| VPN | PureVPN |
| Based in | Hong Kong |
| Logs | No logs |
| Price | $6.49/mo. |
| Support | Email and Chat |
| Refund | 31 days |
| Website | PureVPN.com |
I went into this PureVPN review with high hopes. Sure, PureVPN has had a rough few years with faulty apps, mediocre performance, and a scandal involving collecting using data for the FBI while claiming to be “no logs” — but maybe they’ve turned things around. Maybe?
So I thought.
In this PureVPN review, I ran the service through extensive testing and then analyzed all aspects of the VPN to help you decide if this VPN is worth your money. Unfortunately, the test results weren’t pretty. Speeds were inconsistent and slow, the VPN apps were plagued with bugs and connection errors, and the overall quality seems to have gotten worse since I conducted the PureVPN review last year.
So let’s start out with an overview before we get into the weeds.
PureVPN overview in 2022
Here is a brief overview of my findings for this PureVPN review.
+ Pros
- Cheap one week trial
- Live chat support
– Cons
- PureVPN connection problems (not connecting)
- Inconsistent and slow speeds
- Expensive prices for long-term subscriptions
- DNS leaks
- Clunky VPN apps
- PureVPN logged user data for the FBI
- Does not work well with Netflix
Additional research findings
- Run by Gaditek in Pakistan (with Ivacy VPN)
- Does PureVPN work well for torrenting?
- PureVPN comparisons
PureVPN Pros
Here are the Pros of PureVPN.
PureVPN one week trial
With PureVPN, you can get a cheap one-week trial for only 99 cents. That’s not too bad. The one-week trial is boldly advertised on their homepage, so it seems to be the preferred option to acquire new customers.
I checked the refund policy and if you are not happy with the trial, you can still request a refund.
But there’s a problem. After the trial expires, you are locked in to an expensive subscription at $6.49 per month (we’ll discuss this more below in the Cons section).
So while this is not a normal free trial VPN where you don’t pay anything, it is still a discounted trial offer.
PureVPN has live chat support
Another good thing about PureVPN is the live chat support. However, this is common with the top VPN services. Live chat is available 24/7 and accessible through the PureVPN website in the bottom-right corner.
I tested out PureVPN’s chat support and I was quickly connected to a representative.
Overall, the chat representatives were pretty responsive and helpful with random questions I had.
Now let’s move on to the cons…
PureVPN Cons
Here are some of the cons I found in testing and researching PureVPN.
Connection problems (PureVPN unable to connect)
With the latest round of testing for this PureVPN review, I ran into a regular problem. The problem was PureVPN not connecting to the servers. In other words, I clicked the connect button and after a long time the VPN would time out and eventually return an error message.
Above you can see I was getting the message, “Unable to connect to remote server” at the top of the app. This occurred with many servers I tested.
Another connection problem I had with PureVPN is that it would apparently connect, but there would not be any bandwidth (100% packet loss). I’m not certain what was causing these connection problems with PureVPN.
PureVPN slow speeds
On the PureVPN website, they boldly claim to be “the fastest VPN service ever!“
I tested these claims with a 500 Mbps internet connection – and the results were not very good.
Here was a PureVPN server in the United States, giving me only 59 Mbps.
Not a good start. This is under 12% of my baseline connection speed.
Next, I tested a PureVPN server in Canada. Once again, the speeds were not very good at only 39 Mbps.
This is about under 8% of my baseline speed. It’s clear that PureVPN is not the best VPN for Canada with performance like this.
In addition to the slow download speeds, you can also see that latency, or ping, was unusually high. Ping should have been lower given my location in the United States. With slow pings, PureVPN would not be a good VPN for gaming.
Next I tested PureVPN servers in the UK, and the results were similar. Here was a PureVPN server in London at only 18 Mbps.
So these speed tests are only getting worse with PureVPN. While servers that are further from my physical location can be slower, they should not be this slow.
Comparison with NordVPN
To show you a quick comparison, let’s take a look at NordVPN. Here is a NordVPN server in the UK with speeds of 295 Mbps:
You can see that NordVPN blows PureVPN out of the water in terms of performance.
Now let’s see how fast NordVPN was with a server in the United States. Here I’m testing a NordVPN server in Seattle and getting 445 Mbps.
It’s clear that PureVPN has a lot of catching up to do. It is nowhere near the speeds you will get with top-performing VPNs, as you can see in our NordVPN vs ExpressVPN report.
Why is PureVPN slow?
Many VPNs invest money in high-end server infrastructure that can deliver the fastest VPN speeds to their users. This may explain why PureVPN is slow: they are not running the best servers with sufficient bandwidth for their user base.
After the trial: expensive prices and limited payment options
Further up in this PureVPN review we commended the cheap free trial option. We noted, however, that the price jumps up after the trial is over. Notice the fine print in the image below:
As soon as the free trial is over, prices jump up to $6.49 per month. This is certainly not a good cheap VPN by any stretch of the imagination. And the prices for the 6-month and 1-month plans are even worse. Of course, there are VPNs that are more expensive, such as ExpressVPN and Perfect Privacy, but they don’t trick you with a cheap free trial.
For a VPN under $4 per month, you can check out Surfshark or NordVPN.
And speaking of prices, here is another issue I noticed…
Limited payment options
At the time of this PureVPN review, there are only two options for payment: PayPal or credit card.
If you want to pay for your VPN using Bitcoin, gift cards, or other cryptocurrency, there are better options available. For example, both CyberGhost and NordVPN support Bitcoin payments.
PureVPN refund policy
If you want a refund on your PureVPN subscription, you have 31 days to claim it. This 31-day refund window is pretty good. Here are the PureVPN refund terms:
If you aren’t satisfied with PureVPN’s service for any reason whatsoever, then you can claim a refund within 31 days of your order date.
Remember, we will first try to resolve your issue successfully before processing the refund request.
The refund policy also references certain payment methods that are not refundable, such as Google Pay. Proceed with caution.
PureVPN and DNS leaks
In previous PureVPN reviews, I found the apps to suffer from data leaks, particularly IPv6 leaks.
So let’s see how PureVPN did in the latest review.
Before running any tests, I ensured that all leak protection settings were activated, as you can see below:
Ok, so we should theoretically not find any leaks with PureVPN at this point with all leak protection settings activated. Next, I ran the PureVPN Windows app through some basic VPN tests.
Here you can see I’m connected to a UK PureVPN server, but I was getting DNS leaks, whereby my DNS requests were getting out of the VPN tunnel and being handled by my ISP. This exposes my browsing history and general location to third parties.
Note: These were active leaks when the connection was stable.
To identify leaks, I ran tests changing up the following variables:
- Connecting to different PureVPN servers, including virtual locations
- Changing the “mode” I was using “Security / Privacy, Stream, Internet Freedom, etc.
- Changing up the protocol
I did not find DNS leaks with every server, protocol, and “mode” that I tested, but there were some clear cases where DNS requests were leaking out. This undermines the effectiveness of the VPN, while also exposing your data to third parties.
PureVPN’s clunky VPN apps
VPN apps should not crash, stall out, or require you to start the Task Manager to force quit the program. Unfortunately, with PureVPN, the VPN apps simply do not function well.
For example, server selection can very very tedious:
- First you need to select which “mode” you want to be in. You can choose from Stream, Internet Freedom, Security / Privacy, File-Sharing, and Dedicated IP.
- Servers will then appear in a jumbled order based on Ping times. This can make it frustrating to choose the server you need.
Here I am again having server connection problems, but you can also see the servers are listed by country and not in alphabetical order.
Depending on which “mode” you are using, choosing a server based on the city may not even be possible.
On a positive note, the PureVPN app does have an option to search for a specific server.
PureVPN logged user data for the FBI
As we have covered before here on Restore Privacy, PureVPN is an example of a VPN that was caught logging user data and handing this data over to the FBI.
For years, PureVPN has claimed to have a “zero log policy” and not keep any data. However, in 2017, news broke that PureVPN had not only logged user data, they had also provided this data to the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) for a criminal case. The records of this were made public.
There was quite a bit of attention on PureVPN after this case came out. PureVPN claimed it was a limited event, however, but there’s no telling if that is true.
It’s also interesting to note that this all transpired despite PureVPN being based in Hong Kong with no legal obligation to comply with US authorities.
PureVPN completes no-logs audit
In an attempt to revive trust, PureVPN has completed a third-party no logs audit. The audit was conducted by Altius IT in June 2019. The auditors’ report confirms that PureVPN now conforms with their no-logs policy and privacy protection procedures.
Will this help to salvage PureVPN’s reputation and the damage caused by the logging case and cooperation with the FBI? Only time will tell.
PureVPN does not work well with Netflix
Unfortunately for those wanting to stream their favorite movies, PureVPN does not work well with Netflix.
The key problem I encountered when testing PureVPN with Netflix was buffering. Although I found that PureVPN could access American Netflix (not blocked), I did have buffering problems due to slow speeds.
Below I am in “Stream” mode while connected to one of PureVPN’s US servers. As you can see, Netflix is not blocked, but the speeds were so slow that the stream was buffering (spinning red circle).
The Netflix buffering issue seemed to occur randomly.
For these reasons, I would recommend going with a reliable VPN for Netflix (not PureVPN).
Firestick – Many people use the Amazon Firestick or Fire TV to stream content from various sources. Loading a VPN on Firestick will allow you to access streams that may be geo-restriced. PureVPN offers a Firestick app, but the slow speeds will still be a problem.
And speaking of Amazon, you may be wondering if PureVPN is the best VPN for Amazon Prime. The answer is no, it didn’t work well in our tests here, either.
Additional research findings:
Below are additional findings from my research of PureVPN for this review.
PureVPN, Gaditek and Pakistan (with Ivacy VPN)
According to PureVPN’s website, it is officially operated under the business GZ Systems Limited. For years, this VPN was based in Hong Kong. Today, however, it is based in the British Virgin Islands, like we see with ExpressVPN.
If you dig a bit deeper, you will find a company called Gaditek, based in Karachi, Pakistan. PureVPN appears to be owned and operated by Gaditek, which lists PureVPN as one of its brands:
Whether PureVPN is operated in Pakistan does not really matter from a legal perspective, since the company is legally based in the British Virgin Islands, which is the jurisdiction it falls under.
There are also people who allege that Gaditek (PureVPN) is operating a network of VPN review sites, where PureVPN is consistently ranked as the top recommendation. See this report for further information.
Is Ivacy a rebranded version of PureVPN?
For many years there have been rumors (and lots of evidence) that Ivacy is a rebranded (white label) version of PureVPN. This would not be too surprising since PureVPN offers a white label version of their product, which they advertise on their website.
Finally, in March 2019, Ivacy staff officially admitted that PureVPN has “minor stakes” in Ivacy.
This isn’t too uncommon, however, as there are other VPNs that appear to be independent but are owned by the same entity:
- This article in PCMag describes how j2 Global owns IPVanish, StrongVPN, and Encrypt.me.
- I learned that the parent company of CyberGhost VPN (Kape) also owns ZenMate VPN and Private Internet Access.
Does PureVPN work well for torrenting?
Many people are looking for a safe, reliable, and fast VPN for torrenting. This is because torrenting is often a grey area (depending on what you are torrenting) and this can put you at risk for copyright infringement.
So is PureVPN a good option for torrenting?
I would argue no. PureVPN is not a good VPN for torrenting when you examine the three criteria from above:
- Safe – PureVPN suffers from data leaks, which can expose your activities to your internet provider, and other third parties, such as copyright trolls. It only takes one leaked packet to expose your identity and online activities.
- Reliable – PureVPN is not very reliable and suffers from connection problems.
- Fast – PureVPN is certainly not fast, based on my own test results.
Considering these factors, PureVPN is not a good VPN for torrenting. You may want to consider other options.
PureVPN comparisons
For those who are interested in seeing how PureVPN compared to some of our other top-rated VPNs, we have a few comparison reports.
First up is our NordVPN vs PureVPN comparison. In this report we see that NordVPN beat out PureVPN in all speed tests, while also offering more secure applications, better support for Netflix, and a cheaper price. NordVPN was the big winner here.
Second, we also have a PureVPN vs ExpressVPN comparison. While PureVPN came out slightly cheaper, ExpressVPN had much faster speeds, butter streaming support, more reliable apps, and a much better track record. It’s clear that ExpressVPN came out on top.
That’s it for PureVPN comparisons, but we have many other VPN comparisons if you are interested.
PureVPN review conclusion
When I began working on this PureVPN review I wondered it the service was improving over previous years. I must conclude that the answer is no. PureVPN lags behind the other market leaders in performance, security, and reliability.
While there are a few positive aspects of PureVPN, it is not a VPN I can recommend after testing it for this review.
Alternatives to PureVPN
Click the VPN name below to read our full review – or grab the discount for the best savings. All three of these VPNs have a 30 day money-back guarantee.
You can also check out our guide on the Best VPN for other recommendations.
If you have used PureVPN, feel free to share your honest review (good or bad) below.
This PureVPN review was last updated on January 6, 2022.
I’ve been a customer of theirs for many years. Their service and support has always been flakey. The last 3 or 4 years weren’t too bad. They recently released an update and won’t allow you to use an older version. It has issues and was causing my pc to lag and lock up. Support people said sorry for the inconvenience and said there was nothing they could do. There is something else odd going on when you run the new version. The app is generating network traffic on its own. Traffic to and from multiple sites owned by amazon and google. Not just a little. Every 10 seconds there is 1 Mbps of traffic that last 3 to 4 seconds. From 30 to 70 tcp connections to google and amazon. I asked support why is this traffic there? They wouldn’t answer and changed the subject. My guess is they are
making money selling our information to Google and Amazon.
Your article isn’t too old, only 6 months but I see PureVPN lists themself as being British Virgin Islands
PureVPN, brand of GZ Systems Limited Intershore Chambers P.O Box 4342, Road Town, Tortola, British Virgin Islands
Company Registration No: 2039934
But if they’ve handed over data to the FBI when they didn’t have to, that’s a non-starter.
I know right?
PureVPN Proxy – Best VPN for Chrome collects the following:
1. Personally identifiable information:
– For example: name, address, email address, age, or identification number;
2. Authentication information:
– For example: passwords, credentials, security question, or personal identification number (PIN);
3. Location:
– For example: region, IP address, GPS coordinates, or information about things near the user’s device;
PureVPN, thank you for your collection service… Just awesome! ))
I dumped PureVPN today. I’ve used them for years. They are dirt cheap if you buy multi-year subscriptions. They have never been great but I used them almost exclusively for torrents.
As reported in other posts their version 8 app was absolute garbage. I should have just stayed with version 7. There was no downgrade available either.. The new version 9 app is even worse! Avast!, Avira, and Defender are reporting the presence of malware and are uninstalling the application. When I contacted PureVPN support they claimed it’s a false positive and gave me instructions to circumvent protection. Um, NO WAY.
So today I signed up with Surfshark based partly on the review from this site. Whoa! It beats the sh out of Pure. Torrents are at least 10X faster, surfing is like lightening by comparison, and you can use any location for P2P/torrents.
Don’t waste your time. Go somewhere else. Perhaps someday they’ll improve but that day isn’t today.
I use ExpressVPN, but Surfshark and NordVPN are good options too, a bit cheaper + more features.
I’ve used Surfshark for two years and have zero complaints but now need a Dedicated IP. Sadly, they don’t offer them.
Don’t waste your money, had nothing but problems with PUREVPN. Can’t use computer properly when PUREVPN is connected.
Date: June 1, 2022
IF YOU PAID WITH PAYPAL MAKE SURE YOU ACCESS YOUR PAYPAL ACCOUNT AND “CANCEL” THE AUTOMATIC PAYMENT…OTHERWISE YOU WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY RE-BILLED…….giving them more $ you have to get refunded!
Subscription with AirVPN expired , best feature is Port Forwarding (torrenting requires this). Felt to look around and consider another provider. AirVPN is good but interface is a bit wonky (requires way more configuration than the simple providers like NordVPN. Found PureVPN and bought 2 year THROUGH MY PAYPAL ACCOUNT (always buy this way if you can as merchants are fast to refund not wanting to upset Paypal).
I have not asked for refund at this time, technically the service works fast with WireGuard. (but if I saw these reviews prior to purchase…then I would NOT have purchased PureVPN). Will work with the service short time and then likely back to AirVPN
Pros:
-port forwarding on the website
-offers the WireGuard for fast browsing speeds.
-offers the Split Tunneling so you can use VPN with only specific apps
Cons:
Split tunneling does not work with Wireguard protocol in their app, so this forces to use vpn over all the apps/browsers/torrent then if you are in US (your country) and some websites won’t allow access, then you have to turn off PureVPN completely to access those sites.
The other protocols UPN, TCP, IKEv2 are very slow but do work with Split Tunneling.
WireGuard protocol will knock out your wireless printer, Printer disconnects – Printer does not work – Printer unavailable. The printer that you see with normal usage will not appear until you turn off PureVPN or choose another protocol.
They scam. Not possible stop subscription. I block they in bank for on-line transaction 3 times. 4th time they made it throug off-line transaction. Absolutle scam. They have special brocken cancel form and they primise in chat and e-mail about this some error and subscription they cancel manualy but you still receive attempts to widraw money from your card account.
Your comments are very generous, PureVPN is much worse.
I have had PureVPN for almost a tedious year and I can say in all truth and honesty that I have spent more time getting it to work than surfing. I have written to support unsuccessfully over a 100 times.
Before commenting on past issues let me offer two of the latest:
1. I have my App set to auto logon on boot. It used to work but now with the latest App it goes to a “logon or create an account” screen which opens the browser (not in the App), you log in and all it offers (without any explanation) is a checkbox with “always use this app” or “choose another” app in a form which doesn’t identify the site has anything to do with PureVPN and site and looks like a nameless virus site.
2. They have just introduced “Quantum Resistant Servers”. I believe you have to assume that refers to quantum computing resistant servers which (taking into account there is no quantum computer on the market which can threaten a server) clearly cannot exist as no one knows what specifications commercial quantum computers will have when they do arrive and when they do arrive not even a super computer will be able to resist them.
They have proudly introduced these “QR” servers around about 12 locations which I have tested and not one worked. Their app failed to connect to any of them showing error 8054. Most importantly for me, three are at locations I use most as they are about the only 3 I can get to work and now they are dead.
On questioning the above, apparently, they can’t figure out a response.
My first failure with PureVPN was on installing it. It simply didn’t work. I discovered that the app installs with IPv-6 engaged even though it can’t use IPv-6, only IPv-4. I told them this and told them to include it in their instructions. They didn’t understand.
That problem self discovered and solved I could turn on PureVPN without re-booting and it offered about 5 minutes slow speed surfing before falling over and killing the internet entirely (even after the app was closed). Re-boot.
It is said that support is fast and good. It’s fast but it’s not good. If you are like me who had to contact support dozens of times you soon find out their support offers a small set of relatively obvious solutions which soon run out and start getting repeated over and over.
They recommend their DNS which WIN troubleshooting regularly shows isn’t there or that it rejects the connection.
They offer “Ryan” to remote connect and fix your problems. After much waiting Ryan took over my computer. His arsenal of technical assistance was to remove the app and install a different version… It worked (it always does), that is until you reboot and it goes back into tragic failure mode again.
I was about to cancel my account when they introduced “wireguard” and I was able to connect reasonably well (at first) and at speeds up to 400mbps. And then it would all fall over again. I discovered that my settings which were set permanently to wireguard with no fallbacks kept getting changed back by the App to IKeV-2 which simply never worked and doesn’t work to this day.
I said wireguard worked reasonably well. I can watch it for hours running at high speeds but, open a browser to actually use it, and in 5 minutes it falls over and kills my entire internet requiring the usual re-boot.
After about 300 days of my account I have had about 10 where my connection has worked and been acceptable for the whole time I wanted to use it.
I use Oookla for speed tests and with monotonous regularity PureVPN shows it’s connected and the ongoing upload and download speeds but Oookla shows “No internet connection available”. Windows shows “PureVPN not connected” and “No Internet”. So the useless PureVPN App is showing it’s connected and running but the PC has no internet and all test methods show it’s not connected and you don’t have any internet access at all until you re-boot. I have highlighted this to PureVPN via comment, screen dump and video numerous times advising the app simply doesn’t work with Windows. PureVPN support offers its ultimate limit of technical know how: “Have you tried installing the latest App?”
As said, PureVPN offers a limited set of support responses (which become really annoying after 30 times of failure) but, it is clear to me, nothing those questions can’t resolve goes further than a delete button indicating PureVPN have either no interest in fixing any problem or no programming or physical control of what they supply.
I’ve written numerous time to tell PureVPN to fix their App so it doesn’t randomly change the users settings and repeatedly point out their app is simply almost totally incompatible with Windows and no direct response on the issues.
I have a Dedicated IP. It has no wireguard and therefore it is money down the drain as it doesn’t work. The best I can anticipate is 5 minutes at Kbps speeds but most of the time it’s simply unable to connect. Support: “We tried it and it works. Have you tried reinstalling the App”.
My search revealed my “Dedicated IP” was one sub-net IP of over 200 sub-net IP’s on the same IP. Apparently too many sub-net IPs for the actual IP to handle at the bandwidth they have allowed.
I use both WIN10 and WIN7. When I first installed it on WIN7 I was getting blistering speeds that almost reached 14.4k dialup of the mid 90’s. Like lightning you could download a full 10 min 75Mb video file in only an hour or so (if the VPN didn’t fall over). A 400Mb series episode? Think between 7 hours and a day+
PureVPN solved that: As soon as the wireguard app was available (the only thing that allowed reasonable speeds) the App installed, asked for logon, accepted logon then crashed. After 10 attempts at re-installing with the same result it became clear someone had done something that destroyed back compatibility with WIN 7. And several emails attempting to rectify this got several quick responses: “Have you tried installing the latest App.” With the final comment being: “We hope we solved your problem. Please don’t hesitate to contact us again.”
Everything, to me, indicates PureVPN have a lousy service both programming wise and server wise over which they have absolutely no control.
Go to “whatismyipaddress” and look at the server supplier. I’ve looked at a few of them, all different and some with tragic performance records down at 10Mbps and less. I once looked at my Australian server connection and discovered it was in Manchester England!
Mobile PureVPN is interesting. If I want results from another location I choose that location and turn on PureVPN. Both my wife and I have done the same and when we reopen our browser the search is still based on our home location. So what’s happening there?
I am currently looking for a different provider as I now realise PureVPN won’t and can’t fix their overwhelming number of failures which seems to increase with each App revision and they simply can’t supply a functioning VPN (well not for me after 10 months and 100+ emails).
It constantly disconnects and reconnects. Will buffer randomly when it does connect. Most days it works okay, but speed can be slow. But even on the days it works it’s buffering. And again, it constantly disconnects. P2P speeds are good when torrenting though and havent had issues with that. Wouldn’t recommend. Mainly wanted it ’cause it was hosted in Hong Kong.
I’ve had PureVPN for about three years. The service has worked for me but then I don’t use it all the time, only for downloading and torrenting.
Recently I was prompted to update from V7.1.3 to V8.2 of their app, so I did. I’m using Windows 11. It didn’t connect. It never connected and, try as I might, I couldn’t get it to do anything so I contacted the “technical support” people. They are pretty hopeless. They give you silly preconfigured answers to questions you haven’t asked and all they can do is tell you to change protocols or reinstall the app…all of which I had done numerous times with no results. I told them I thought V8.2 was buggy and was going back to V7.1.3 because at least it worked. I was told not to because it was “due to be decommissioned”. I therefore perservered with tech support and they discovered that with my antivrus switched off, V8.2 connected using the Wiregaurd protocol but no others. In this mode and with the AV off, the DNS leaked like a seive but despite that they suggested that this was the only way I would be able to connect to the internet using PureVPN. I told them that was a ludicrous suggestion to make and as a fix to my issue it was a non starter. The tech support person then told me he’d have to “look into this” and disappeared. I emailed them back the same day and told them that as a result of all this I couldn’t trust their service and wanted a refund. I then got an email telling me to go back onto a chat and ask for a specific tech support person … no mention of a refund from them. This I did. He connected to my system remotely and tried to connect to the VPN. He couldn’t. He then uninstalled the app and reinstalled a further update, V8.3 and tried to connect once more. Again, he couldn’t. Over the next twenty minutes or so, he went through all the protocols, very slowly, and got nowhere. He ended by reinstalling V7.1.3 back onto my system and telling me there was a fault in the V.8 app which meant it couldn’t be used with Windows 11. I told him I’d been saying that for weeks but it had fallen on deaf ears. He also said that when I was told not to use V.7 of the app he called it a “misunderstanding”. When I put it to him that the new app was “a bit of a car crash”, he simply said that he would get the developers onto finding the bug and fixing it. My contention was that they should have done that before releasing it to the users. The upshot was that I had spent days trying to fix the problem myself with no luck and then spending weeks and weeks going round the houses endlessly with tech support people who frankly knew almost nothing about the app they claimed to support, only to end up back where I started, running the old version and being told not to update to the new one!
As far as the tech support goes, fair play to the guy who admitted defeat and told me the issue had not been at my end but it took me about three weeks of increasingly heated exchanges to get to him. The first level chat “techs” were all but useless and talking to them is a waste of time. They also do not note on your case what has been discussed before because with each new guy I got, I had to repeat everything as if it was the first time of telling. Their first level tech support is populated with, in all likelyhood, badly paid people who seem only to be trained in reading a card of prepared answers to commonly asked questions from the punters. As the old saying goes, “you pay peanuts, you get monkeys” and as I found out, the only way to get a hold of someone even moderately competent, was threaten them with a refund demand.
Once my subscription runs out I will be going elsewhere. Running PureVPN is too much like hard work and it’s more trouble than it’s worth.
Wow, you have given PureVPN lots of valuable time in your life that you won’t get back.
You’re not wrong. It’s particularly galling when I knew what the problem was before they did and as result ended back where I started after they finally admitted defeat on the issue.
I’ve experienced almost exactly the same connection problem here with the latest Windows app (and I’m using Windows 10) on both my laptop and desktop PCs. I say ‘almost’ the same because if I wait long enough after installing the app (1 – 2 minutes) I can finally make connections, and the speed is good; but I can’t bank on it not timing out, and some locations are unreachable. Version 7.1.3, on the other hand, makes fast connections at good speeds. It doesn’t have Wireguard, but I can live without the extra speed.
Yes, I started on the same obstacle race that you describe, but I gave it up when they wanted to connect to my system as I simply don’t trust them, so it’s not eaten days of my life away. As long as the older version still works I’m ‘happy’ with it (more accurately: resigned to it) – but I wouldn’t recommend PureVPN to anyone else, unless it just happens to be the only VPN that opens the particular website they want …
I understand your reluctance to let them remote into your system. I watched my guy like a hawk and noticed that he hovered over things he had no business looking at and at one point opened my email client which I immediately closed. I asked him what he was looking for…he said “the Control Panel”. I said “well you won’t find it in my emails”. He then miraculously found it in the normal place. I also noticed that he managed to log into my PureVPN account and I asked him how he had access to my password. He told me he didn’t and that he’d used a system generated password. That didn’t entirely ring true. I’ve changed my password since but I don’t know if there was any point in doing it if they appear to have access to them regardless of what they are and how often they’re changed.
This is exactly correct. Once they’ve run through their standard support list, they’ve got nothing to add. (It makes me suspect they have no actual technical control of PureVPN.)
You are also correct, their remote technical support person, Ryan, is limited to uninstalling and reinstalling the App. If it works, he’s off and when you reboot you’re back at square one. I believed he was hopless from the start as he made no effort to look at any Windows internet/ethernet settings.
My initial total failure (and you can try this if you haven’t) is to make sure in your internet settings you have IPv-6 disabled. PureVPN doesn’t run with it enabled. I told them but based on their lack of response somehow doubt it registered with them.
My experience with PureVPN is that I have spent vastly more time trying to get it to work than actual surfing.
PureVPN is a scam! Vpn doesn’t work and they’ll never give you money back
They are scammets I know that now
DO NOT buy this product as you will constantly have problems and issues
There technical side is NOT good at all.
Just send stupid e-mails telling you to do this and do that NON of which works. Delete off your system.
PureVPN is a total fraud and scam. I purchased a monthly plan in Oct and within 24 hours was asking for my money back. It’s painfully slow, doesn’t work at all (tried to stream shows overseas and I just got blocked at every turn), and the customer service is a joke. When emailing for a refund they just keep giving me the run around and the most ridiculous emails, so now I had to call my bank to cancel the charge. DO NOT USE PUREVPN. They are a scam.
I hate this company and their product. Not only did it not work (like iPvanish or others do), it was super difficult to get a refund after 1 single day of use. I wasn’t able to download anything because the interface is broken. I’ve been given the run around for days to get a simple refund, while their site clearly states a 30 day money back guarantee. Still waiting for my refund. I’ll contact my bank next.
Same is with me. I fell in there 30 day money back guarantee. But there company is unethical and super slow it’s been over a month now . Every time I contact them they create a trouble ticket and ask me to troubleshoot by changing protocol . I’ll reply and no answer again and again and again.
PureVPN is a ripoff. I foolishly purchased the 5-year plan. But after a while it interfered with my email such that emails I typed were deleted and I could only send if I turned PureVPN off. Their support staff was no competent and could not help me. Nor did they make any serious effort to help. Unfortunately the problems began after their refund period had expired. I have tried and tried to contact them. They keep saying they got my message and thank you but they never do anything. They are obviously not interested in maintaining favorable public relations. And my money has gone down a rathole. DO NOT BUY PUREVPN. IT IS A PIG IN A POKE.
Hi, see my comments and reply to Mike’s post below. I agree 100% with you. We should let everyone know that PureVPN is a scam.
Regards,
Zahir
Yeup. My e-mail failed as well.
And I have to turn PureVPN off before I start my WiFi printer as it can’t operate via PureVPN.
I was on PureVPN 5 total days. I went with it as the interface was built into my RAX10 router. I logged into Country: USA, City: NewYork and found that I could to watch New York TV stations on Locast. I often in the 5 days found myself “out of the market we serve.” Funny for being in New York. What made me wonder about location was that I was able to see stations from Milwaukee, Madison, Pittsburgh and yes…. even Los Angeles. So I went to the IP finder page and found my IP was in LA, NOT NEW YORK. It was hassle after hassle chatting and emailing with customer service. I also prior to requesting a refund on August 10, 2021 was online chatting about super slow speeds, when I gave my ROKU “highest” bandwidth. I could not view TV on Friday night at all. Locast TV went in and out and was not stable. I was only getting 4Mb out of my 400 Mb on PureVPN.
The customer care is not worth 2 cents. The email support is poor. Every person who emailed me, never read the above person’s email. So, I was requested to do things 2-3 times, if not explain things 2-3 times. They also claimed my RAX10 was not supported, but the interface was built into the router.
Take my advice…. RUN AND RUN FAST from this VPN. It’s not worth the hassle, nor is it worth upgrading to their 5 year plan. after all, who wants 5 years of hassles and poor internet bandwidth.
I saved screengrabs of the chat. Supposedly, they will process my refund soon. We will see.
Hi Mike,
I had the same experience with them. I have shared my email correspondence with them below. It is a complete farce and does not help improve the security In fact it slows down all your traffic and transactions. You will note from the email thread below that they back tracked on their promise to refund!
Regards Zahir
—————–
Purevpn (PureVPN)
Apr 20, 2021, 0:09 UTC
Dear Customer,
Thank you for contacting us.
We are so sad to hear that, While we personally wish to fulfil your request, unfortunately our hands are tied here as well and we have to follow our refund policy. With a heavy heart we have to inform you that you are not qualifying for Refund as per our Refund Policy.
We can also offer you to:
1. Hold / Freeze your account i.e. disabling it, and reactivating it once you need it again.
2. Transfer your remaining subscription time to another user, referred by you.
3. Technical assistance for your convenience, with our skilled support team and 2nd level support too.
feel free to contact us if you need any more assistance.
Regards,
Shawn
Customer Success Team
PureVPN
Best for Self Support: support.purevpn.com
Visitor
Apr 19, 2021, 23:15 UTC
You have taken peoples’ money and provided rubbish service. And are now back tracking on your own promises. I will let everyone in my network of friends and colleagues know to stay away from your company! This is a promise not a threat.
Zahir
Purevpn (PureVPN)
Apr 19, 2021, 21:40 UTC
Dear Customer,
Thank you for contacting us.
We are really sorry for the inconvenience. However it is to inform you that there was some kind of misunderstanding and after that we checked your account again and unfortunately you are not qualifying for the refund. We apologize for the inconvenience and not living up to your expectations.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need further assistance.
Regards,
Shawn
Customer Success Team
PureVPN
Best for Self Support: support.purevpn.com
Visitor
Apr 19, 2021, 20:11 UTC
I am getting tired of your inconsistent messages!! You keep on changing your Policy and written undertakings!!
Please adhere to what you stated below on Apr 19, 2021, 1:58 UTC and proceed with refunding the remaining amount of USD 40.57!
“3) 1-year subscription for as low as $11.88 USD and refund of the remaining amount.”
Zahir
Purevpn (PureVPN)
Apr 19, 2021, 17:45 UTC
Hi,
We apologize for the misunderstanding in offering you the refund in the previous email and the inconvenience you have received.
Unfortunately, As per the refund Policy, we can’t proceed with your refund howerver as our valued customer can extend your account for 12 more months, Will that be fine?
Feel free to contact us for further assistance.
Regards,
Travis
Customer Success Team
PureVPN
Best for Self Support: support.purevpn.com
Visitor
Apr 19, 2021, 16:36 UTC
You clearly stated below “If you are not interested in any of the above offers, please reply and we will happily proceed with the refund.” So now are you retracting your written offer by apologizing? That means you didn’t really know what you were offering in the first place!
In that case, I take your offer #3 below and you should process USD 52.45 – USD 11.88 = USD 40.57 and my current subscription will expire on November 24, 2021.
Please send me confirmation of the refund.
Zahir
Purevpn (PureVPN)
Apr 19, 2021, 6:24 UTC
Hi,
We apologize for the misunderstanding in offering you the refund in the previous email and the inconvenience you have received.
It is to inform you that we do provide you 31 days of money-back in which we can refund your full payment. As we have written it on our refund policy and as we have checked our record it seems that there is no such cancellation being made within 31 days. Under these circumstances, I am hopeful that you will understand our situation.
Refund Policy: https://www.purevpn.com/refund-policy.php
Feel free to contact us for further assistance.
Regards,
Harvey
Customer Success Team
PureVPN
Best for Self Support: support.purevpn.com
Visitor
Apr 19, 2021, 3:12 UTC
Thank you very much for your 3 offers below and I am glad to note with gratitude that you want to retain your customers. However, since the service you are offering doesn’t work for me (I have not used it for some time now), I unfortunately have to decline your generous offers. Kindly cancel the service and process my refund.
Regards,
Zahir
Purevpn (PureVPN)
Apr 19, 2021, 1:58 UTC
Hi,
Hope you are doing good.
Please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience you may have experienced regarding the same and it is to inform you that cancelling is not an issue for us as well. But it will be highly appreciated if you could allow us once to assist and resolve these issues also, we as a token of apology we can offer:
1) 50% partial refund of the original payment & the full subscription duration remaining intact and active.
2) Add 24 months to your current subscription
3) 1-year subscription for as low as $11.88 USD and refund of the remaining amount.
If you are not interested in any of the above offers, please reply and we will happily proceed with the refund.
If you have any other questions, I’ll be happy to help. Have a fantastic day!
Regards,
Shawn
Customer Success Team
PureVPN
Best for Self Support: support.purevpn.com
Visitor
Apr 18, 2021, 22:45 UTC
LiveChat conversation transcript:
———-
IP: 10.136.34.157
Location: US
Device: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/89.0.4389.128 Safari/537.36
URL: https://my.purevpn.com/helpdesk
Existing: 0
E-mail: zmoosajee@gmail.com
———-
Adam Reeds (Mon, 4/19/2021, 03:40:17 am Asia/Karachi)
Hello. How may I help you?
Adam Reeds (Mon, 4/19/2021, 03:40:38 am)
Hello and welcome to PureVPN support. How can I help you today? 🙂
Visitor (Mon, 4/19/2021, 03:40:48 am)
I want to cancel my 5 year subscription.
Adam Reeds (Mon, 4/19/2021, 03:41:13 am)
I see ..I am sorry to hear that .. We would love to know the reason of cancellation though, I will be glad to help you configure any issues you might have faced?
Visitor (Mon, 4/19/2021, 03:41:49 am)
It’s too restrictive and slows down the transaction time
Visitor (Mon, 4/19/2021, 03:42:08 am)
And it does not work with all sites
Adam Reeds (Mon, 4/19/2021, 03:42:17 am)
I see, I can certainly understand your concerns and I apologize for any inconvenience…
Adam Reeds (Mon, 4/19/2021, 03:42:27 am)
Let me try to resolve it for you instead of cancellation
Adam Reeds (Mon, 4/19/2021, 03:42:29 am)
Could you please confirm which device / Operating System you’re using?
Visitor (Mon, 4/19/2021, 03:43:06 am)
WIN 10 Lenovo 2019
Adam Reeds (Mon, 4/19/2021, 03:43:39 am)
You are requested to change protocols in the purevpn application settings and then try to connect again and share us with your experience so that we could assist you accordingly.
Please try all protocols one by one which is ikev2, udp and tcp.
Here is how to change them:
https://support.purevpn.com/how-to-change-protocol-in-purevpn-windows-software
Visitor (Mon, 4/19/2021, 03:45:01 am)
This is too much work. I am 61 years old! Just cancel the subscription and give me my refund for the unused protion
Visitor (Mon, 4/19/2021, 03:45:10 am)
portion
Adam Reeds (Mon, 4/19/2021, 03:45:31 am)
We respect your decision and have canceled your account as per your request. We value your business greatly and hope to see you again soon as a part of the PureVPN family
This email is a service from PureVPN.
[PMO5K9-DVLD]
Yeup, my Australian server was in Manchester UK.
I’m not sure what you all are doing with your connnections here but I’m getting just over 100Mbps up and 40 down. Netflix works just fine – I can watch whatever regions programming I’d like to on desktop. 21ms ping. I remember when all the complaints here were something I would have agreed with. Probably a year or so ago I’d be saying the same things I’ve read in the comments here. Although, as of today, PureVPN has been a great service for me. I’d like to delve more into the data leaks I just read about though. That is concerning as this is a VPN after all and the main reason I purchased my lifetime sub was to prevent my browsings from being seen by my ISP – torrents n such. I’m pretty surprised that people are still having issues with this VPN provider though. Great article regardless. Lots of useful info here. Thanks Sven.
Well Sven,
I am a little curious about your glowing report especially the 21ms ping.
The only time I have seen a response of a 21ms ping is in my own coutry. Even my nearest neighbour country on PureVPN’s fastest wireguard server is at 80+ms ping.
I have only 8 servers in the world from time to time operating at a ping rate of under 100ms. That’s 8 out of an alleged 6,500. And as world standards go, anything over 100ms is considered sub-standard meaning I’ve experienced 6,492 sub-standard connections theough PureVPN.
Maybe you have been having an experience with PureVPN no one else has and PureVPN has directed it services to you which is why we can’t ge the same level of performance..