Horrible support: How do i get support to respond to my email?

I opened a Parallels support incident over a month ago, and despite the promised response "within 3 business days" and several replies asking for status after that period was well gone support has yet to respond to my incident at all!

What do I have to do to get a response? I don't want to pay $30 to call them as I just want a refund for a product that does not work for me (machine panics anytime I try to install Windows XP Pro SP2 from a CD).

Here's the incident number:

[Parallels #169241]

 

I have no idea how to get anyone to "officially" respond to you, but there are hundreds of thousands of people using Parallels without kernel panics, so it is obviously something with your setup causing the problem.

People on these forums can help you if you give some details. Are you using a laptop or desktop? What version of OS X? What is installed that to your computer that is "after market" (i.e. did not come installed from Apple)?

Have you tried to completely uninstall Parallels and REBOOT? Then install the latest version and REBOOT, then installing XP? Parallels doesn't force a reboot after install, but it installs start-up items to run its DHCP server and this only activated after rebooting. Trying to install Windows without reboot can cause all kinds of problems.

Anyways, if you can post some specific info here, I'm sure someone can help. Yes, Parallels support is horrible, but the product is good.

 

I have to agree, support is horrible. 3 days promised response is a joke; 3 days came and went, and it didn't go as far as acknowledging the ticket (or the problem for that matter!).

Product *was* good. I loved running 2.5, however with 3.0 I now have a portable oven on my lap. Due to CPU hogging the laptop constantly runs between 70 and 80C.

 

In my opinion, a company with even the best products which doesn't answer emails (they never responded to my email support requests, either) will be short-lived.

Wake up, Parallels, and get yourself loyal customers! A company that breaks promises can't expect to survive, and VirtualBox is drawing more and more Parallels users, EVEN THOUGH it currently has less features than Parallels.

 

Brian, please see your private message list.

 

I have spent a month trying to get help with an hdd mess that has made my VM inaccessible. Buying phone support was a last resort, but of course they took my $29.99 and have not provided support. This appears to be a total gyp. In the last month I have spent more time trying to get Parallels to work than any other activity in my life except perhaps sleep, and I dream of struggling with this program. I was happy with my original Parallels, but then I made the mistake of buying Parallels 3

 

Hello Brian,
no mistake in purchasing Parallels Desktop 3.0! It is a great piece of software with more features, more fine tuning and with further OS integration than in 2.x. Today we are going to issue the public beta for the next release, you are welcome to try it out or just upgrade when the official release is out.
Please, let me know in PM if you have submitted any requests to our Customer Support.
Thank you!

 

Support? What support?

When version 3 of parallels came out, I contacted parallels by e-mail (June 4) to take them up on the offer I received for a year of free upgrades. I received no reply.
I wrote back on June 19 and still got no reply. Sometime in July, I called customer support and after waiting for an eternity I finally managed to speak to someone. She said no problem, took my e-mail and said she would send me the upgrade code. Needless to say, I never received such a code. On July 10 I wrote back, and still got no reply. It is now August 2 and I'm still waiting for a reply.

To say that parallels support is horrible is quite the understatement.

If I do not get a reply within the next week, I will contact the appropriate agencies to lodge a complaint concerning "fraud", since I was promised one year of free upgrades.

"Purchase Parallels Desktop for Mac by December 23rd 2006 and receive 1 year of FREE Full Version Upgrades for each purchased copy!"

If anyone from parallels actually bothers to read this, I would greatly appreciate it if you got in touch with me.

Thank you in advance

Jean

 

Me too!

I also have an open support ticket, hard KP when attempting to start a VM, [Parallels #186687]
no response worth using from these people. I am really fed up, testing VMWare Fusion beta now.

 

My hdd, then Parallels, then Element5 PROBLEM

I took advantage of the offer to replace my Parallels that was working fine after much tweaking with Parallels 3. After a week or two I was unable to access the VM that had all my PC data and programs on it because of the hdd error particular apparently to the build of Parallels 3 that I was using. I got a solution, marked "untested" or something like that, from the FAQ of Parallels. It was very complex and when I tried to put it in place I found many files would not open or were not where I was told to look for them. I wroted to customer service and after a day or so got the same complex set of directions. With more faith, I resolved some of the roadblocks and got farther down the line, but eventually was stuck. I wrote again to customer service. A week and a half went by with no answer. In the meantime, I worked with a different VM I had created with Parallels 1 that had Windows on it but no other programs. I installed various programs, some of which I had to go back to the supplier for new codes for. This was working, but I still wanted my old VM back, since it had old files and some programs I could not re-install.

On July 23 I decided to pay $29.99 for phone help, clearly indicated on the Parallels site. The amount was immediately deducted from by credit card and I began to get impersonal messages from Element 5 in Germany about the product I had ordered. None of these messages produced a phone number or anything like it. Trying to contact them produced more impersonal messages, but no phone number. Today I got a message telling me (for the 2nd time) that my credit card would show a charge for Elements 5 instead of Parallels.

A day after I ordered the phone help, Parallels customer service returned to the fray with a different approach to solve the wdd problem. Although my computer still had files in a different location from where customer service told me to look for them, I finally was able, I thought, to carry out the actions suggested. The only result was that I lost the second VM to the hdd problem.

I am really disgusted. In addition to having spent more than $150 on a nonworking program, I continue to spend hours on it, now mainly writing notes to Element 5 and Parallels customer service and Parallels at [email protected] and posting my problems on the Internet.

Like some of the others dismayed by their experience with Parallels, the idea of a lawsuit is beginning to look better and better.

 

Are there any alternative programs out there to Parallels? I'm pretty sick of getting jerked around by the over-promising and under delivering of this program. I bought parallels to run a simple nine year old game and a simple internet communication program and your software rarely goes more than ten minutes before crashing and needing to be restarted. I've continued to update, I got 3.0 and still the buggy trash you guys are peddling cannot do the simpliest of things. The graphics update you said you added to 3.0 is crap because it still cannot run any games released in the last few years. I've been posting and searching on your forums ever since I got your software but your company rarely has solutions and usually all the consumers get is silence or shrugs from other parallels users. This has been an incredibly frustrating experience.

 

You've made THREE posts, since you registered 12 days ago, and one of those three is this post asking who else makes virtulization products for the mac. Google can tell you that.

One of your other posts asks about playing Infantry Online with Ventrilo. Of course in that post you are using the not up to date version of Parallels Desktop. You state you are on build 4128 while 4560 is the up to date non beta build and 5060 is the current beta build. I'd love to help you with your problem, but vent runs fine for me so I am not sure what advice I can offer other than upgrade to one of the current builds.

Go with Steveamundo over to Fusion. I have purchased the half priced copy myself. Of course at the moment I cannot keep Fusion running for very long, I cannot print from it, it chews up waaaay too much processor power among numerous other issues reported on their support boards. I've purchased it in the hopes that one of these silly programs will finally become rock solid.

 

Wing, sorry bro but I've searching these forums for weeks, I only registered and started asking questions when I got frustrated enough to do so. I love how most problems go unanswered and then a company rep comes on so bright and cheery saying that they appreciate the comment yet nothings been done. I did update to 4560 and nothing changed, I still had the same problems.

Well I just jumped to Fusion which hasn't had nearly as many problems as Parallels and the graphics are much clearer, it doesn't crash, and actually runs games. This company can keep my $80 and I'll chalk it up as a lesson in stupidity to not research before I buy. Even people on the Titanic didn't think it was sinking until they saw fish. I am in no way associated with Fusion and I have nothing to gain from these posts. I'm just pissed off and angry at shilling money for an inferior product.

Good luck.

 

Well, we are nowhere close to "bright and cheery" when it comes to our customers' issues using our products and not reaching out for support. Once again - I encourage you to PM me your experience of contacting the Customer Service and I will see to it that you get responds regarding your requests.
I would also appreciate it if we stick to the facts, not emotions. We want communication with our customers on Parallels products. We need it.
Thanks!

 

Thanks. Sorry to be emotional, but it has been a hard three or four weeks trying to get this problem resolved.

This morning I got a third set of directions from Custormer Service, which all worked except for the last step. At the moment I have a working XP VM but it is virgin. All my old files and programs are still missing. I have asked for help from Customer Service regarding that last step. Maybe I did something wrong. I am good with most XP procedures, but still weak on iMac and also have trouble with some Parallels steps.

At the same time this morning, I got a note from Element 5 saying they are returning my $29.99. They did not explain why the promised phone help never arrived. I suggest that Parallels drops Element 5 and start its own phone support, even if they have to charge mor

 

Stan, here's a fact.

I have submitted a support request related to free upgrade on 6/12 (ticket #164335). After a couple of weeks of silence I (or rather my company) gave up and paid for the upgrade (honestly, I wish we haven't done it ... 3.0 is a dud compared to 2.5, but that's beyond the point of this post). I did receive a response to my original ticket ... on 7/31. That's right, it took 7 weeks to respond to such a simple question. I have submitted a separate support request a week ago, given it has to do with 3.0 performance, and therefore more complex, I hope to get a response by the end of 2008.

Seriously, you guys make a great product, even with all the shortcomings, but lack of support and openness in your communication make you look really bad compared to competitors.

 

Well, around that time we had fewer people and loads of requests and most disappointingly - a few technical difficulties. And I know for sure, that now our techsupport is going to get better and better everyday. Feel free to 'push' me if you do not receive a reply in a reasonable amount of time.
Thanks!

 

Stan,

I would like some help with upgrading to the newest 3.0 upgrade. I posted a comment about my problem, never received a reply and now I cannot find the post. It was posted less than a week ago and I followed it for a few days. Then it was gone.

I am getting this after the install. Parallels comes up and then I get this blue screen..

 

While I can't help you with your problem, I can help you find your original post. Click on the User CP tab at the top of the thread, and from the window it takes you to, click on 'view all subscribed threads'. As long as you are subscribed to threads you post in, the thread will be in the list.

 

I am a paid up customer with both Parallels Mac and Windows/Linux and VMware Mac and Windows. To date I've found Parallels slicker and VMware better supported and more solid. I actually want BOTH companies to succeed with their products and will likely continue to use both products. I hope that the issues with support are being resolved.