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Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

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Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#151

Post by danShumway »

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'…

> Is this really a cancellation fee

Their own site literally calls it a cancellation fee in the linked screenshot. People in the comments here are giving them the benefit of the doubt on everything else, so give their UX designers some credit that they labeled their own fee correctly.

----

But this is kind of a pedantic argument though. One of the big practical issues I see here (aside from whether or not people know they're signing up for a yearly commitment) is that Adobe wants to have its cake and eat it too on what an early cancellation means.

Typically if you buy a year's worth of service for something, you will get access to the service until your payment period runs out. At least in my experience. If you buy a year's worth of Amazon Prime and cancel early, you'll still have access until that year ends.

With Adobe, that's not the case. You pay an early cancellation fee (50% of each remaining month), and you still immediately lose access as soon as you cancel.

Which is pretty crappy deceptive customer service. It's pretty clear that what they want is for customers to not cancel out of sunk cost fallacy because the user is scared to "waste" the extra fee. And then they're hoping that by the end of the year the user will forget to cancel again.

Compare that with a company like Amazon, which (despite its many faults aggressively pushing Prime) will even refund you your Amazon Prime subscription if you cancel before you use any of its benefits or order anything from the site. And I don't think that's exceptional, a lot of companies have much better cancellation policies than what Adobe offers. You don't have to go to bat for them, the CC subscription terms are unusually bad for a tech service subscription.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#152

Post by RC_ITR »

dunnevens wrote: post #148
sk5t wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automobile leases, apartments, and the like are listed with monthly rates, but your commitment to pay is longer than one month. What's the difference?

When you lease an apartment or a car, the monthly rate stated is usually the actual month-to-month cost. They don't demand a full year in advance to get the stated cost, or increase the monthly cost because you didn't pay for a year upfront. That's why this pricing feels dishonest, even if it's technically true. Other companies handle it much more fairly. If you want to subscribe to World of Warcraft, Blizzard makes…

Ummm, leases definitely have variable terms depending on length and also have fees for exiting the contract early.

And even more so, I bet if you asked, they would give you a further discount for upfront payment (since it removes non-payment and early cancellation risk that’s priced in)

I guess I’m just unclear what you’re on about?

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#153

Post by danShumway »

paxys wrote: post #69
tzs wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the screenshot in the Tweet, it looks like cancelling incurs the fee and causes you to immediately lose access to the apps. If it were merely making you pay what they were contractually owed for the remaining months of your current year, you should retain access to the apps for those remaining months too.

The cancellation fee is 50% of what you still owe on your contract.

Okay, then give me access for 50% of the remaining year. If I'm being charged money for a service, I should have a comparable level of access to that service.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#154

Post by Mandatum »

sk5t wrote: post #114
deathanatos wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first screenshot in the comment you're replying to says the price is "$52.99/mo". A reasonable person would look at that and conclude that if they purchased the product for 1 month, they would pay $52.99. But it seems (from the other, subsequent screenshots) that the actual cost Adobe would charge is $635.88. (That $52.99/mo, for a year.) It is only on subsequent screens that the bait and switch becomes visible.…

Automobile leases, apartments, and the like are listed with monthly rates, but your commitment to pay is longer than one month. What's the difference?

Here in Australia you need to list the minimum contract term too. So if you're listing for $x/mo but require 1 year lease - the listing will say 1 year lease (unless it's been data-scraped by a Real Estate website and relisted for referral fees, but they end up in trouble all the time for this).

Phone plans for instance will have monthly with "minimum amount owed" underneath so even phone plans advertised for $20/mo will say something like "minimum owed $720" because people kept advertising shady 3-year contract plans with steep cancellation fees.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#155

Post by unsignedint »

I was almost bitten by this before, though I think I've waited until the end of term and then canceled during that window of time as that was cheaper. I did find it outrageous, but I guess the contract is a contract, so I bit the bullet. (and I think it was something like 3 months left on the contract, with low tier Photographer bundle of sort.)

I guess their model is bit different than the a lot of other software subscription offerings, as the most I encounter out there are prepaid for certain duration of time with no commitment. (You pay monthly, or yearly -- with some services offering something between, like 3 months or 6 months.) If you choose to not renew (or cancel the contract) your contract continue to the end of the term. (Though, time to time, particularly some Japanese services, I do encounter model where your service terminates at the moment you choose to not renew -- even if you had 364 days out of 365 days remaining on your contract.)

It definitely is pretty much same as if you are paying for something up front. If you stop using the product in the middle of the term, you generally don't get refund for the remainder of the term, but it definitely feel bit different.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#156

Post by dorkwood »

legostormtroopr wrote: post #70
Mandatum wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is disingenuous at best, and fraudulent at worst - and I know ACCC in Australia will take a very dim view. Take the main page for instance, the one you linked - it lists monthly prices. No mention whatsoever of "annual pricing paid monthly" - it's JUST monthly mentioned. Pic: https://imgur.com/sZPfFDI When you click "See plans and pricing details" it gives you the Annual monthly and ACTUAL monthly prices. Pic: h…

How is this a dark pattern? This seems pretty transparent to me. You click see more details, it lists all 3 options, you hit next and it keeps the 3 options in a condensed list, but respects your selection.

"See more details" isn't the primary call to action --"buy now" is. If you click "buy now", you're taken to a page that doesn't show the three options side-by-side, and if you're not paying attention you could miss the new "annual plan" text that's been added.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#157

Post by jwitthuhn »

nodesocket wrote: post #47
vr46 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was on a similar plan, and same machine funnily enough. I downgraded to the Lightroom only plan and then cancelled - hopefully that should still work for you.

I just went through the process and they only let me switch to Lightroom annual (which I suspect starts a new annual subscription starting today). Curious, what did you choose as a replacement for raster graphics? GIMP is a no-go, as its slow and buggy as well.

I recently switched to Affinity Photo after using photoshop CS6 for many years.

It has been a good replacement for my limited needs, give the free trial a go and see if it has all the features you want.

As a bonus it is also super cheap compared to photoshop. A permanent license right now is only $25.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#158

Post by bredren »

michaelmrose wrote: post #127
paxys wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are stretching the definition of convoluted. Offering discounts for signing a longer-term contract is standard practice in every industry. Don't need to be a lawyer to figure that out.

There is no reason to give billion dollar companies with a staff of thousands of full time workers which have meetings in which professional designers meet with professional decision makers to approve of each step in a web store before it goes live the benefit of the doubt instead of the customer who spends 2 minutes in a web form. If it looks dishonest it probably is. On this page https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud…

> It doesn't work like this because deceiving people is good for business.

I think it is a bit more nuanced than that. Business isn’t purely about making money, it is about exchange of value.

It doesn’t work like that because people don’t think Adobe products provide the value Adobe wants to charge for.

If adobe credibly believed that their annual plan for their products was worth what they’re charging, they would not hide the pricing.

So “it doesn’t work like this because deceiving people is good for” _accumulating capital_.

This is happening a lot.

The Burning Man organization used a dark pattern to attempt to withhold ticket refunds last year.

The burning man org made refunds something you had to request, then sign in, and opt out again in or lose all of it.

They increased the minimum amount you could donate during the refund period and said the money was to “save” the event.

Then they turned around and applied for the max PPP loans. [1] https://www.burn.life/blog/interview-with-the-ceo-of-burning...

WinRed, a political organization in support of the former president, used a series of increasingly deceptive interface patterns that have provably awful publicly disclosed refund rates. They also used increasingly deceptive interface methods and emotional statements to sell the idea. [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/03/us/politics/trump-donatio...

If anything Adobe should be regarded for only using deceptive financial practices and not trying to sell some sad story if we don’t give it to them.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#159

Post by docuru »

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'…

Legally, companies can do things like this. But I think it's a sure way to spread negative image, and never got those users again.

They should think and act as building services to help the users, rather than extracting money. Even though part of a business is extracting money.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#160

Post by wpietri »

lolinder wrote: post #113
hellbannedguy wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Digital products should be exempt from cancellation fees period. Adobe lost me at Lightroom 1. I bought it, and was happy for a year. They then got cute with subscriptions, and honestly overly complicated software. I believe most product/services should not have late fees, or cancellation fees. Every business I have ever worked at used them as steady income. In college I managed a mini storage. The owner told me he w…

Adobe offers annual pricing that is cheaper than the monthly pricing. How do you suggest they avoid the cancellation fee for annual plans while still offering a discount? Would that not effectively turn their annual price into the de facto monthly price, if people could cancel at will with no repercussions?

Canceling at will sounds great. Why should they be able to charge you for things you don't use?
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