- Report: #1502845
Complaint Review: ProtonMail -
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ProtonMail
Sweden
Web:
protonmail.com
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ProtonMail Circular, robotic "support" and REFUSAL TO DELETE MY DATA
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.
