Parental Control Reviews

**UPDATE 2** was promised a refund and over a week later... nothing!

**UPDATE** I have “live chatted” already... long before I posted this review and they passed me on to someone else who couldn’t help me!! This has been well over a YEAR LONG battle and NO ONE in this company cares about the money you spend or the SAFETY of your CHILDREN!! BEWARE!!!

Do yourselves a favor and DO NOT even download ParentalControl let alone PAY for it. It will work so so for a few weeks and the. It will LOCK DOWN your phone and your child’s phone. You will be forced to factory reset both devices and hope there are no lingering issues. We tried very hard to have this issue resolved but the developer honestly could care less about you once you make a purchase. It was at that time that I insisted my year be canceled and refunded an allocated amount which.... let’s be honest.... was never going to happen. What ever I ate the yearly amount but still insisted it be canceled. I have message after message after message and all the screen shots proving this and yet today they charged me for a whole other year!! They do not have anyone available to answer phones so you can talk to an actual person. Literally no one is capable of handling this issue because I keep getting bounced around to this person and that person. Please head this warning and DO NOT allow yourself or your children to get caught up in this mess! It’s not worth it!

I decided to give ParentalControl the benefit of the doubt, and figured with a free 3 day trial I could see if we like it or not. On day 1 I was charged instantly for what I signed up for, by the end of day 2 I could tell that this was not working like it should. I could figure it out enough to navigate through but some things needed extra explanation, which means searching through the help section. Customer service was always kind and helpful. On the end of day 2 we decided to cancel, I started a chat in ParentalControl and was directed to email instead. By email I was first asked why I would like to cancel, and then after explaining, I was told that I was unable to receive a refund and that the 3 day trial did not apply to me because of how I signed up?!? I signed up the only way I could. I am still emailing them demanding my refund but save yourself the headache and do not even download ParentalControl or sign up.
****also I’ve went back to see they keep posting under bad reviews “please contact us for assistance” BUT when you do they keep giving excuses to why they won’t help. They lure you into a promotion because apparently a promotion takes away the right to have a refund. DO NOT PURCHASE ANY THING if you are unsure if it will work.

This is the worst app I’ve ever used. They have no real call center. Everything is handled thru email. And they never respond. After writing several email. All I got back was an automated response. Over and over the same message. As far as canceling a subscription. It’s a never ending loop of dead ends. They have you at their mercy when it comes to canceling!

I never leave reviews, but I’m determined to make sure no one uses ParentalControl. There is a reason why their ratings were reset. Don’t believe what it says on the website about its capabilities. Once you start reading the troubleshooting guide, you’ll see there are many features that do not work on iOS which makes ParentalControl pointless. They will push and push for you to purchase the discount version. They say you can cancel your account subscription for any reason, but then give a 10 point list of reasons they won’t refund your money, including signing up for a promotional offer. I got my purchase receipt, but no information on how to install ParentalControl . I had to request a password reset on my account just to log in for the first time. After ParentalControl installed, it only took me 30 minutes to figure out this was garbage and I tried to cancel immediately and get a refund. By time, customer service bounces you around and gets back to you. Your trial is over and you’ve been charged. FYI FamilyTime is a Japanese company that’s developed in Pakistan (if that matters to you).

I tried 5 different parent control apps in a single night (including Bark and Canopy). The clear winner for us is OurPact. It’s not perfect (organizing apps on devices isn’t great, and it doesn’t seem to like widgets) but it is a clear winner. It’s also US based.

App is not upfront and clear about what it covers. Internet filters/limits not available on iOS, among other things.
Didn’t even use ParentalControl and tried to get a refund within 3 days but they are declining it.

App did not work AT all, after life chats and countless emails I’m left paying for something that can’t even use! Tried to cancel and can’t, very frustrated!!!

I purchased ParentalControl and there were a ton of features I wanted and couldn’t get and did not know until after purchasing. Asked for a refund and have been told for almost 3 months that I will get a refund within 4 to 5 working days. They do not care about customer service. I went back to OurPact monitoring app and wish I never would’ve changed.

Don’t waste your time unless you are ok with wasting your money.

ParentalControl TAKES MOnEY WORST APP EVER I DONT LIKE IT AT ALL

ParentalControl, while a great idea, is not well designed or user friendly for the purposes of making it easy for the child and parent to have a great experience. I'm told by their support people that some of the limitations are due to Apple-based restrictions. For example, we have our daughter's iPhone set to limit screen time from 10p-6a. Some mornings the phone is accessible at 6:01a, and some mornings it is not. When the phone and all her apps are available, the ones that are blocked get pulled from their folders and are just replaced on the home screen in alphabetical order, which means she has to either replace them in the folders she had them in, or live with a very messy home screen. For someone who likes to be organized, this is a big problem, and with this kind of bug that causes this kind of issue, I don't care if it is Apple's fault, or the developer's, the end user should not have to hear that they just have to deal with it. Oh, and customer support is clearly not US based. The English is broken in many cases, and I know the person on the other end of the chat is in another country and not named "Sara Jones". I'd rather the company just be up front with me about who I am talking with.

We used ParentalControl for 2 years and then the boys became adults and we cancelled our subscription. Got an email that it was cancelled but the subscription still came out of our account. I asked for a refund months ago and they keep saying they forwarded it to the certain department and they will let me know when it’s resolved. 😡

I had high hopes for ParentalControl but was very disappointed to find out that almost nothing works as advertised. The web filter feature did not filter out any adult content from coming through to my son’s phone. The location finder also would not work. When I contacted customer support I was told that some features do not work in my region. I live in a large city in the US! I immediately requested a refund and I was told it would take up to 3 weeks! It’s been over a month at this point and I have already contacted customer support three times inquiring about the status of my refund, each time I’m assured it will be returned but never is.
Do not use ParentalControl! ParentalControl does NOT work! Their “free” trial period requires you to still pay up front and you will NOT get your money back!!!

It worked for a little bit, but then my kids were able to figure out work arounds and bypass the controls (they were 10 & 12 at the time). I forgot this was on an auto renewal and I got a notification the day after renewed, so I contacted customer support to cancel (you can’t directly cancel through ParentalControl because that would be too easy). I had to go back and forth with them, but they said they would give a partial refund for cancelling within 3 days of the renewal-they do get to keep 40% of my money for zero service provided though. When I suggested as a courtesy they should send a reminder that’s it’s renewing, I was told they do that. I looked back in my emails and I had received one email that looks like they are just seeing how ParentalControl is working out and at the very bottom of the email it says your subscription is renewing on “DATE,” like someone forgot to actually type the date it was renewing. That is freaking shady. I wish I could attach a picture of the “renewal notification” email so you could see what I’m talking about. Bottom line, skip ParentalControl.

Your refund policy is a joke & your customer service is trained to scam customers.I reached out to customer service prior to getting ParentalControl to figure out if it would work for our family. Customer service assured me that it had all my requirements plus a trial period & even gave me a coupon! Sounded great but it was misleading. The coupon voided my trial period & in fact, ParentalControl did NOT meet my family’s needs. I contact customer service multiple times asking to cancel the service and to get my money refunded. They refused. I would never have paid them money or used the coupon if their representative hadn’t suggested it. Very disappointed. Would never recommend this company or their product to another parent. In my opinion, this company completely cheated me out of my money & provided terrible customer service.

I signed up for family time and shortly after found that ParentalControl was not compatible with my sons phone (iPhone 5). At this point I contacted customer support to see if there was a work around and was told that there was not and that I’d be refunded. I canceled this service October 2, 2018. It is now December 5th and I have YET to receive a refund. I have emailed the company at least ten times and each time I was given the blanket statement “so sorry about your inconvenience, I have contacted our billing department and a refund will be issued in (blank) amount of time. This time frame started with 4-5 weeks (I assume so that people will forget). Then it changed to 5 business days, and went back and forth between that and 48 hours over the last two months. I can’t even comment on ParentalControl itself as I never got a chance to use it! I did download mobicip and like that app!

When looking for apps for phones to monitor the content our children were viewing this one seemed like a no brainer! What ParentalControl and everything fails to tell you is that it barely works on Apple phones and is a complete waste of money. I paid for a years service ahead of time and was sold on what I read on the internet. After 2 days I quickly learned it was a sham! Customer service is fast and courteous if you like the used car salesmen smiles and BS excuses. They quickly ended our service as requested, said they would refund us our money in 15-20 days. Here we are 8 month later with no money. A quick trip to the bank and fraud stuff, we got a reversal on the payment.

This is a fraud and a scam, a useless app! Run away from this and find something better!!! There is no way any other ratings more than 1 star are real!!! Apple please shut them down!!

This company does not care for customer satisfaction at all. This is the first review I have ever written about an app, but I wanted to warn others. I found ParentalControl confusing and hard to navigate. I reached out for help and did not get a reply until I wanted to discontinue services and asked for a refund since I only had it for two days. They refused a refund, but stated I could continue to use their services for the full year. Seriously?!?!?! My child didn’t even use his phone yet- it is a present for his birthday and I was getting everything set up before he received it, but ParentalControl is not user friendly. I am not going to use it, did not use it on my child’s phone and only purchased the year subscription two days prior to figuring this all out and they won’t give me any type of refund??? I already found a much superior app that I figured out right away and will be using them.

Its a scam, beware of ParentalControl! Their chat support had me put two 5 stars reviews from 2 parents account, before I purchased it so I'll get 50% off the price, I agreed knowing I'd be able to change it if needed and hoped ParentalControl will work great, ParentalControl would not install on my daughter iPad , it kept saying that the installation failed, I tried for few hours to get it to work with their tech support, nothing worked, at one point ParentalControl just kept crashing, couldn’t even open it, I asked for refund 2 hours after purchased since I cannot use it but they wont refund me saying I took the promotion price and it is non refundable, it was never mentioned when the promotion was offered to me. They also told me that I have to send email to billing since they dont process refunds through the chat. All the 5 starts reviews are from people that took the discount in exchange for a review. Scam!!

App didn’t work on my sons phone. Customer service was not responsive in a timely manner for trouble shooting. Trial was only 3 days so I asked them to just cancel it since the individual in the chat couldn’t help me and had to forward my request to another team. I was told my account was cancelled and assured there would be no charges to my account. Well wouldn’t ya know, at the end of the trial I was charged! I reached out to them again and the response to the email was that my request would be forwarded to the billing department where it could take a month to review! I got such a runaround from this company. Finally had to just file a dispute with PayPal. That was the only way I got a refund. You have to email to cancel and they don’t even cancel it when they say they will. Please, don’t do like I did and ignore the reviews.

They offer a “free” 3 day trial...but charge you for the full subscription. When you then request a refund they tell you that you signed up for the upgrade instead of the trial. I signed up for the only thing offered. Don’t sign up for ParentalControl at all!

I did go into “Live Chat” for assistance and was told I signed up for an upgrade instead of the trial...there was only one way to sign up at all. Your response to my review was unhelpful and doesn’t change the fact that your marketing is misleading.

10 months later...I still can’t shed this company from my life. They auto-renewed my subscription (which isn’t up for another2 months). When I contacted them they said before renewal the send emails for a month. Nope, never got an email. And I can’t find a way on there website to cancel. Please save yourself the frustration, ParentalControl and customer service are terrible.

ParentalControl seemed to work for a few weeks. Then the child dashboard was nonresponsive, and I had the impression the screen time limit did not work properly, and could be bypassed by accessing apps such as music from lock screen. Enter over 12 mail exchanges with customer service, resulting in both parent and child apps blocked in a re-initialisation workflow, and customer service giving useless instructions. Example: me: ...the parent app is blocked at the dialogue where it asks me to add a child‘s device, and no way to exit the dialogue. The child‘s device is blocked at the screen where it asks me to enter the parent‘s pin of the old version in order to disinstall it. Could you please give me that pin? (By the way I had a password, no pin). Answer: please install the apps from this site:..,
In the end there was a rogue child app blocking screen time at a different time zone. Had to get rid of it by factory reset. Never again!

We bought ParentalControl and at first it worked so we subscribed. Within about a week our kids learned how to defeat ParentalControl . We worked with the company and found ParentalControl hard to reinstall and get working again, and ParentalControl remained easily defeatable by our kids. We then attempted to cancel our subscription and wrote if off as something we tried that did not work. To our surprise the subscription auto renewed and we were charged for a second year. We quickly contacted family time and were promised a refund. That was 2 months ago. We get promised a refund a lot, and get a lot of we need another week talk, but the refund has never come. I recommend you do not do business with family time because the service is easily defeatable, hard to reinstall and get working once defeated, and apparently near impossible to get the subscription stopped.

Don’t waste your time with ParentalControl if you are on iOS, the location map is completely and ridiculously inaccurate making the most important feature of ParentalControl completely unusable. I just dropped my daughter off at school which is mikes away across town yet Her current location shows as just a couple of blocks away which I know to be impossible. The check into location alert I set obviously didn’t work either because ParentalControl doesn’t know where her phone is. Total waste of time and much frustration getting ParentalControl set up in the first place and now even more frustrated that it dies t work as advertised.
Also, originally ParentalControl Store said that text tracking was available. Found out after installing through chat support that it is a feature “coming soon” for iOS. NOT HAPPY! Don’t waste your time. Looking into Life360 as an alternative for location tracking.

I was looking for something that gave me a little more control over my kids phones. ParentalControl claims to do it all. I signed up for what was supposed to be a three day trial. I never received the email to access my account. I called and was instantly charged, without getting my trial period af all. ParentalControl is so incompatible and not user friendly at all.
When I reached out through chat for a refund I was told I had to email. When I sent an email, I was told it will take 15-20 working days to get a refund. This is beyond unacceptable!! You did not hesitate to take MY money when you didn’t even give me my free trial. I see this is actually how you run your business by looking at the other reviews.
This company is scamming people out of money!!! This needs to stop! Looking forward to seeing which generic pre fabricated comment I get from the company. They don’t actually read our reviews or even care to listen to complaints. I want my money back!

Had problems getting app to work. Despite multiple encounters with customer service it never worked consistently. Below is their reply when I asked for a refund. Still refusing after multiple requests. Olivia Andersen (FamilyTime) Feb 20, 8:59 AM PKT Hello, Thanks for contacting FamilyTime customer support. Sorry for the inconvenience that may have caused you. We went through your account details and it seems like you went for the Upgrade that means you have availed the discount offer (CS40, 40% discount offer). In this scenario, you do not get three days free trial although you do get charged instantly. You may ask us to cancel your subscription at any time but we are afraid we cannot offer you a refund due to No Refund Policy upon discount offers. Thank you, Olivia A.

Update: I complained to Apple that ParentalControl was ripping people off. They told me they would review but not update me on their decision. 2 years later and ParentalControl is still available on their store.

I’ve had to ask customer service for help, several times. They’re always prompt to respond and helpful. I haven’t got a chance to really test out ParentalControl yet. Text messages and phone calls are reported 45-60 min later on your app, and they can’t be deleted within 10 minutes on your child’s app. So if you have a kid that’s not prompt with covering their tracks, ParentalControl is quite sufficient!
Well… got to try it out for a few days, or let’s say, they got my money for a service I’ve never received. ParentalControl does not work properly, they have to work out kinks they say. Well that’s a lot of kinks. My son was locked out of his phone because he didn’t have service. I will be asking for a refund. It’s absurd the hoops I’ve had to go through with their customer service to TRY to make ParentalControl work, which never has fully worked since day one. Don’t waste your money, invest in a better app.

ParentalControl is supposed to block apps so your child can get on their electronics to play… didn’t work right and i complained and they said they would look into it. with it not performing the way i wanted i made sure auto renew for the over paid subscription for a sub par app was turned off… don’t you know months down the line i’m charged anyways and now every day for a week i’ve been getting the run around about getting my money back and having my account deleted. this and app personnel are scamming scum. less than 1 star but there’s no option

UPDATE… to expedite your refund if you make a mistake and these people get your money. file with the better business bureau, mine went through paypal so i also filed a claim with paypal after a week of excuses. paypal sided with me in a couple hours and as soon as family time say i went to the BBB, they refunded me mid-next day. hope this helps until these people can’t make apps any longer

ParentalControl doesn’t do have of what Apple’s native ‘Screen Time’ parental controls now do. There’s literally no reason for ParentalControl to exist.
I tried ParentalControl last year, in early 2018, when trying to keep tabs and control on our son’s screen time. The controls were inconsistent at best, but more often than not failed to enforce the limits they claimed were possible. After less than 4 months of use (again, this was pre-Apple “Screen Time”), I removed the apps from our devices, which included several email exchanges with support to remove it from our son’s devices. There isn’t any way to argue that they were not aware of my dissatisfaction or my intentions to never use their service again.
Cut to Thursday of this past week, Family Time billed me for another year of their worthless service. My attempts to fight the charge to my account via PayPal have failed, and Family Time refuses to issue a refund.
Save your time, save your efforts, and most importantly, SAVE YOUR $!!! Don’t purchase ParentalControl.

I got ParentalControl and it was horrible. It didn’t do anything I needed and I was very disappointed. I contacted customer service right away and said I need a refund. I have not even used ParentalControl and I need my money refunded. They asked for my receipt. I sent it to them. They asked for 5 other kinds of proof of purchase. Finally I said I have given you enough proof I purchased it I want a refund. Now it has been over 2 months. Still no refund. First it was up to 21 business days to get a refund. Then it was 7-10 business days. Then it was I am sorry we are getting it to the billing department now. And then then was I apologize please be patient we sent it to the billing department now. Patient??? It’s been over 2 months!!! I feel I have been pretty patient. DONT ORDER ParentalControl. YOU WILL REGRET IT. Not only is ParentalControl worthless so is the customer service. And still no refund. They are worthless. They are scammers. Do not purchase ParentalControl. I was going to share pics of the emails from March 10th staying that they have billing processing it now and blah blah blah. This can not be legal to rip everyone off like this

UPDATE: DO NOT SUBSCRIBE, YOU CANNOT CANCEL!! THEY ASK THAT YOU EMAIL THEM TO CANCEL AND YOU GET A RESPONSE BACK INDICATING THEY HAVE IT CANCELLED BUT THEY NEVER ACTUALLY CANCEL THE AUTOMATIC RENEWAL ON YOUR ACCOUNT!! I keep getting emails letting me know that “my trial ends soon and I will be automatically charged”, even after I emailed several times to cancel my account. I respond to the emails asking if my account is STILL active and in a trial and they respond and say yes it is in a trial and you will be charged when your trial ends on . Yep, that’s the response, they never actually include a date. It is impossible to cancel.

This never worked properly. Support chat is a waste of time, they give links to read help information topics I have already read. I paid for a one year subscription, and am trying to cancel it so I don’t get charged again. You cannot cancel in your online account. You have to contact chat support who spends 15 minutes telling you that they are reviewing your account to see what they can do and then they just give you an email address and tell you to submit an email request to billing to the cancel auto renewal on the account. STAY AWAY FROM THIS SERVICE!!

ParentalControl is garbage and it doesn’t do anything they claim it will. They won’t refund your money and will give you the run around. I don’t why Apple even lets this garbage in their App Store.

We downloaded ParentalControl to monitor our daughters phone. It's great in almost areas except when the phone is supposed to be locked. She can still get on it and calling or texting. I would have to go in and completely lock the phone down with every app. I did like she could send an SOS alert or a pickup alert which sends her location on on both. I love that was can see call history, and texts. But the web history part was syncing and I really don't like it pops up with "APP BLOCKED" when you block an app. It also will send you a notification that they tried to access it then blocked app which is nice. I really just want this thing to run in the background. Not alert her on everything. If the phone was to actually be locked down when I lock it or set times to be locked, and she wasn't notified about everything, ParentalControl would have been perfect. Now...on to the next!

I’ve been very impressed with ParentalControl and customer service. I’m not at all tech savvy and their customer service tech team has been very responsive 24/7 to help me set up devices so I can keep my kids safe while on their devices. It works well with Apple iPhones and I like that I can control the shut down of apps on my kids devices from my phone. With it being the holidays pre-programmed shut off times don’t always work because we are not on a normal schedule so it’s great that I can quickly with a flip of a switch turn it off and allow kids access to their phones again if I want - but likewise can use this as a test time to gain trust that ParentalControl is working for what I need before everyone goes back to school. The only thing I wish is that we could shut down texting - but that’s an Apple restriction from limiting that function.