Complaint Review: Express VPN - Internet

I work with a multinational education company as a team leader (all 300+ of my people use VPNs and we're as a company evaluating services to provide all our employees) and depending on my assignment need a VPN to access sites and files from overseas. I contacted ExpressVPN from the USA to see if they could provide me a reliable, stable product. Their sales team was EXTREMELY enthusiastic and polite. They assured me their technology was stable and would work for what I needed, further guaranteeing me that in the very rare event that something happened, customer support would be available to me BOTH by chat and email to solve my problem "right away." I explicitly let them know that because I deal with extremely sensitive files and hard deadlines with our clients, I couldn't afford to be down waiting for help for hours. I was guaranteed customer support would be able to get me back online within moments if their technology ever failed. 

I started a 30-day trial as I left for my overseas assignment. The speed was OK but I was disconnected frequently. I'd started to work hours after arriving overseas & just didn't have the time to evaluate other VPNs. I tried dealing with customer support and already the circular-talk started. They provided simplistic solutions all of which failed. I regret now that I didn't just cancel the service. Once the trial was up, though, I noticed my speeds dropped precipitously. I also started getting kicked off their network very frequently--multiple times a day and for longer and longer stretches each time, up to DAYS. Of course, if you're offline, you cannot contact them. I had learned from another experience with ExpressVPN never to activate their "network lock" which keeps your machine from connecting to the Internet when the VPN fails. Since the VPN fails frequently, this means you are utterly offline frequently--on your mobile phone, tablets, and laptops/desktops. Even though network lock is clearly NOT activated on any of my machines, whenever I'm not connected to ExpressVPN on my computers, I still cannot access the Internet. On my mobile phone, at least, I can remove their software easily, including all the network settings. THEN I can access the Internet on my phone.

When I was finally able to connect to their network, I'd contact support. Depending on the time of day, the only way to contact support is via email. And they may not get back to you until the next day. Whether chatting via "live chat" or communicating via email, the experience was not just frustrating, it was downright infuriating. The customer support agents, I learned, are NOT engineers. They are trained "support" technicians who have very little technical proficiency. No matter what I told them, they'd always give me the same useless advice (because since they are not actual engineers, their knowledge scope is very shallow, limited to what ExpressVPN has trained them on in brief, insufficient technician onboarding). They'd even insist that I couldn't have already followed their advice. When I provided them (screenshot, system report) their own system update evidence, they snarkily ignored it. Never ONCE in my sad history with ExpressVPN has customer support offered me advice that actually helped. They are rude, condescending, and dismissive. They'll give you the same failed circular advice and when you explain you've already tried what they told you they'll stop communicating with you, leaving you hanging with your problem.

Colleagues recently introduced me to an alternative VPN service I'm having far better luck with. I won't be renewing my contract with ExpressVPN, but I will be telling EVERYONE I know to stay away from them. Their customer "service" is so duplicitous and demeaning that it ALONE is a good reason not to do business with this service. More, I'm convinced that the positive reviews plastered all over the Internet are fake, as are the VPN review websites the main criterion for participation on which seems to be paying the site owner. There are simply FAR too many complaints about ExpressVPN among expats working overseas who need VPNs. But you don't read any of these on the review websites. Very suspicious.

This company is the used-car-salesmen of VPN service. Stay far, far away. Be especially wary of service changes AFTER your 30-day trial is up, if you do choose to give them a shot. And certainly, don't expect help from their "customer support" if you need it.