Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee • Hacker News Board

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#131

Post by II2II » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 3:36 AM UTC

greggman3 wrote: post #50

Is this really a cancellation fee or is it just honoring your contract? AFAIK it's very clear on Adobe's page that your options are (1) Annual plan paid monthly, (2) Annual plan prepaid, and depending on the product (3) Monthly plan at usually 150% higher price. https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html If you signed up for a yearly plan paid monthly, the cancellation fee is finishing your contract. If you didn'…

The problem is that an annual plan charged monthly is there to entice people to spend money they do not have. If the point is to encourage people to pay for an annual plan by offering a discount, they should ask for the money up front.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#132

Post by chillfox » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 3:38 AM UTC

sherry-sherry wrote: post #108

Meph504 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://i.imgur.com/CZSCvw8.png If you click the options you can see the prices. This is a common practice, I feel like there are people are really trying to make this a bigger deal than it is.

That's a different deal where you pay once upfront. A user shouldn't have to open a different deal to see how they'll pay for something else. Either way, that still doesn't tell you explicitly what the cancellation fee would be. In Australia there is a thing called a 'Critical Information Summary' required for phone/internet plans. This is an sample of one from an old plan with similar terms to Adobe's (monthly payme…

Would be nice if it was required for all subscription services and not just phone/internet.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#133

Post by michaelmrose » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 3:39 AM UTC

Meph504 wrote: post #91

sherry-sherry wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the total amount (your contractual obligation) in your screenshot would be $635.88 + taxes.

https://i.imgur.com/CZSCvw8.png If you click the options you can see the prices. This is a common practice, I feel like there are people are really trying to make this a bigger deal than it is.

You mean its common for the description of the item on the product page to be different from the description in the cart in hopes most don't read, don't cancel, and don't complain?

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#134

Post by elliekelly » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 3:40 AM UTC

echelon wrote: post #18

Adobe is losing out to more modern tools like Canva and Figma that better serve clients and don't charge an arm and a leg. This is the kind of behavior you see with ossified or dying companies that no longer innovate. - Informercial "Jelly of the month"-type memberships - Gyms - Comcast Adobe is toast. I'm going to look into more metrics and consider shorting it.

I have never loved the product yet hated a company more. I truly don’t understand how they can be so short-sighted. If they would just suck a teeny bit less they’d have so many more customers.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#135

Post by irjustin » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 3:42 AM UTC

radicalriddler wrote: post #118

This has happened for years! It's not some new terrible thing. You sign up for an annual subscription, paying monthly installments. They give you the option to pay half of it out if you want to cancel, it's no different than a 12 month phone plan in places like Australia. God I hate Twitter. People on their are so used to only reading 150 characters, that it's started affecting them in their daily life, that they're…

While I agree it is "in the contract" it's not SUPER obvious that there is an early cancellation fee during the checkout process.

If there was a separate box or better, a popup modal/page, that explains this, I'd give Adobe the benefit of the doubt.

The problem is patterning - _a lot_ other companies monthly subscriptions don't have 50% annual cancellation fee or any cancellation fee. So this method of 'lowering the price' is uncommon/against-the-grain.

When faced with an uncommon situation you really need people to understand what they're getting into, otherwise lots of people are surprised when they get hit with this.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#136

Post by CodeIsTheEnd » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 3:42 AM UTC

I'm on the side that this isn't so outrageous; you get a discount for making a longer financial commitment.

What IS frustrating is that some of their products don't offer a monthly plan. I want to use Lightroom about once a year, after going on a big vacation, but there's no cheap plan that just includes Lightroom.

There's a $10/month annual Photography Plan that includes Photoshop and Lightroom (exactly what I want), but no monthly option. I would pay $15 for one month of this, but the only way to get Lightroom for a single month is with the All Apps package, which is $80 for a single month.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#137

Post by michaelmrose » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 3:45 AM UTC

legostormtroopr wrote: post #105

petee wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say especially when it's not costing Adobe anything to cancel your subscription, it's just a money grab. There are some exceptions where a fee is ok like when it's actually putting the business out financially, like Garmin & Iridium satellite service agreements, Garmin has little choice...but clearly not the case for Adobe

Actually there is a cost. If a user signs up for a year contract, the business has certainty of future income. The business gives a discount for assurance of that future revenue. If the user cancels early, the cost is the lose of that future revenue on the balance sheet - and this does influence the business.

The cost is the users money. If the company got a customer at 53 dollars for 10 months that they would never have acquired at the higher $80 monthly rate and the user cancels they didn't lose the 270 they would have hypothetically received in the imaginary world where the user subscribed because maybe money isn't real. They profited the $530 they received less the cost of providing the service to the customer which is liable to be slight.

You can't lose other people's money you never received.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#138

Post by spsful » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 3:46 AM UTC

CodeIsTheEnd wrote: post #136

I'm on the side that this isn't so outrageous; you get a discount for making a longer financial commitment. What IS frustrating is that some of their products don't offer a monthly plan. I want to use Lightroom about once a year, after going on a big vacation, but there's no cheap plan that just includes Lightroom. There's a $10/month annual Photography Plan that includes Photoshop and Lightroom (exactly what I want)…

Am I wrong to say that they could just cancel their credit card and.. move on?

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#139

Post by michaelmrose » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 3:49 AM UTC

ALittleLight wrote: post #34

vr46 wrote: post #4

Ha, this happened to me and I circumvented this by switching my plan to a new plan which kicked off some trial grace period, at which point I cancelled my entire plan. No cancellation fee. Me 1: Adobe 0

I contacted their customer support and told them to cancel my subscription and waive the fee or I would dispute it via my credit card company. They did.

Even if they won it would be a pyrrhic victory. 20 hours of $20 an hour labor in they would be upside down before you consider liklihood of you canceling, liklihood of the negative experience causing others to be less likely to subscribe and the nuclear option wherein it actually goes to court or spurs future legislation that makes them design their website less deceptively

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#140

Post by defterGoose » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 3:51 AM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #8

pfundstein wrote: post #3

I was hit with this last year while struggling for funds. Upon seeing the cancellation fee, I simply reported my credit card lost, changed the contact details on my adobe account, and then just left the account to rot. Adobe will never see another dime from me.

FYI, this isn't always bulletproof. I got a new card number from my bank a couple years ago and was still charged for a subscription I had set up prior to that. I know the company involved wasn't doing anything shady because I run the company. I emailed Stripe (my payment processor) to find out how my subscription had migrated to the new card and they said that the feature had been added some time back. So even if yo…

Had this happen with an LA fitness membership a few years back. After spending hours trying to jump through their hoops to cancel, i got fed up and requested a new Visa card from WF. Well, Visa in all its wisdom decided to give my new number to the vendor without my permission or knowledge, and because i happened to not check my statement for several months, was charged a few hundred dollars for a gym membership i wasnt using.

You could assemble the finest legal minds in the world and they'd never convince me that this shouldn't be 100% illegal.