. Their email service is quick and easy to use, I'm even starting to use their VPN service. All in all I dont have anything I can fault them with so far.

Date of experience: July 10, 2022
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
Virginia
2 reviews
16 helpful votes
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No Refund.
June 5, 2022

I purchased a year subscription thinking I could review it and if I didn't like it, cancel it. After trying it for 30 minutes, it did not fill my needs so I canceled it. They refuse to refund me and instead gave me credit. Don't trust a company that will not refund your subscription, especially after using it for 30 minutes.

Date of experience: June 5, 2022
Ireland
1 review
8 helpful votes
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Shocking Customer Service
June 3, 2022

Shocking. Absolutely shocking service. As a customer since 2018 this will be the year I leave.
There could easily have been a solution but no one would bother to help. Disgraceful

Was paying for professional EMAIL and a few euro for VPN.
INSTEAD OF PUTTING ME ON THE CORRESPONDING personal plan which is unlimited I was moved Up to a business plan.
This is absolutely disgusting behaviour and could easily have been solved by removing the completely unnecessary VPN plus membership plan as it's no longer needed (as it's now part of the unlimited plan) I have been put on a plan costing €230 every two years.

This is not how a business should gouge their customers for extra money.
Unbelievably disappointed in a company I respected so much. I'll
Be exporting my mail and leaving asap.

Date of experience: June 3, 2022
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
California
1 review
6 helpful votes
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Proton asks me WHEN the LAST email I EVER made was and needs precision answers... 6 months who can answer that with precision how about I'll show you id and prove the card used was mine. They have assisted in taking my money and not giving me the services o paid for... NEVER PAY FOR A PROTON EMAIL. THEY WILL RIPYOU OFF AND NOT RETURN IT

Date of experience: March 25, 2022
Michigan
1 review
11 helpful votes
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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
Missouri
1 review
10 helpful votes
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My experience with ProtonMail started off very well. I liked feeling that my email was more secure, although I wasn't sure if it really was more secure based on other things I've read. Regardless, things were fine until a few weeks in when my 2FA was no longer sending codes to my cell phone when I tried to login into my account.

So, I submitted a ticket to customer service which replied that I would receive a response in 1-2 days. Well, it's been 4 days, and there are very important emails I need to get to. I've contacted them a few more times and heard nothing. I have used many email providers, and this by far is the worst experience I've ever had. I am surprisingly disappointed with Protonmail and am changing to a new email provider.

Date of experience: January 25, 2022
North Carolina
3 reviews
13 helpful votes
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Zero customer service.
January 6, 2022

Non stop problems with protonmail. For starters my attorney was sending me documents and I could never open them with protonmail. I could forward the email to gmail and it would open with no problem but protonmail couldn't open them. When I open the software another window opens over it and I have to close that window to be able to see my emails. I have contacted customer service and they take literally weeks to respond and offer nothing useful except asking for screenshots which I provide. I am looking for another service at this time because all the privacy in the world amounts to nothing if you can't open attachments. I give it a big F.

Date of experience: January 6, 2022
Australia
1 review
13 helpful votes
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Support is non existent
November 16, 2021

I'm a new user and I signed up multiple accounts with Protonmail which is apparently not allowed, my fault for missing that bit and for not reading everything on the screen. But as soon as I got an email (sent by a bot) stating that my account is under watch for being one of the multiple accounts, I immediately went into salvage mode. I logged onto the platforms that I use Protonmail for and started changing emails and closing down the excessive protonmail accounts. But before I could finish it, all the protonmail accounts are suspended. This was within the 10 minutes when I was trying to close those accounts. No support that reach out to me personally to ask, nothing. The accounts were closed. I wrote in an inquiry about this more than 2 weeks ago now, no response.

Just awful. I get that I violated their policy but I was not aware of it and I acted on the information as soon as I'm aware of, they didn't give me enough time and they did not reach out to me at all to work out a solution together. I can't do anything with one of the platforms because my email is suspended, and I'm stucked here. It's stupidly unnecessary and it just shows where their priority lies, not the customers obviously.

So you've been warned, if you are planning on using the free service and are prepared to pay for this eventually, keep in mind that you're paying to a business that does very little to communicate with their users.

Date of experience: November 16, 2021
Netherlands
61 reviews
98 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
California
1 review
12 helpful votes
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No Customer Service
August 25, 2021

Bad experience. I have tried to log in to my email account and it will not work or accept my password. I am positive that I am using the correct password. I contacted their Customer Support to reset my account or any other advisable solution. The CS communications that I received back through another Email account just keeps repeating the same things over and over and over again. I have answered as many security questions as best as I can. They still give me the same run around and apparently don't even read the full context of my messages sent to them over this problem.

They will ask the same repetitive questions over and over and over. One of the questions they ask - what is the exact date that you last logged in? A lot of us can't remember a specific date with so many online accounts that most people have now. Many of us for security reasons do not store our browsing history dates or logons in a browser history. In my case, the Proton email which I rarely used, was last logged into more than several months ago. No way I am going to remember all of that. I supplied all other information correctly that they requested along with my concerns that the account might have been compromised - yet they still responded back with the same generic Blah Blah over and over again.

I know it was not wise of me to provide a recovery email at the time I created the account several years ago. I get all that, however, the Proton CS is not helpful at all and apparently could care less if the account got compromised. Too much hacking and potential security breaches now in this time we are living in. Proton should either reset it or if needed eliminate the account altogether. My biggest concern and the primary request for the reset was for the potential of being compromised and specifically identity theft. The account was strictly used only for credit reports or consumer reports.

Bottom line is, if you need to contact them over login problems or requesting a reset, forget about any real CS solution. This experience has really left a bad impression with me, not so much over Proton email, but the lack of any real Customer Service. For this reason I wouldn't recommend them for any Email service - free or paid.

I am not impressed with their customer support, lack of action and definitely no concern on their part.

Date of experience: August 25, 2021
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
Philippines
2 reviews
4 helpful votes
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Securest Email
January 15, 2021

This is the only email service that never locked me out of my own account, never asked me to answer those sh! Tty captcha challenges and still kept my mails 101% secure and encrypted. PGP keys adds extra layer of protection.

Date of experience: January 14, 2021
New Jersey
23 reviews
40 helpful votes
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It's perfect for me
September 15, 2020

I literally get no spam email and I feel like I get complete privacy due to strict Swiss privacy laws.
I don't understand the negative reviews.
I don't ever want to go back to gmail.

Date of experience: September 15, 2020
GB
1 review
26 helpful votes
Follow F O.
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Protonmail has done so wrong that I am writing a review about it to save others from damages. Personally, I have had the worst customer service of my life for a paid account. Their responses weren't even to the specific questions, to the point I thought bots were responding. I should have run then. Almost did, but just put up with it in the interest of privacy and time.
Finally, like others, my account got blocked although I had made payments. They did not return my money and I am still waiting for my account to reopen. I sent multiple emails over days, but have yet to receive a reply. It's been such an extreme case, that I decided to do a little legwork and found so many people complaining about losing access to their email for some reason or other. This happens, but what doesn't happen is the extreme bad response you get, if any, from their customer service for paying customers. I am writing this to say buyer beware. I wish I had known before they caused me damages. After doing some research, I have now happily switched to another email provider. I won't mention the name in case anyone thinks I wrote this to plug someone else, but just do your homework and you'll find competitive options. Protonmail is not the only show in town, but it is one of the most poorly run email providers and certainly the only one that has received such extreme, bad reviews from paying customers.

Date of experience: August 31, 2020

About the business

ProtonMail is the world's largest secure email service, developed by CERN and MIT scientists. We are open source and protected by Swiss privacy law


protonmail.com
Founded in 2013
Geneva, Switzerland, Geneva, Switzerland, Switzerland