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Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

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Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#81
post #58

For anyone stuck in this dark pattern here is a trick I've used in the past: Adobe won't let you cancel without paying the remainder of your subscription fee however you can switch to a different plan. As soon as you switch you'll have the ability to cancel your "new" plan within 14 days. If you cancel after 14 days they'll charge you the early termination fee.

In other words, they are hopelessly broken and you have to social engineer a loophole?

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#82
post #60

I fell for this. When I called adobe to complain the service rep said, in a manner not much polite than this, that "I don't believe you that you didn't know you were signing up for a year". Looking back, I now see where I agreed, but the manner in which they attempt to deceive you is criminal.

For future reference, just tell the vendor "I did not authorize this charge. Please refund me". Don't engage them further. When that call fails (or, if they don't pick up the phone in a reasonable amount of time), call your credit card company and say "I want to issue a charge back". They'll ask if you tried to work with the vendor. Answer "yes", full stop. There should be a phone number associated with the charge on…

And what if they then send you to collections? Now you’ve got bill collectors after you and your credit affected.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#83
post #37

I am so sick of companies doing this. Google bait and switches your unlimited-forever suite into limited workspaces, fails to support products, and generally makes it so you can't trust they will be there in two weeks unless you're an ad buyer. Facebook tracks you everywhere, even VR glasses. Adobe nickels and dimes, takes away permanent software with kludgy, awful SaaS billing and UX. Why are we okay with these prac…

These are not the same things. I'm annoyed by the workspaces thing too but at least I got a decade of free service.

Adobe is using sleight of hand to get you locked into a long-term contract. That's closer to fraud.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#84
post #68

If you’re on macOS and just want a good and convenient image editor, I warmly recommend Acorn. The Muellers (owners of Flying Meat Software) have put a lot of effort to make it feel like a really solid Mac application. The price is good and from time to time they offer discounts. The whole experience reminds me of using good old Paintshop Pro back in the late 90s (^_^) Other options are Affinity Photo from Serif Ltd…

Thank you! Acorn looks pretty solid, I've got Pixelmator on my iOS devices, so I was wondering if i should go for Pixelmator pro on macOS.

For very lightweight stuff, I've often used https://www.photopea.com/, even when i had photoshop installed. Works pretty well for å browser image editor

I've moved away from Adobe recently, both because of their scummy business practices (but when you know how it works, its predictable at least) but moreso because creative cloud is such a resource hog. Core sync often was listed as a process using significant energy, even though file sync was turned off and the finder extension disabled.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#85
post #51
post #13

This isn't a solution and doesn't excuse Adobe's shitty behavior, but I use privacy.com which gives you single-purpose cards. That way, I can just pause the card and subsequent charges will fail. Then let them try to get their money. Pull-based payments are such a bad idea, implemented even worse. Privacy.com at least gives you per-merchant controls and limits, even though this really should have been a Visa default.

> privacy.com Not for those of us who don't live in the US unfortunately.

Where are you located? Privacy.com were first to bring this feature to the mainstream as a product but it exists as an add-on in various places. For example, in the UK it’s offered by Monzo and offered by Revolut in the many countries they operate in. If you want to use virtual cards, it should be possible where you live.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#86
https://www.adobe.com/downloads.html

Click the Start Free Trial and experience the flow for yourself.

You're presented with 3 options, but it defaults to the 2nd option.

Instead of using more straightforward "Annual Subscription - Billed monthly", it uses rather unusual "Yearly - Billed Monthly" phrasing.

The default selection makes it less likely that you're going to read the fine print.

You also don't get the Total Cost comparison between the 3 options.

7 day free trial, but 14 day to cancel creates another unnecessary disconnect intended to confuse.

It's clear they 'optimized' the funnel towards maximum conversion at the user's cost.

Really scammy. They are riding on the coattail of their former glory products that are slowly becoming irrelevant.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#87
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can they report you to a credit bureau and get your credit score lowered? I recently had my credit score lowered, I think because I canceled a Chase / Amazon credit card after only 1 month. Apparently that is a credit faux paus. No balance owed, but I did hit the measly $500 limit once - another thing bad for credit scores. When my car + homeowner insurance renewed, it had a special section about how Lexus Nexus had…

In general, they can and do send this sort of stuff to collections since you did sign up for the terms and it's a non-trivial amount of money owed. Gyms do it for far less, so I don't see why Adobe wouldn't.

We had Time Warner send us to collections which then reported my wife to the bureaus, alleging that we had never returned our cable modem (this was just for $60, and it was 5+ years ago!!). First of all, I’m incredibly sure that we did. We had fiber after that, what would I want with an old DOCSIS modem anyway? And second of all, they were unable to offer any proof that we had not returned it. The company that was collecting tried to strongarm us, but after a few documented phone calls, it all went away. But why are companies allowed to report a fraudulent payment to collections, when they have no proof (if they had some proof surely they wouldn’t have dropped it) and there is literally no follow-up or accountability required of them? I’m glad we have the financial literacy and confidence to tell them to stuff it, but how many people get scammed by stuff like this?

We also spent a bunch of time on the phone with TWC directly, and they had no account in our name or any history of our account.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#88

I fell for this. When I called adobe to complain the service rep said, in a manner not much polite than this, that "I don't believe you that you didn't know you were signing up for a year". Looking back, I now see where I agreed, but the manner in which they attempt to deceive you is criminal.

CC chargeback.

Depending on your card it could be a pain and cost you some money. Mine requires a new card if I want to do a charge back.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#89
Yes, totally, my wife wanted one month of InDesign and got a yearly subscription, spent hours on the support without success. I wonder if there was a way to fight the dark patterns like this. They managed to show her some small print in a screenshot. Disgusting. I am extremely careful these days touching anything with "Adobe" on it. Extremely frustrating.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#90
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, me too. Annual plans are great. The issues here are: 1. All of the marketing language shown in the tweets present this as a monthly cost, rather than an annual commitment. This is deceptive. The other, truly monthly plans are default hidden on the plan selection page. 2. The enormous contract cancellation fee is buried inside the fine print. Contrast this to the USA version: https://i.imgur.com/TDptfcI.png

Annual plan to me that you're agreeing to pay for the year. Disney did something similar, it was cheaper to sign up for a year. Typically you get 12 months for the price of 10. The screenshot says you can have a full refund if you cancel before Feb 26th, assuming that holds, that's plenty of time to work out what's going on. The US is clear, I've seen that setup several times. The UK one has several red flags 1) Free…

If a user will be on the hook for $300 when cancelling a contract, that should be made quite clear. The only hint that that lays buried in the fine print is small gray text intoning "avoid a fee" that gets shown after plan selection.

It's pretty clear Adobe has work to do on their sign up flow, here. That they've already done so on the US side makes it even more inexcusable, frankly.

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