Parallels are the company behind such well known products as Plesk and Virtuozzo, they are also one of the most incompetent companies I have ever dealt with when it comes to support, a globally shared opinion according to Google and several forums.
They are so bad that if they need to login to your server they will get you to sign a disclaimer to say that if they screw up your system then you cannot hold them responsible or take any action against them. Not because they want to protect themselves from unscrupulous customers but probably because they have no faith in their support staff due to their history of screwing up people's servers. And the advice they give is also often such utter nonsense and if you were to blindly follow it, you would screw up your own server. And yes I can confirm this from personal experience.
Even the most simple support question can become complicated when Parallels is involved, today I used their live chat simply to report a problem with their forums, as I could not do a search as the Captcha anti-spam was broke and would not allow searches, here is the conversation below which I thought I would share for your amusement.
---
Hello, your Online Store Hosting representative is Vishal J.V.
Welcome to chat.parallels.com, Vishal J.V. will be right with you.
Russ
We have just created trouble ticket for you. Ticket number: #1166686.
Vishal J.V.
Welcome to Parallels Plesk Products Licensing Support.
Vishal J.V.
How may I assist you?
Russ
i am having a problem with your forums
Russ
http://forums.webhostautomation.com/
Russ
the search will not work, it wont accept the captcha message
Vishal J.V.
May I know which Parallels product you are using?
Russ
it says report to the webmaster, but I cannot find any contact details for the webmaster
Russ
can you please advice who i need to contact
Vishal J.V.
May I know which Parallels product you are using?
Russ
see above
Vishal J.V.
Please give me 1 minute Russ.
Vishal J.V.
Thank you for your patience.
Vishal J.V.
Russ, I had a check with the domain and the domain is registered under DIRECTNIC, LTD. So we suggest you to contact them.
Vishal J.V.
I will provide you the contact number.
Vishal J.V.
+1.877.856.9598 or +1.813.283.5168
Russ
what has this got to do with directNic? it is your website ?
Russ
run by you
Russ
directNic are a domain registrar
Vishal J.V.
Yes.
Russ
so your asking me to contact a domain registrar to report a problem with your website
Russ
the website is nothing to do with them
Russ
how will they be able to help me ?
Vishal J.V.
Please give me one more minute.
Russ
i need the contact details for the webmaster who manages your forums so i an report the problem
Vishal J.V.
I am having a check Russ. Please give me a minute.
Vishal J.V.
Thank your patience Russ.
Vishal J.V.
I apologise for the long delay.
Vishal J.V.
I will have a check with the issue with our next level of support and willget back to you through email within the next 24 hours
Aug 18, 2012 at 2:30 PM is fantastic. He has helepd me with many a gripe about CFEclipse and come through quickly. I love CFEclipse and will continue to use it. I wish I had more time to participate in the CFEclipse group.I will admit to being slightly jaded towards Adobe. I spent 15 mos working my butt off for them as a consultant, telling them repeatedly I would like to become a perm employee. Instead, my contract got cut three months early, and a week after that, another 700 people got laid off. The reason for cutting me, primarily, was because after the lead on our team got promoted to Architect, that left me as the last US-based developer.I can't help but take that slightly personally. I'm fed up with companies sending work to India. Hell even Adobe's CEO is Indian, something I'm not fond of either. I can't help but find this related.I wish no ill against Adobe, but I am very much in favor of open source solutions, and since my time with Adobe, I have been a big proponent of Railo. I think if Adobe went out of business, there would still be plenty of community support to keep CFML alive. If php can do it, CFML can too.