Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee • Hacker News Board

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#261

Post by zimpenfish » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 6:58 AM UTC

cbmuser wrote: post #220

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'…

Exactly. Even the public transport company in my city has a similar TOS. If you have an annual subscription and cancel it early, they will charge you the elapsed months accordingly to the monthly fee, not the yearly one and I had to pay 150 Euros for early contract termination.

Whereas in the UK, cancelling an annual travelcard has at most a £10 administration fee and you get a refund based on when you cancelled (although since it's discounted to 10 months cost, you probably won't get anything after that.)

https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/ticket_types/4657...

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#262

Post by docuru » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:00 AM UTC

angry_octet wrote: post #214

docuru wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Depends upon the jurisdiction. Under Australian legislation this is likely to be considered misleading and deceptive conduct toward retail consumers, and Adobe could be subject to significant financial restitution. It's past time that consumers in the US realized their utter lack of power as individuals against corporations, and their collective might. The 'dark patterns' in online commerce, car loans, mobile payment…

I think companies often get away with terms and condition. But if it's true (in Australia), it's a step up!

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#263

Post by chakhs » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:01 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'…

It's not really obvious no, I personally made the same mistake. I thought I was subscribing to a monthly service, their UX intentionally makes it hard to understand what you're signing up for, after a few months I wanted to cancel but then found out I basically have to pay up a few hundreds and lose access to the service. It's not an "honest contract" because they make it difficult to understand

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#264

Post by opan » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:01 AM UTC

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.

Hopefully you've reported (or +1'd) any bugs you found in GIMP. They're more likely to actually be fixed in a free software project, I think.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#265

Post by petepete » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:01 AM UTC

jwitthuhn wrote: post #157

nodesocket wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've used Affinity for about four years (~2017) and it's honestly great. It offers way more power than I need for editing my wildlife photos, has a nice, familiar UI and I actually own my licences.

I use it in combination with Capture One, but if Serif ever release a tool that can manage my ~30k photos I'll definitely consider switching.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#266

Post by plorntus » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:02 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.

Yeah, I did similar to this where I just ouright said I cannot afford to pay the cancellation fee and they waived it. Obviously they are in the right to vharge this (if they make it abundantly clear). I do disagree with the practice or pricing model but cant say I didnt know about the fee going into it.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#267

Post by slaymaker1907 » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:02 AM UTC

paxys wrote: post #82

slaymaker1907 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like even the original post isn't suggesting that what they are doing is illegal, just scummy. I think it straddles the line of false advertising since it is pretty clear by looking at the market of subscriptions that there is a decent premium for a monthly vs. a yearly subscription. As a point of reference, World of Warcraft offers about a 10% discount for their 6 month subscription plan compared to the mon…

I don't understand what's scummy about this. Every service out there offers discounted prices for longer-term contracts since they are guaranteed a sustained future income. If they didn't have a penalty for breaking the contract then everyone would just game the system. What should they do instead? Not have the annual payment option and screw over all the people who do want to pay for the entire year and are happy wi…

I think you misunderstand me. I'm not against longer term contracts, but Adobe's marketing only advertises "monthly" prices which are really the yearly contract paid out monthly. They apparently have three separate tiers: actual monthly (most expensive, not advertised), yearly but paid monthly, and yearly charged yearly (also not advertised very well).

We also can't ignore the environment around subscription payments. If many other SaaS companies offered similar yearly but paid monthly plans, I think Adobe CC plans would be less problematic.

I'm definitely not against yearly plans, but this is unnecessarily confusing. If the advertising were honest, it would be more clear that this is a loan/lease agreement or they would advertise the real yearly cost/real monthly plans instead of this weird hybrid plan.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#268

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:03 AM UTC

cbmuser wrote: post #243

eyelidlessness wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? I've done it. It's perfectly legal. And mostly clear in terms of repercussions (other than old debts being resurrected far longer than they're supposed to). I walked away with no medical debt from when I was young and desperately poor. And I'm glad I did.

It‘s perfectly legal for the banks or companies to send a bailiff in such a case and seize your property to pay for your debts.

[deleted]

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#269

Post by irjustin » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:04 AM UTC

cbmuser wrote: post #242

irjustin wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> While I agree it is "in the contract" it's not SUPER obvious that there is an early cancellation fee during the checkout process. Because it’s common sense and practice. Why would anyone commit to a yearly contract otherwise?

I wish common sense was truly common... overtime, I've come to believe it's not[0].

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUjcHW7SHaI

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#270

Post by patates » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:06 AM UTC

hansvm wrote: post #223

Mandatum wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, my views are non-American. For example when I go to a convenience store, I pay the price listed on the item. I don't have to do math in my head that's +x% sales or state tax. That type of practice just isn't acceptable anywhere else.

It's even enshrined into law in some states and locales. A few businesses have tried to market themselves as "no-nonsense, no-bullshit" and put the right prices on things, but that's totally illegal in parts of the US.

It's illegal to put on the price the customer is actually going to pay? My search attempt failed ("illegal to put price with VAT" neither g nor ddg liked it), please tell me more!