Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract • Hacker News Board

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#191

Post by brtkdotse » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 5:04 PM UTC

cpach wrote: 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…

Another point of view I’d like to offer is that very few people actually _need_ Photoshop/Illustator. I thought I did, until I discovered Canva and PlaceIt. Sure, they’re not super flexible but you can usually find some template that works and just use that and be done with it before Photoshop has even finished loading.

(No affiliation, just a pleased user)

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#192

Post by sibit » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

witweb wrote: post #164

sibit wrote: 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.

Thank you so much, I was able to successfully cancel my plan for free!

That's awesome! I'm glad it still works. I stumbled upon this work around 5 years ago when I was in college and Adobe quietly switched my subscription from the student version to the full CC suite. I contacted support because I genuinely couldn't afford to pay $60 a month and support was no help whatsoever.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#193

Post by azangru » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 5:06 PM UTC

lioeters wrote: post #145

azangru wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a setting on MacOS: System preferences > General > Show scroll bars > Always; but neither developers nor end users seem to enable it. Plus — and this is a pet peeve of mine — there's a growing number of developers who would use the Tailwind CSS library and apply its "w-screen" class to their elements. The w-screen class sets element width to 100vw, which does not take into account the width of the vertical sc…

Found a demonstration of 100vw with vertical scrollbar. Suggested solution is to use width:100%. https://sbx.webflow.io/100vw-scrollbars

> Suggested solution is to use width:100%.

Which, for a block element inside a block container, is the default anyway.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#194

Post by unfocussed_mike » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 5:06 PM UTC

CharlesW wrote: post #155

civilized wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reject the idea that everyone should know from these words that they will be subject to an enormous early cancellation fee if they forget to cancel before the 7 day trial period is over. Adobe has a moral obligation to explain that up-front, so that consumers who cannot easily pay the fee are adequately warned of the danger they are getting themselves into.

> I reject the idea that everyone should know from these words that they will be subject to an enormous early cancellation fee if they forget to cancel before the 7 day trial period is over. I hear you, and I want to dig in on that a bit if you'll be kind enough to indulge me. I'm currently helping a SaaS vendor define their pricing plan, so I'd like to know what you would like to see in order to feel comfortable wit…

I think maybe the words:

"Yearly plan, billed in monthly instalments"

makes the point more clear that you're in for a year. You can then put accompanying print that says "early termination fees apply".

But really, apart from people perhaps not understanding that "Annual" is doing the work of saying "yearly, not rolling", I don't get the logic here.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#195

Post by DangitBobby » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 5:06 PM UTC

This is fraud, not a dark pattern. You are intentionally making designs with the intent to deceive, knowing that if people understood the terms they would not agree. Free trial? Actually it's a minimum $150 obligation. I don't understand how companies that do this aren't being fined or having people put in jail.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#196

Post by rdtwo » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 5:06 PM UTC

TobTobXX wrote: post #70

av8avenger wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right here, they won't be able to charge you automatically via the credit card, but you're still legally obligated to pay for the subscription since you have agreed to the terms of service during sign up. Depending on the action that they would take, you could easily end up paying a higher amount than the original subscription price if they put additional charges on you...

The problem is only that they can throw lawyers at you. Normally a contract is invalid if one side can show to have been deceived.

They can sue joe fartnoggin all the want. I’m not sure they will get very far. Virtual cards only require a valid zip code nothing else has to match

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#197

Post by cudgy » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 5:06 PM UTC

witweb wrote: post #164

sibit wrote: 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.

Thank you so much, I was able to successfully cancel my plan for free!

How did you get the above mentioned 14 days to pass in 40 minutes?

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#198

Post by jeroenhd » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 5:07 PM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #137

oliwarner wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That stops the money being automatically taken, but you'd still be legally responsible to pay the contract, no? Reneging seems like a great way to get yourself sued for the balance, possibly the costs of recovery and even having your credit score ruined in the fight.

They are welcome to sue, but they'd have to justify their shenanigans to the court, which I'm sure would take a very dim view of intentionally tricking the user into signing up to something they didn't understand. The business model relies on most people not escalating it there and making noise about it. If they start getting hit by chargebacks or start clogging the legal system with these cases it will end pretty ba…

Why would they need to sue? Can't they just send invoices to your email, followed by debt collectors?

The annual subscription is in plain sight. The cancellation terms are the result of bad web design for people using browsers whose browsers have made the idiotic choice to hide scroll bars by default (i.e. all mobile browsers and Safari) but that can be defended if the devs used Windows to make the website.

Actually, on mobile the terms and conditions get cut off halfway through a sentence so if you'd actually read them you'd see that they continue below the fold. Maybe that's not the case on iOS, though?

Their cancellation terms definitely suck but the terms and service and subscription term seem quite clear to me. "I didn't read what I was getting into" is hardly a defence. These details weren't hidden at all.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#199

Post by rdtwo » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 5:08 PM UTC

gryzzly wrote: post #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.

Someone pointed out that you could switch accounts types and cancel immediately

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#200

Post by oytis » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 5:08 PM UTC

ushakov wrote: post #8

pretty sure this is illegal in EU/Germany gotta show the investors that revenue growth thou!

That is literally the first thing I've encountered as a new immigrant to Germany. This scheme is ubiquitous here that nobody even considers it especially dishonest, it's up to the customer to be careful.