Corel
reviews and complaints

On November 13, 2015, I purchased Roxio Creator NXT4 on line from Roxio and downloaded it. I purchased this because I wanted to create a slideshow presentation for a reunion that is coming up. I created my slideshow using the Roxio Slide Show Assistant, following all the steps. When I got to the step where I was supposed to be able to burn it to a DVD, the “burn button” wasn’t displayed on the page like the how to video tutorial showed. I went to the http://www.roxio.com/support on 11-13-15 to get technical support for this issue. The options available were Free Online Technical Support, or for a Paid Priority Support for customers who have a One-time Priority Support Ticket or a Training and Support Plan. I chose the Free Online Technical support since I had just purchased this software and it was a problem with Roxio. I filled out the request and at 5:03 p.m. I received an email from Corel No Reply confirming that I have created a new case and gave me my case number. It also said that it will be assigned to an agent as soon as possible. On 11-16-15 at 12:15 a.m., I received an email from Corel Customer Support Services asking me to send him a screenshot where the burn to DVD option was not available. On 11-16-15 at 12:35 p.m., I replied with the screen shot and also a screen shot of the tutorial video where it shows how it is supposed to be. When I did not hear back, on 11-18-15 I sent another email to him with the same screen shots and saying that I had not heard back from them. On 11-19-15, I went back on line to try to get some help. I was told that they couldn’t help me and that my case had already been assigned to someone and they said that he would be getting back to me before the end of the evening. That never happened. Finally, on 11-22-15 at 6:49 p.m. Corel Customer Support sent me another email, apologizing for the delay in getting in touch with me for the reason that they are having a large volume of email. He then wrote that he would like to invite me to a live chat/remote desktop session on 11-23-15 at 9:00 p.m. EST so he could connect to my computer and perform some troubleshooting procedures. He said to let him know if this schedule worked for me. On 11-23-15 at 8:22 a.m., I replied and said I was available for the live chat/remote desktop session and asked him to please let me know what I was supposed to do to get him on live chat. I kept checking my email all day and never heard anything back from him. At 6:00 p.m. (9:00 p.m. EST) I signed into live chat with my case number and told them that I was supposed to talk to Froilan Corel Customer Support Services at 9 p.m. EST. He replied: Thank you for waiting, I have checked with Froilan, he is currently engaged with a call. I will update this case for you and let him know that you are waiting for his response. Please wait for the email from Froilan on what to do next on how to do a remote session. I replied: When will I receive an email with instructions from him? I have been trying to resolve this issue for over a week. Can't you help me with this issue? He replies: I'm sorry but you are connected to the Corel Sales Chat Support. I have checked with Froilan. He will update you via email after 30 mins. Well, it is now 11-24-15 at 10:07 a.m. and I still have not heard anything from him. I am totally frustrated with Corel Support. The only way they will correspond with you is through email. I just want my product fixed, I paid for this and I want it to work like it is supposed to. I feel like there is nowhere to turn for help with this issue...

Can't install or register product. will not enter a lower case letter "i" in the serial number. it automatically changes a lower case (i) to an upper case (i) and immediately says it is an invalid serial number. I attempted to get customer service help but it is nonexistent! wish I had not bought this software.

I purchased (I thought) CorelDRAW X7 - what I got was X6...NOW, Corel wants ANOTHER $99 to UPGRADE from X6 - I ALREADY PAID FOR THIS - PLEASE - either refund my entire purchase price for the WRONG item I received, OR YOU PAY the difference!

Today I was warned by the Corel program that I could not use it due to corruption of files. I could not open the software, so I re-downloaded it and, in accordance with the printed message from Corel, I first un-installed and then re-installed my software. It would not permit me to put in my serial number and insisted that I must pay for the software at the Corel website. I tried to contact Corel Customer support but was told that I must make a deposit of $49.95 USD before customer support could assist me and that this amount would be increased by whatever time it took for Customer service to solve my problems. There is now, no way to contact Corel at all in regard to problems with their software other than by paying a one time fee of $50 every time that you contact them. The process is that you must make a credit card payment of $5 and give them the authority to post further charges to your account automatically as their operatives levy them. This is most distinctly unfair. If you have a system which is as unwieldy and completely automatic as Corel's is, why should you also have the right to demand that your customers pay for the service that other companies perform for free, as a condition of your purchase of obviously faulty software.

Kevin Heap

Cases [protected] and [protected]

I paid for an order online at Corel.com using PayPal and when I was returned to the store a site error occurred "Site Temporarily Unavailable". The payment went through but the order was never processed by Corel and I have not received what I paid for.

I have asked for help from their online chat who said they can't access the account but would get support to contact me asap. I have waited more than two days now. I've tried contacting @CorelSupport three times on Twitter and raised a dispute on PayPal but nobody is responding. I have even tried the support case escalation process.

This is terrible service and I am now forced to request a chargeback from my credit card provider.

I had purchased the Corel/Roxio Creator NXT Pro for $145.00 to make some photo slides of my vacations and burn them to a DVD as a movie. My first one that was a short movie, worked fine and burned to the DVD with no problem. However my next one was a bit longer and when I tried to burn it to DVD, some of the photos where missing and was just replaced with a black screen. Also the music and text was still working and there. I contacted online Corel/Roxio to ask for technical advise with my problem. I was told that I had a 14 day free tech support warranty and they started a case number for me. I got an e-mail with the case number and then the day after I had a guy named Jerome contact me by e-mail and ask me 4 technical questions. he needed the information in order to help me I was told. I answered and hoped I would get the help I needed to solve my problem. What I got the next day is an e-mail from Corel to tell me I should purchase the priority tech support warranty from them because it would give me great service and help. A day later I got more tech questions by e-mail from Jerome because he needed more info in order to help me, so he said. After that all I got was an bombardment of sales e-mails trying to push me to purchase the priority tech support but never heard back from Jerome. In the meantime I was told that my 14 days of free support are up. My problem was never solved and I ended up with an expensive software program that is useless. PLEASE if you are considering purchasing a software program from Corel...BEWARE... all they will want to do is sell you more tech support for programs that don't seem to work. I would not recommend a Corel program to my worse enemies (if I had any lol)

What is it with Corel? Love their software, they can't market nor sell nor provide customer service worth a hoot.
For example: I bought PaintShop 3X, which is an upgrade from the Paint Shop I had Dell install in my computer when it was made back in 2004. The new PaintShop wouldn't integrate with the old one. So, now I have two running, and while the new one has some great features, so did the old one, so I now find myself flipping between the two. Try to find anyone who can explain the problem. And, no instruction manual.
Yesterday I decided to take advantage of their on-line sale offer to upgrade from my WordPerfect 12 Office to WP Office X5. I had some questions. I called four different times throughout the day, and each time got a prerecorded message that the office was closed, I needed to call back during regular business hours.
I tried to communicate with their on-line service rep. "Reste, " [05:03:36] who spoke gibberish and simply didn't appear to understand my simple questions. Consequently, Reste said he could arrange to have someone call me at my convenience to answer my questions and take my order. I gave him my convenient times.
No calls. [[Question: are they trying to go out of business? Did MicroSoft either buy them out or insert a set of subversive employees?]]
I called again at dinner time. Same recorded message. They're closed.
I have lots of loyalty toward Corel. They're not MicroSoft. They have by far the better word processing package. Makes Word look like something out of the Middle Ages. I've been using WordPerfect for over twenty years. But something is seriously wrong now with that company.
doug
[protected]@yahoo.com

During the last week of July 2010 I purchased via telephone the VideoStudio Pro X3 video editing software from Corel. Shortly after I received it, I installed it. The first part of August I contacted their customer service telephone number as I was getting a popup message every time I tried to open the program stating "Abnormal Program Termination" (See attached screenshot). The customer rep said I needed to pay for help. I couldn't understand why. I had never contacted their help line before and I was having problems with their software that was not addessed on their FAQ/Q&A webpage. The rep agreed not to charge me the fee since it was my first call. He sent me by email a link that I needed to go to to download their uninstall program. Evidently the one that comes with the program doesn't do the job right or something. He informed me that this download when ran would completly remove all traces of the program from my computer including the registry. I followed his instructions step by step. Went to the link, downloaded the uninstall file, uninstalled completely the program, rebooted, reinstalled the program from disk, then went to another link he sent me to install all the patches, fixes, updates, etc. This fixed the problem... well so I thought. About 3 days later I got the same popup message when I went to run the software. Well by this time I knew what I did the time before so without customer care's assistance, I did the very same thing. This process in all takes 30-45 minutes. Again it worked just fine for a few days then low and behold, I got the same message. In September, I called customer support again. Once again I explained the issue, told them what I did to resolve the issue but then told them the same issue kept returning. I also once again was able to talk them out of the fee that they were going to charge me to help. I had sent in a ticket prior to this call. I was told in the online incident report as well as the on the phone the second time what to do to correct the problem which is exactly what they told me to do the first time. I explained this had been done numerous times. The rep was going to hang up if I didn't want to follow the instructions he was giving me over the phone. So, I did what he told me and once again unistalled, rebooted, and reinstalled the program from disk and then went to their website again and downloaded and reinstalled the patches, fixes, and updates again.
This same thing has been going on since. In January of this year I started a new incident report online telling them that not only was this problem still happening but, when I did get the software to work, it kept asking me for a number (which came with the product and they said on the phone was the right number). When I was putting it in, the software kept asking me to create a new account online and was not letting me in under the original registration number, email, and password. (Yes, I was using the correct one!) They told me in the incident report not to worry about their database that everything was fine on their end regarding my registration but didn't answer my question regarding my original complaint. I have been going back and forth with them now since on two different incident reports since January with the same problem since last August.
They keep asking me for the screenshot which I can see is still attached to the incident report? Do they not read the report before responding? I would guess not. About once a week since January, I keep getting emails from them stating "we haven't heard from you. If we don't hear from you within 120 hours (or whatever the number was), we will assume the problem is resolved and will close the incident report."
Each time I update the report stating that NO the issue is still not resolved, what are you going to do about it and when are you going to stop wasting my time with emails and actually answer the question."
About three weeks ago I received an email from their advertising department. ( I LOVE THIS...)
"It's our great pleasure to announce that an exciting new version of VideoStudio Pro is now available and, as someone who purchased VideoStudio Pro within the past 30 days, you're eligible to upgrade to the all-new VideoStudio Pro X4 at the special low price of only $49.99. You save $30 off the regular upgrade price of $79.99!*"
Well, that's nice! But there is TWO things wrong with that: 1. I did NOT just purchase the VideoStudio Pro within the last 30 days and 2. Why would I want to PAY for the upgrade when this version won't work?
I have asked them to GIVE me the new version for my time and trouble but I can't get them to respond to my other incident reports only to tell me they haven't heard from me which again they have.
The one online report on file that I have access to via their online incident reports is January 21. All previous reports were deleted by them but never answered to my satisfaction.
I have tried installing to my laptop as well as my desktop. The desktop runs Vista 32 bit and the laptop runs Win7 32-bit.
I finally told them I would be contacting their corporate headquarters. We'll see how that turns out... I will also be contacting the Better Business Bureau. This has gone on long enough and I have been MORE than patient with them.

In september my credit card was compromised and was reported and cancelled immediatly, contacted my credit union and the companys where it was used where notified, everyone responded except corel, they have ingored repeated notications from my bank and also from me.They keep telling me that they donot keep any records on payments through credit cards, although they had some record to take money out of my acct.It is frustrating to deal with someone who will not respond, when every other company did.Do not do business with corel, they have no support and will take your money and will not respond to your complaints.

Until recently I was a dedicated Corel software user, specifically the graphics programs such as CorelDRAW Suite, Painter (v. 6, 9, and 10) Bryce (when Corel owned the software), and Paint Shop Pro Photo (v. X1 and X2) just to name a few. Promoted the software as affordable with a reasonable learning curve. However, over the years I've learned that the costs are subjective, especially when considering paying for new versions that are nothing more than minor upgrades.

CorelDRAW Suite v. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 cannot be said to be significant in their differences, mostly bells and whistles added along the way. Since Corel has offered their software on a trial bases I've seen no reason to upgrade from v. 11.

The straw that broke the proverbial camel's back was when Corel tauted Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 Ultimate as the cat's meow in photo editing. It's nothing more than a few tweeks over the just previously released X2 and included Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4. In essence, I paid for X2 (again) and Essentials 4, which, in my opinion, is less of a program than Corel Photo Essentials 3.

I wrote Corel a letter stating my complete dissatifaction quite some time ago and have yet to receive an answer. Needless to say, I don't really expect Corel to reply.

Long story short, my response to Corel's lack of customer satisfaction and costly upgrades was to purchase Adobe PhotoShop X4. It's something I should have done some time ago and all the money I spent on Corel products could have paid for PhotoShop and then some, had I wised up sooner.

BTW, I'm a photographer and take panoramic shots as well as high definition resolution (HDR) photos. PhotoShop's features make stitching photos together easy, something which is labor intensive with Corel's Paint Shop Pro Photo program. PhotoShop aligns, matches pixels and lighting at the press of a button. Paint Shop Pro Photo, on the other hand, creates noise and artifacts in every one of the HDR photos I've created with it.

Adobe PhotoShop is expensive but, as the saying goes, you get what you pay for.

I "up-graded" from the Corel photo that came pre-installed with my computer to Corel MediaOne. It turned out to be not much of an upgrade at all. And it has never worked properly. It caused crashes, would not interact with my e-mail, and froze anytime I tried to use it. I have been e-mailing Corel support back and forth, with no answers. Then I asked for uninstall/re-install help online. The first link they gave me paged out. I then called their phone support, who told me me that I had been given the OLD uninstall/re-install directions. I went to the "new" directions, following them to the LETTER. NOW Mediaone is MIA. I am going to eliminate EVERY FRAGMENT of Corel from my computer and purchase Adobe Photoshop...an EXCELLENT product!

I recently purchased Corel Knockout2 at a retail store ($99.99). The minimum requirements on the outside of the box stated the program would run on Mac OS X, and Adobe Photoshop 5 or higher. The package was printed in Aug 2006. After opening the box and reading the readme file on the disk I saw that it would work only on Mac OS X.3, not the current OS x.4.9, the current version and Photoshop 5, 6, or 7, not the current CS2 or CS3. After spending 4 hours trying to email Corel from their website (didn't work), and spending over an hour on hold I was told that they could do nothing to rectify the situation. The retail store also will not refund opened software packages. I feel that this was false advertising and totally misleading.