I've had perlbill a few months now and decided it is time for a review.

Firstly it took them ages to set up my account, i emailed John and eventually he replied saying he was sorry for the delay and that he would give me a 6 month increase on my licence.
Ok so that was the first problem sorted.

Then after playing with the software for a while i had a list of questions, I emailed John, he ignored me. I then posted on their forums saying that my email had been ignored and could they please reply........eventually he bothered to post a reply to my message.

I have posted various complaints on their forum, which have been ignored and deleted from the forum if they say so much as one word against them.

I then posted about Paypal, there is a section in their control panel to select the currency you want perlbill to be in, which i have set to GBP. I was told that this would sort everything out. I then checked the paypal payment page which was insisting in charging in USD, which, if my customers had used would have caused me a substantial loss in income.
I posted about this problem..........surprise surprise it was ignored.
I eventually found out from someone else that this problem was caused by them neglecting to put the currency field in the form that goes to PayPal and added it myself.

I thought my problems were over at this stage so i was doing a final test and the client login will now no longer work. I've got no idea what the problem is as i have not changed anything. It appears i am not the only one with the problem, so yet again i posted on their forum.............It was ignored........then today someone with senior member status replies with "john will be back on saturday, kindly co-operate"

My verdict:

The worst company I have EVER had the misfortune of dealing with, their support is disgusting, responses are short and often rude, if they reply at all that is.
The software although it looks "cool" is buggy and as mentioned you cannot get any support for the problems.
I've heard rumours that John has had some problems, that isn't my fault, I would be more sympathetic if he explained, which he hasnt. It is good business practice to have a backup in place, which he clearly doesn't.
Because of him the launch of my new site has been delayed at one of the busiest times of year for us and I am far from impressed.

Don't use them.

My course of action:

If there is no response this time i will be doing a chargeback against them!

<snip>

Wow, great review!

I am very thankful, as I was just about to purchase Perlbill yesterday, as we needed something like that for a new company, but now I know that Perlbill isn't the best choice.

I tried the demo on their site and I liked it, but if there isn't any possible way to get support then I guess we will be creating our own app (even if it takes longer).

Thanks a lot, you just helped me save some bucks.

Im not surprised, considering when people talk about these systems 98% of the time NOONE includes PerlBill in there post. I bet alot of people dont even know what PerlBill or what it does.

You hear great things about WHMAP, ModernBill, ClientExec, WhoisCart though.

We use ModernBill and find it to be a reliable billing system, at the start I was concerned when their support ticket times, however most problems can be fixed by posting in their forums.

Like most software yes MB has some bugs but what hasn't?

We have tried WHM Auto but prefer ModernBill.

Can you tell me why you prefer mbill over whm?

thanks,
steve

I know a lot of people who use PerlBill and love it.

They say they wouldn't switch even if they were offered a free version of modernbill etc.

But then you get some people who buy the software and absolutely hate it.

I think it comes down to what you want the software to do, how you get the software to do it, and the way you look at it.

WHM was okay and fine and probably wouldn't of changed until I had the chance of using MB through another company.

ModernBill gives me more control and the ability to change any setting in more detail. (probably not good for a novice) It seems to be always ahead of WHM with its modules and new features.

However it each to his own, but my recommendation goes to MB

I do apologize for the difficulties you have had. Some of points you raised are true, and I hold my hands up. You did have to wait for the approval and I did compensate you for that.

I would argue about perlBill being buggy, you do have to make alterations to the paypal template to pass a different currency to them. This isn't a perlBill fault, if you want to change the currency it must be changed in the template.

I don't know anything about the problem you are having with user logins, because you haven't opened a support ticket (or I cant locate it).

I did take most of last week off, for reasons I will not go into here. I didn't just take off for a week - the support desk was manned all week and there are only 3/4 tickets awaiting a response at this point in time - all of which should have been logged in the last 48 hours.

The ticket system is the way to get support, the forums are mainly there for user-user contact, I do post as much as possible but I inevitably miss posts now and again.

As a result of last week, the help desk has an extra person working on it longer term which will greatly improve response times. I did a search and could find no tickets from you in the system though, from any point in time.

If you are unhappy with perlBill, you can request a refund. I will gladly comply and issue one .... but please do this through the ticket system rather than the forums or emailing me directly.

I hope you don't take this reply the wrong way; I really don't want to cause any hassle. I am happy to either help you and address your concerns or refund you. Either way, please use the ticket system as instructed on the perlBill contact pages.

Thanks.

Originally posted by JBS
I do apologize for the difficulties you have had. Some of points you raised are true, and I hold my hands up. You did have to wait for the approval and I did compensate you for that.

I would argue about perlBill being buggy, you do have to make alterations to the paypal template to pass a different currency to them. This isn't a perlBill fault, if you want to change the currency it must be changed in the template.

I don't know anything about the problem you are having with user logins, because you haven't opened a support ticket (or I cant locate it).

I did take most of last week off, for reasons I will not go into here. I didn't just take off for a week - the support desk was manned all week and there are only 3/4 tickets awaiting a response at this point in time - all of which should have been logged in the last 48 hours.

The ticket system is the way to get support, the forums are mainly there for user-user contact, I do post as much as possible but I inevitably miss posts now and again.

As a result of last week, the help desk has an extra person working on it longer term which will greatly improve response times. I did a search and could find no tickets from you in the system though, from any point in time.

If you are unhappy with perlBill, you can request a refund. I will gladly comply and issue one .... but please do this through the ticket system rather than the forums or emailing me directly.

I hope you don't take this reply the wrong way; I really don't want to cause any hassle. I am happy to either help you and address your concerns or refund you. Either way, please use the ticket system as instructed on the perlBill contact pages.

Thanks.

John,

With all due respect, I was one of those people who requested for a refund but never got one til today...

I had submitted support tickets within 2 weeks of my purchase and you were not able to resolve them. After this, I managed to deal with it but I ran into more issues with the invoice dates being incorrect. You were unable to help me and my tickets were ignored.

This is where I asked for a refund. You ignored my e-mails and my tickets. 6 months passed and my member's area profile and my forum profile were deleted. I sent numerious e-mails and they were ignored.

I have since forgetten about the whole nightmare until now. Are you going to give me a refund?

Please contact me.

Ariel Dimalaluan
arield [at] inerex.com

Originally posted by arelex
John,
...I have since forgetten about the whole nightmare until now. Are you going to give me a refund?

so...did you ever get the refund. IMHO, you are well deserved the refund.
Please post if you have recvd the refund or if this too has been ignored.

*scratches PerlBill off the list*

Yes, please do tell us the results of your refund encounterment :)

trying to get ahold of anyone at either modernbill or perlbill is like hoping you are going to win the lotto.

Support really sucks for both products IMO. The GOOD thing about perlbill is that it is opensource and you can build on it and correct the numerous bugs that it does include, where as MB you are pretty much pissing up a rope.

I have a really, really sweet perlbill version that is in beta now that supports onlinenic, 2checkout and paypal simultaneously, handles server rotation, and actually works.

Perlbill is the one I would go with strictly because of the customization options available. However, I hope you know Perl as I do not and basically the version I will be running is already 14 times the cost off the base product that they sell at perlbill.com

Oh, BTW I must be one of the 3/4 tickets he has still open. ....

:rolleyes:

Originally posted by steveTobb
xeoHosting has been looking for a reliable billing client and we will knock perlbill off of our list.


I've just found this one.
Took a look at demo, looks great, if a bit steep cost...

http://www.dreamcost.com/?page=hostadmin&session_id=545674f940e4a182a97bca9ef6b74928

Anyone using it?

m.

Please start a new thread :) thankyou

-steve

If you search perlBill I have plenty of posts saying this, but Ill repeat.


PerlBill has great potential. However I think John is overburdened with too many projects. So the software is buggy, and often updates turn into headaches.

If he ever sits down and spends the time the software deserves with updates it would be a great product.

Originally posted by steveTobb
Yes, please do tell us the results of your refund encounterment :)

I sent him a PM and an e-mail, but still no response. :(

I don't think I have had anything from you, as I directed earlier - please use the ticket system http://perlbill.com/support.

Warm Regards

John Bennett

Originally posted by JBS
I don't think I have had anything from you, as I directed earlier - please use the ticket system http://perlbill.com/support.

Warm Regards

John Bennett

As requested, I submitted a ticket for the refund. I will update everyone with the results.

With all due respect to the person who started this thread, I have been a user of perlbill/perldesk for a long time as well as a member of the support team and the Forums.I have installed the software on multiple platforms without an issue , I agree with you that support had been slow at times , but it is getting better. It is unfair to say that the software is buggy based on your own experience , if the product is buggy then it should be buggy for everyone who is using it and that is not the case. There are alot of users who are very happy with the sofware. The software is not out of the box product, there are certain things the user must do to install and use this sofware, most of the support calls that come across to the helpdesk deal with simple things like installing a perl module or set the right permission, those things are simple things that anyone who have dealt with servers or cgi-scripts should be able to do. Don't get me wrong there are situations where a user requires support to do certain things that the sofware was not intended to do, in this situation a code edit might be necessary, it can be a simple line or a whole lot more which makes it difficult to change the whole code to do things the sofware was not made for.

If anyone is having any problems with this software, please use the helpdesk and submit a ticket so we can help you.

Thank you

well. Let me tell you our history.
2 month ago we were looking for billing sys. And found perbill and MB. I wrote to sales to both companies. And i haven't got the reply from perlbill till NOW! Probably they will also tell they haven't got my email :)
Also we were looking for ticket system at the same time and found Kayako.com as MB partner. And i have to tell you that they have really best support of all! Fast and detailed answers.
So let's return to billing. As you may understand we choose MB. We hsve been using it for a month already and wrote about 15 support tickets. All were answered. Average reply time is about 1-2 _business_ days. I will keep you updated it we will have any problems with support or MB.
MB aslo has very good manual and help. The only thing i'm really messed with - that's their email types and templates. I've been trying to understand how it works and how i can customize it under our requirments for 3 weeks already. And didn't manage to. But i beleive it's the topic for their forum and will post it there.

still waiting for a refund....:(

Still waiting on that support request...

Maybe it's just me, but I *love* PerlBill.

It does CPanel integration, payment processing, help desk stuff. It does just about everything I need in one neat package. I haven't had a single problem with it.

So, I don't know what all the issues are :/ Then again, maybe it's just me?

Support really sucks for both products IMO. The GOOD thing about perlbill is that it is opensource and you can build on it and correct the numerous bugs that it does include, where as MB you are pretty much pissing up a rope.


In the last few versions ModernBill has moved to eliminate the "developer's version" Making all of the source that you'd want to edit available. They've also stated that if you needed to edit a specific file that was encoded, they would provide that file unencoded for you.

What does that run? Last I looked the developer licence was like 800 dollars for 250 clients.

PerlBill is not OpenSource, it is however not encrypted and as was pointed out that is a big advantage over MB. If anything were to ever happen to MB (Oh I know the argument, they aren't ever going anywhere) you would be stuck with encrypted code you cannot modify or update.

I experimented with MB for a while and discarded it as it has too high of a learning curve for both end users and support staff. I have used PerlDesk (not PerlBill) and found it to be a great HD software...

Originally posted by pagecom
It is unfair to say that the software is buggy based on your own experience , if the product is buggy then it should be buggy for everyone who is using it and that is not the case. Ok...so go over to the PerBill forums and do a search on "sendmail" or "email". Then come back here and say that it is not buggy:

http://www.perlbill.com/forums/search.php?searchid=12628

Originally posted by barko
Ok...so go over to the PerBill forums and do a search on "sendmail" or "email". Then come back here and say that it is not buggy:



No it is not, I have been using the software for over two years and have installed it on multiple platforms without an issue,as well as 1000's of other users who are very happy.

You just bought the software today and started bashing it right after. This just shows that you did not even take the time to install it correctly.

Originally posted by pagecom
No it is not, I have been using the software for over two years and have installed it on multiple platforms without an issue,as well as 1000's of other users who are very happy.

You just bought the software today and started bashing it right after. This just shows that you did not even take the time to install it correctly. Nice try, pal...I have had the software for over 4 months and it still doesn't work correctly.

But...nice try anyway. :stickout:

Anyhow doesn't matter - kayako is a better option and I'm done with PerlDesk. Way too many unresolved issues and pissed-off people. You can argue if you want, but the forums tell it all: :eek:

http://www.perlbill.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=11

Originally posted by pagecom
No it is not, I have been using the software for over two years and have installed it on multiple platforms without an issue,as well as 1000's of other users who are very happy.

You just bought the software today and started bashing it right after. This just shows that you did not even take the time to install it correctly. Besides being incorrect,

your opinion is not exactly non-biased, eh?
Looks like you provide support on the Perldesk forums.

[edit] ACTUALLY...you are a moderator on the PerlDesk support forums.

ModernBill :)

sucks

Still waiting for my refund. :(

Originally posted by barko
Besides being incorrect,

your opinion is not exactly non-biased, eh?
Looks like you provide support on the Perldesk forums.

[edit] ACTUALLY...you are a moderator on the PerlDesk support forums.

Perlbill Employee (Forum Moderator) pretending to be a loving customer. That's just bad business.

Since your moderator, maybe you can ask John what the situation is with my refund. I have done everything he has requested.

Still waiting for a refund. Still no update on the ticket. :(

Originally posted by JBS
I do apologize for the difficulties you have had. Some of points you raised are true, and I hold my hands up. You did have to wait for the approval and I did compensate you for that.

I would argue about perlBill being buggy, you do have to make alterations to the paypal template to pass a different currency to them. This isn't a perlBill fault, if you want to change the currency it must be changed in the template.

I don't know anything about the problem you are having with user logins, because you haven't opened a support ticket (or I cant locate it).

I did take most of last week off, for reasons I will not go into here. I didn't just take off for a week - the support desk was manned all week and there are only 3/4 tickets awaiting a response at this point in time - all of which should have been logged in the last 48 hours.

The ticket system is the way to get support, the forums are mainly there for user-user contact, I do post as much as possible but I inevitably miss posts now and again.

As a result of last week, the help desk has an extra person working on it longer term which will greatly improve response times. I did a search and could find no tickets from you in the system though, from any point in time.

If you are unhappy with perlBill, you can request a refund. I will gladly comply and issue one .... but please do this through the ticket system rather than the forums or emailing me directly.

I hope you don't take this reply the wrong way; I really don't want to cause any hassle. I am happy to either help you and address your concerns or refund you. Either way, please use the ticket system as instructed on the perlBill contact pages.

Thanks.

Same here, I was promised many things before I ordered and then once I ordered I was ignored. No refund, No support, and I am lucky to get an email returned.

I'm glad I found this topic. I was just about to buy perlbill :(

I sent a sales question to sales@perlbill.com about 4 weeks ago and have never got a reply (I got it from their web site). I guess they'll ask that I open a ticket :(

Just makes me wonder, how long does it take to answer a support email if a sales email takes that long?!? I guess I won't be looking to be a victim.

I'm glad you found this thread also. Make sure you spread the word.

Thanks for the information, while I have not contacted PerlBill as of yet I'll be sure to do so with a grain of salt.

I do like the look and feel of there product, however if support is terrible it will sway me from the product.

after reading this thread who will go with perbill.....

I'm hoping nobody

Would anybody be interested in a "plugin" that fixes all the issues with perlbill, is compatible so far with 2CO, PayPal, and Authorize.net, supports Domain registration through OnlineNic, and about a zillion other patches? We have our fixed version about 90% done. About $12,000 worth of addons in it so far....

That'd depend on a) whether you are permitted to distribute it in accordance with the licence and b) the sort of figure you were seeking.

Well if the person bought the perlbill license, then they have permission to use perlbill code. Then since their perlbill does not work, they have the option to buy the plug-in, which would probably void their support (cough, cough) from perlbill, and then they would have a license to use our patched code.

I do not see any issues with the licensing there but correct me if I am wrong.

you still have crappy software... With your patch it might be not as crappy software.