Virtual Assistant Forums

#1 (**permalink**) 09-29-2012

Hey everyone. I don't think in all of the years I have been in business that I have been so frustrated and wanting to rant about a product, that I felt the need to announce it to the entire VA industry, but today I must make an exception.

I was evaluating and thinking about using a product called ZipCloud. It's a backup and restore, cloud based software. My experience was not good at all.

Not only was it giving me fits trying to use it, they don't make their "full pricing" visible until after you've installed it and even then it breaks it down to the monthly and until you give them credit card information you don't see the extended yearly price. Sure...I know how to multiply...but I don't think they should be that vague. Then, once installed it will not fully uninstall.

During the uninstall process it kept giving me a ton of pop-ups. "Are you sure?" > Click because yes I'm sure... - "What if we give it to you for this price?" >Click off again.

At this point it was..."No I don't want it for any price!"

All of the popups completely hung up the uninstall. I finally got it out of my Program Files, but there is obviously something that got loaded further down, because about once every hour there is a popup that shows up that says..."Want 20% off?"

I had contacted their support - and the only answer I got was - Go to control panel > click on ZipCloud > select "Uninstall" - No...really????

Anyway - just as we want to know what's good - we also need to know when someone has had an experience that was less than satisfactory when making a decision to purchase a product.

So...I went and got a 30-day trial for CrashPlanPro. Seems really good so far!

#2 (**permalink**) 09-29-2012

Makes ya want to kick and scream in fits, doesn't it?!? (It would me!) Do you think if you did system restore to a point before installing the big-time problem child that would take care of anything it may have left on your system?

So sorry this happened to you, Pam, but hopefully the new one will be exactly what you need with no pain or frustrations!

#3 (**permalink**) 09-29-2012

That sounds awful! I've heard good things about Carbonite. Also, I use Dropbox somewhat as a backup and somewhat as file sharing.

#4 (**permalink**) 09-30-2012

@Pam! Yes ma'am it does. LOL. Ya...I'm gonna have to go back and find one. Just wasn't time today. I need to do a poll and ask...how many times a day do you want to throw your laptop out a 50 story window.

Ha! Just been one of dem' der' days with technology - but hey...it is so all good. Just makes me laugh at how dumb it can get sometimes.

@Sandy. Ya...I used to have Carbonite. Reviews on them aren't too good anymore. I think it is because of they don't backup some types of file types without having to do it manually.

I did have them for awhile, but had some issues when I went to restore, which now, several months later I'm still sorting through. They walked me through the restore over the phone, and they say that files will be restored to original locations. I had a total system crash and had to reinstall the OS so of course my entire PC was wiped - so I was working from a clean slate. But when I went to restore files I ended up with multiples of only some of them - and still not 100 percent sure I got everything back. I had 4 of the same .pst files, 5 of the same contact files, and something like 7 versions of SOME of my document and image files - but some of it was in one version and some in another. So it wasn't like you could just delete entire copies because some stuff was in one, and some stuff was in another.

Ahhhh...oh well. Enough of my going on about it. It will all work out as it should.

#5 (**permalink**) 09-30-2012

I really hate those kind of sneaky programs. I don't know why someone would create something like that...the best thing you can do for your company is keep existing clients. With underhanded popups and nondisclosure, how you can expect to keep any clients. Sorry you had that experience. Thanks for passing it on.

#6 (**permalink**) 09-30-2012

Pam,
I am so sorry you went through this experience. This becomes very time consuming not to mention zap your energy! Yuck.... Thanks for pointing out this company out to us and thanks for the recommendation of CrashPlanPro. Let us know how that goes. Good Luck and thanks for sharing your experience.

#7 (**permalink**) 09-30-2012

Pam, use cc cleaner. It should find that little popup thing and remove it.

#8 (**permalink**) 09-30-2012

Actually, there were residual files that stayed behind in my Programs folder and that seems to have solved it.

I checked out CCCleaner though. CNet has a really high rating for them. Sounds like a good program - although I get a little nervous downloading more security software than what I already have.

Sometimes it seems I end up with conflicts. I'm going to check that out with my IT guy though and see if I can download for future reference. He knows what he put on here. I don't wanna mess up his plan - like I have in the past :-).