CometChat Reviews 49

ok anything other than a solid 1 star rating for this company is someone who works there. There is just no way in the world that this company could conceivably get 2 out of 5 stars without cheating. It's the absolute worst software company in the world without doubt.

Do NOT purchase this software. They will NOT honor their 30 day refund policy after I purchased two subscriptions to their plugin, which did NOT work at all. After 3 days of working with their crappy support they now give me nothing but a hassle and excuses refusing to refund me. Now I'm forced to contact my credit card company to get my $100 back :-(

Hi to all

i bought in the past and paid for "CometChat Premium Edition".

now when in trying to activate the plugin i get error: "Sorry, your support license has expired. Please visit the CometChat Members Area to renew your license."

I turned to the company to clarify the matter and the last answere:

"Hello,

We hope this email update finds you well. We have discontinued support for any of our old products, unfortunately we wont be able to help you with this. Please understand this is not under our control and we surely cannot help you with this unfortunately.

Please do not create or open the ticket again as it would be going back and forth in a never ending loop until no resolution, as we have stopped support for old version long time back and we only support with the latest version. We would be happy to help you once you have renewed you CometChat license.

Thanks!

Andy Smith
CometChat Team
"

and this is my answere to theme:

With all due respect to you, it is your problem to you stopped supporting the old version. I paid for a plugin and I want it to run in the old version. I do not want support from you and nothing else. I just wanted a return for what I paid and was promised it was a one time payment. In any case what you do is called stealing. I'm already telling you that if you do not give me what I deserve or my money back I intend to file a complaint with the police and also to publish the issue on all the social networks that everyone knows that you are stilling from people money and lying to them !!!!. I'm not a sucker !!!
why cant i use my product (the old version)?

I suggest that you do not purchase the plugin. It's just theft.

thank you

The only reason you want to buy it is for decorating your website. The software is rich of features and nice UI.

But if you want a real working software, stay away for the following reason:

1/ It WILL crash your server as soon as you have many users chatting
2/ The support is stupid in term of technical knowledge
3/ The way they do coding is really stupid and messy. Their source code is really a hell of pain

Worst decision of my life is purchase cometchat

We installed the comet chat service, and had it for the past year. We have not been able to roll it out and have our client use the system because of the many bugs and the poor response from the support. The site gives the impression that the software is a one time fee.... which is true but what is not said is that the software is updated at least once a month, and within he first 30 days of the use of the service it was not working. Cometchat told us that it needed to be updated, oh and by the way we don't do that unless you have our support package at an extra high cost. What else is that the software has not worked smoothly at all, it works fine for a day or two then it has problems again. Crosstalk and looping messages and crashing apps. There is not a month of trouble free use, it is constantly broken and when updated the android and apple apps must be recompiled as well adding further down time. ... In conclusion I do not recommend this product and if I could get a refund if I would. Oh but wait they don't refund you for software that doesn't work.

Brilliant software. We tried Arrowchat but it broke our website. Cometchat is fantastic, well worth the money.

CometChat is a text and video social networking application that can be added to your website. It must be said, when it works, it is technically the best out there. The trouble starts when it won't install on your site, their technical support is appalling.

Let me explain:

At 495 USD I bought their top end 'plug and play' WordPress Plugin. This WordPress Plugin for WordPress sites is supposed to upload like any other WordPress plugin. No complaints there with the CometChat WordPress Plugin.

The trouble is the CometChat WordPress Plugin doesn't work - hence this review.

I have reviewed the CometChat Wordpress Plugin because the technical support offered is simply appalling.

First, they are an Indian based firm, and work through the night and morning UK time.

This and their slow turnaround and antiquated 'ticket' system means its like having a conversation in super slow warp time as we approach the edge of the universe!

This wouldn't matter so much if they used the same support person to follow the support issue with CometChat through to resolution. But they don't.

The CometChat technical support people seem more interested in removing the issue from their inbox than actually resolving an issue.

Often they simply ask for the same information repeatedly, as no-one actually takes the time to read the whole ticket, and what has been tried before.

At 495 USD you would expect a seamless, technically free, and unproblematic WordPress plugin. Unfortunately this is not what they delivered.

Their first attempt was to get me to change system preferences and .php files on the server.

This I'm technically able to do, but their supporting instructions were appalling.

Having wasted hours of my time unable to load the CometChat Wordpress plugin, I sent them the .php file, and simply asked them to amend it.

This they refused to do sending me more CODING instructions which were simply out of my ability to understand or follow.

I therefore invoked their 'guaranteed install' clause. I asked them to do it!

This was a big mistake, as there appears to be no one in the technical support department at CometChat who is technically able to install their own CometChat WordPress plugin!

Hence the need for this review of the CometChat Wordpress Plugin.

What happened next was incredulous. The technical support at CometChat simply went to the 'Chat' page of my site, saw that the code was working on that page, took a screenshot of it, and returned it to me saying they had fixed the problem!

This was never the problem.

The problem was I was unable to access the CometChat admin panel on the WordPress Dashboard - If I did try to access the CometChat admin panel on the WordPress dashboard, I simply got a server error.

For those who are foolishly considering buying the CometChat WordPress plugin, what this means is that CometChat technically works on your site (after you have manually changed permission protocols I might add!), but you cannot access or amend any of the CometChat features, effectively rendering the CometChat WordPress plugin useless.

In order to install the CometChat WordPress plugins themselves, they required my hosting user name and password, a WordPress Administrator User Name and Password, and two test user user names and passwords.

This set about a round of this or that password won't work. In fairness some of that was true, but some of it just sounded like an excuse to kick the problem off the CometChat technical support persons desk for the day.

All of this could be resolved quickly with a simple telephone call.

So I am left asking why the run around?

As you can imagine at this stage I was exasperated, so I tried escalating the problem through Twitter, customer services and customer feedback forms.

Although more customer facing than the CometChat technical support team for WordPress, the same run around began again here!

They tried sending me MORE installation instructions. NO thats not the deal!

CometChat offer a guaranteed install for the heavy price of 495 USD.

So they said they would escalate the problem. But didn't, until I pushed them to. Or at least they said they would. All of this taking days to arrange!

The matter is now with a Senior Technical Support officer at CometChat, yet this person seems unable to get CometChat working on my WordPress site.

If a Senior Technical Support officer at CometChat cannot quickly and efficiently install their 'plug and play' WordPress plugin, then how are we, the front end customer supposed to do so!

My CometChat support ticket is 5490361843-157875 which has been open for nearly two weeks. This is the second ticket on this issue. Frustratingly the first ticket they closed because I was on holiday. So this issue has gone on for a month now.

If CometChat cannot install their own CometChat plugin for WordPress I suspect nobody can.

So if CometChat are having technical issues with their plugin, why not simply say so? Why the run around? Why frustrate the customers that are paying for their service?

As an aside looking back over the CometChat Technical Support issues on Facebook, Twitter and other review sites, it is clear this is a long standing issue. Maybe they don't have technical issues with the CometChat WordPress plugin right now, maybe they just offer a bad technical support service.

The trouble is they already know that, and don't seem to care.

The Latest

I woke up this morning to discover their 'Senior Engineer' had mistaken a hosting login for an ftp login. He sent me a beautiful screenshot evidencing his mistake. Thanks for that!

This is despite me writing a long 'ticket' explaining I had given him a hosting user name and password. Anticipating problems I talked him, step by step, through the login procedure, and how to access the system files.

Its a shame he hadn't troubled himself to read the ticket.

I have escalated this issue through PayPal which seemed to have gathered a quick response. Paypal offer dispute resolution for non delivery of electronic goods.

If you are not put off by this review, after all comet chat is brilliant when it works, I suggest you buy by PayPal so at least you have this option to leverage a complaint.

I had hoped my site would be functional and generate revenue by now. I have over 300 users on an email list who want to join. Unfortunately I made the mistake of assuming the CometChat WordPress Plugin at 495 USD would actually work.

I can't wait for the next instalment when they try again to blame me for their inability to read.

Next Instalment!

This is so funny, the Twitter person who has been leasing with the 'Senior Engineer' had to remind the engineer to read the ticket!

This appears to to magical, in that I finally managed to access the control panel for CometChat.

Naturally it was my fault: I had failed to code the php file correctly!

Given I'm a psychotherapist and not an IT engineer Im not taking this personally.

After all this was supposed to be a plug and play CometChat WordPress plugin.

Unfortunately the engineer had failed to install a working version of CometChat on my server. Endless file server errors etc etc. I tried to trim the install down to the bare minimum of what I needed. Unfortunately this also failed to work appropriately, not least the 'responsive' theme failed to 'respond on cell phones.

I have therefore asked for my money back and deleted the install from my server.

My advice is only buy the CometChat WordPress plugin if you have a high degree of technical competence to install this software yourself, and are prepared to endlessly play with the code until you yourself can make it work.

I have no idea if you can even make it work, as the next step in my adventures in the Alice in Wonderland world of the CometChat WordPress Plugin.

CometChat have a cloud based option, where you pay a monthly fee and they host the application. All you have to do was login in to their online control panel and paste the code on your site.

Wonderful News!

Except CometChat also fails to work when CometChat host their software themselves!

In fact it worked even more poorly than the dedicated server hosted install that I had given up on!

Naturally I have continued my ticket with their 'Senior Engineer' but be under no elusions, I fully expect to be told why its my fault their server hosted option fails to work on my site.

They have 14 days before they charge me for this option. I'm skipping and jumping in excitement at what comes next.

But seriously, it is clear CometChat does not work on Wordpress. Rather than admit this, they are keeping me in a loop of excuses.

If they simply said we are having technical problems, come back in a month, that would have been acceptible.

I look forward to posting the next instalment.

Tis is my last instalment.

I now have my refund through PayPal for the custom install on my server.

With respect to CometChat Cloud, their Technical Support person responded by sending me a link about how to install a Wordpress Plugin!

S/he hadn't read my ticket.

Over the weekend I tried Flyzoo and iFlyChat, and have a list to work through to see if they meet my needs.

Both were up and running perfectly on my site in 5 minutes or less. Technical support on Flyzoo was available over the weekend - using their chat app! - but I didn't need it.

These apps needn't meet the needs of my site so I keep looking. But I know now the answer won't be found at CometChat.

It was a bumpy ride, and I have wasted a lot of time through a false brand loyalty. But I guess we all have to learn the hard way!

I hope this review means you don't have to !