Parallels Reviews 1,776

Never ever trust to Parallel Desktop. This company can automatically write off your money without any notification. Referring to the company policy. You should not trust them.

I get that auto-renewal can be a legitimate business model, but not the way Parallels implement it. The product is extremely expensive given that you now have multiple alternatives for home/casual users, for example VMware. The communication around auto-renewal is deliberately shady and I would avoid this at all costs.

I for example had originally purchased a one-off license, that silently got "upgraded" to a recurring charge, with my word against theirs on this matter.

A support ticket not being answered for 30 hours and no response from any one including Australian reseller... - This is very disappointing and the delay is costing business and my time is unpaid. Parallels is proving unparallel disappointments to its customers.. Support has no phone number to talk to - just generic FAQs. I have been with Parallels for 7 years - this time it is horrible - Not sure what is going on

after about a month I requested a refund - which I received. A year later, I was charged for a second year as I had not discontinued my subscription. Silly me thinking that the refund request would trigger that. I contacted support and was advised that there are no refunds on extensions of the subscription. I will have to do a charge back.

WOW .. I just had the single best customer service experience I have ever had from a person in Mauritius. Thank you .. this was the BEST. His name was Kevin. What a great professional and ambassador for Parallels. Solved my problem, was attentive and on point. WOW !!

They would say it is available under the subscription and get you to install malicious software that would make the Parallels requesting you to pay to operate. Tremendous mal-practice - absolute dishonourable company.

I've been paying yearly for many years now, and no more.

Parallels auto-renewed my annual subscription without notice, despite no usage for a year. I received no reminder and was denied a refund — a common complaint among customers. The product itself is clunky and underwhelming, which may explain their reliance on unethical renewal tactics where customers are not given an opportunity to explicitly consent to opt-in. I strongly urge anyone considering Parallels to explore better, more transparent alternatives.

I have purchased parallels desktop and was charged twice. After being refunded the duplicate charge, my subscription was cancelled. Even though we have clearly shown them that the charge was made twice in our credit card statement and is not a temporary hold like they claim, they say there was never a second charge made. We have been trying to resolve this issue for weeks. Every time we contact support, a new person responds. Cleverbridge their billing partner has scammed us.

Same as 1000 others, the auto-renew was processed, no pre-notice, no access to the account because of an untrusted browser. No way of logging in to view, verify any account info. No account email, the renewal receipt comes to my email, but not the verification account notice??? Pretty much a scam company. Have to change your payment method (lost/stolen) to stop this fraud. Smell of class action.

Software consistently crashes with minimal workload, over and over and over again. Support team is not helpful. ChatGPT can't get it to work either. Then when you try to get you a refund they run you around in circles and then deny your refund if a certain amount of time has passed. And now I am also reading they charge people again with fraudulent renewals. Wild. How is this company still in business? Now using VMWare Fusion which is free, with no trouble.

Like others here, was on a renewal I didn’t know I had. No forewarning on a renewal charge and they refuse to refund. This is ripe for class action given the other complaints here.

Be careful. They won't give you notice that they're going to renew your annual subscription, renew it, then refuse to give you a refund. Extremely predatory company.

They set me up on auto renew, and did not send me a renewal email. I am guessing because very few people actually renew. I contacted them, and they said NO REFUNDS. Since I sold my Mac - I feel like they stole $107 dollars from me. For the rest of my life I will strongly discourage my coworkers and friends from buying their product. I also lodged a unfair business practice complaint with the FTC.

The product didn’t work for me because it took up so much disk space I was unable to use any program but the Parallels desktop.

My more significant problem is their deceptive auto-renewal policy. I was provided no reminder that my subscription was about to be renewed. I acted immediately to cancel. But my subscription was cancelled for the next year only, and my request for a refund was denied. I have reported this anti-consumer practice to the FTC.

It's not going to be compatible with every mac device depending on what you want to use it for.
This is why I considered their services because they had a 30 day money-back guarantee.
Sadly, when I realized my device was not capable of running any software on parallels desktop, there were no available procedures to request my refund.
Besides customer support, which i sent the receipt via their chatbot and awaited a response for over a week and still hasn't been received.

This program is useless. It says it is out of disk space when it isn’t. And because of that it shuts down and I can’t do anything. And when I ask for a 7 month refund because I only used it for 5 months they say a refund is only available for 30 days from the date of sale. This is wrong because it was great until it shut down. Which was after the 30 days.

Loved my perpetual license. Subscription is worth it for 24/7 Support.

Don’t buy from them. We started refund procedure 2 days after purchase in line with their policy. We provided them all the information they asked for multiple times and they kept coming back saying it didn’t work. We checked with the branch of our bank who confirmed it was correct. Then once 30 days passed, have now said we are not entitled to a refund as it’s over 30 days!!!

This was clearly done on purpose not to give us a refund . Scammers!!

They are scamming their customers. They sell lifetime licenses for a product that breaks and doesn't work after a while. Then you are forced to either pay to update, or throw your paid software and license in the trash can.

I bought Parallels Desktop 17 "1-time" license in 2022.
It's early 2025 and it stopped working.
Windows won't install. The "automatic download" OS images don't appear. It claims I'm not connected to the internet (I obviously am). The technical support system is grayed out, can't contact them for technical issues.

It's unfortunate, because their app (when working) is not bad at all. But to be fair, there are free alternatives just as good.

I have purchased 5 licences for all my devices and it is just to hard to transfer; technical problems everywhere and absolutely NO customer service or technical support to help you.