PUREVPN No Longer Supports Referrals?

To Refer or Not to Refer?

As a user of PureVPn I have been satisfied with the service and I haven’t had the need for customer service. Of course I’m satisfied to the extend that I feel my IP address is anonymous but without lots of testing and tracing I cant be sure my IP address isn’t compromised. Would I stake my life on it? NO! am I reasonably sure my IP address is masked? sure. Additionally I wouldn’t want my data band width reduced because of VPN style services and for the most part, it serves me.

My original sign-up cost for the year was 69.95

With that being said, like with other services I use, if I like them I will make some effort to let others know I use that service and like it. i.e; facebook, twitter, tumblr, disqus, G+, LinkedIn, etc… Occasionally a company will offer some incentive for you to “Get the Word out” with some referral benefits. There is usually a link that you would offer your friend and that link would be encoded with any special rebates or credits to your account, often the more the better.

For me I don’t sign up with any company because of these offers. It actually doesn’t make that much of a difference to me one way or the other and sometimes the time spent is not even worth the effort it might take to make that happen. I might add that a referral should give you a positive benefit, not make it seem like you just paid them.

Recently I had the opportunity to help my customer sign-up for PureVPN an anonymity service. I happen to remember there may be some referral credit for signing up friends. I found the link >>>

I added my customers email and sent him the link. However an entire different avenue opened up in which it made me re-think whether I should even be customer of PureVPN, I found this completely by accident.

What we all hear about more often today via social media is “Customer Service” I personally see various forms of good customer service to non-existant services. And you can bet the socialspher is going to let people know their experience, whether one person hears it or it goes viral.

In this case my first response was to just contact their customer support quickly using their services of “Instant chat support” after a fairly long wait “Kasper” came on asking how he could help (I also laughed a little at the innuendo of the name “Kasper” yes I think “Casper” would be proud of the invisible ghost like experience I had) I tried to explain the situation and the referral link mix-up and after more than 40 minutes of back and forth (ultimately a “manager” came in the chat session but offered no more than Kasper did) I concluded that way to much time had been spent dealing with this.

The problem is this. When I signed up (8 months) the cost of my “unlimited” plan was 69.95/yearly and now the cost for the same plan is 49.95/ yearly. Upon sending the link to my friend he was confused as to why my referral to him would cost 120.00/ yearly. I too was confused at all the different price levels. My referral turned out to be “no referral” it was obviously better for my customer to just sign up on his own at 49.95/ yearly. Our long drawn out discussion with “support” provided no details as to the confusion, only to say just sign-up via the current order link. I was embarrassed to tell my customer this, as I had highly recommend PureVPN as a great service for his needs.

Good news is my customer paid less than I told him I had paid. The bad news I get a kick in the butt for referring them.

So in conclusion, I for one consider myself somewhat of a savoy shopper, I try not to make impulse purchases and I like hearing what others have to say about a product or service. I don’t like being baited, given confusing or misleading information. The market is confusing and overwhelming enough. I’m not jumping ship with PureVPN and I hope they continue to provide a needed and valuable service for users who want anonymity on the web.

For reference: PureVPN