Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee • Hacker News Board

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#301

Post by systemvoltage » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:42 AM UTC

NamTaf wrote: post #251

dmingod666 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your country if you get into a yearly contract to rent a place and then break the contract in 2 months. Are there any consequences for the person breaking the contract?

Absolutely. In Australia, the Critical Information Summary will detail the contract cancellation fee and the total minimnum cost (i.e. if you cancel it immediately after the cooling-off period) is explicitly stated right next to the cost that the company really wants to display. So in the case of $1000/mo rent, and a 1 month cancellation fee, the minimum total cost will be displayed as $2000. If it is the total remai…

In the US, it is exactly the same. There are absolutely zero dark patterns on housing leases, it is highly controlled.

I am not sure if apartment lease is a good example.

As a counter example, here are some shady practices and dark patterns in Australia (Internet Service Provider): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haImi4cWau0

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#302

Post by nicbou » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:44 AM UTC

cbmuser wrote: post #232

d110af5ccf wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they gave you a discount on that basis! How is it ethical to receive a discount from someone and then go back on your word?! They also offer a full price monthly option (ie no cancellation fee) if that's what you want. The "cancellation fee" is because you are breaking a contract which you agreed to in order to receive a discount . If you are actually given a meaningful choice (which I feel quite strongly tha…

> The "cancellation fee" is because you are breaking a contract which you agreed to in order to receive a discount. Exactly. And it’s perfectly legal and practiced by a lot of companies, even the public transport company in Berlin does that. There seem to be a lot of people in this discussion on HN who seem very inexperienced in signing business contracts.

It's also practised by almost every landlord. You can end your lease without the usual 3 month notice but expect to pay a fee or lose a month of rent.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#303

Post by DoreenMichele » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:46 AM UTC

pacifika wrote: post #259

lolinder wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Pay for the year up front like Dropbox and App Store subscriptions

That would de facto exclude a lot of people with a tight budget.

Just sayin.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#304

Post by d110af5ccf » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:47 AM UTC

brailsafe wrote: post #271

d110af5ccf wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. In my experience, typical apartment leases are offered on a 12 month basis. Month to month is usually substantially more expensive. If you break a 12 month lease early, you're legally on the hook for whatever the contract specifies (typically the entire year in my experience). Mos…

I've personally never heard of a case where you'd pay out the year's lease. Usually you just forfeit a portion of your deposit, which half a month's rent or so, in Canada at least.

I think that's the typical outcome in the end. I've never actually heard of anyone being charged the full amount (not that I would have any way of knowing though). Also sometimes local law will place an upper limit on the size of the fee.

Several of my past leases specified that if broken I would be responsible for monthly rent on a prorated basis until a new tenant moved in.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#305

Post by nicbou » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:48 AM UTC

radicalriddler wrote: post #126

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…

Adding onto this. The actual shitty thing that people should be complaining about, is that the subscription auto-renews (unless I missed the checkbox) and I couldn't find a way to cancel it pre-emptively, outside of blocking it at the bank level, otherwise it signed me up for another 12 months.

This is also pretty common, at least in Germany. If you don't cancel a contract within a certain period, it auto renews.

It's not that terrible, but it certainly is something immigrants like me don't expect. Now I assume it's the case.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#306

Post by Thorentis » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:48 AM UTC

This has been happening forever. I have always gotten out of it by contacting customer support and begging for them to waive it. My wife accidentally signed up a while ago (not knowing it was a lock in year contract, she just needed it for a month). Half hour back and forth with customer support was enough to get it waived. I would say that "it's just part of the contract" but their mobile apps and lack of clear wording is predatory.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#307

Post by wst_ » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:49 AM UTC

systemvoltage wrote: post #294

inetknght wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it would be unfair to expect retailers to charge the MSRP and eat the tax themselves because some areas have zero sales tax but others have a 10% tax. I disagree. If you want to sell something to a market then you should tailor your product to that market. That means doing some basic research about what the local taxes and laws are.

If you travel even 10 miles (16 km), sales tax changes. It is at the county level. The manufacturer cannot afford to analyze this level of granular market and the associated sales tax. Ideally, the seller should list the price + tax if it is physically sold in a store. This should be fixed (along with the tips culture in US). Online retailers still have this problem. Sales tax is literally based on the zip code you e…

You could pay consumer tax not by the place you live in but by the place where business is located. Any additional taxes could be added by independent institution. Something like customs, just on local scale.

Living in couple of countries In EU and Asia, I can't imagine not knowing total price up front. It's pushing legislation problems on the end customer.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#308

Post by tylerhou » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:50 AM UTC

cbmuser wrote: post #227

paxys wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You will have access to 100% of the service if you hold up your side of the contract you signed.

Exactly. It’s a contract. If you cancel it early, the other contract partner has the right to get a compensation fee. That’s perfectly normal and also practised by other companies.

The issue is that it's not clear to consumers that the contract has a cancellation fee. See this screenshot, which alludes to a cancellation fee but doesn't explicitly say how large it is until you click into the fine print: https://i.imgur.com/5xTA7eC.png

Maybe businesses are savvy enough to read the fine print, but I think many normal consumers don't understand that there is a fee to cancel, given that it is not prominently shown. You can't just bury meaningful parts of a contract into terms and conditions.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#309

Post by maccard » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:51 AM UTC

Mandatum wrote: post #61

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'…

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…

I'm not an american apologist by any means, and it is a dark pattern, but it is very clear at point of payment what you're paying, and what period it's for. The drop-down unexpanded clearly says "Annual Plan, paid monthly".

Yes it's a bait and switch, and adobe deserve to be called out on the bait and switch but thats not what this thread is about, it's about someone signing up to (clear at time of purchase) annual billing and wanting to cancel early.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#310

Post by usrusr » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:52 AM UTC

wlesieutre wrote: post #95

paxys wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me this is a very intuitive presentation of pricing, so not sure what you are referring to as a dark pattern. There are three clearly laid-out options: 1. No contract, pay monthly 2. Annual contract, pay monthly (cheaper than 1) 3. Annual contract, pay in one go (cheaper than 1 & 2) You pick one of the three options and check out. Where exactly is the confusion?

The dark pattern is the first page pretending it’s a $52/month rate when the actual monthly rate is priced much higher. If they want to honestly advertise that price then it needs to say “billed monthly with annual contract.”

Or a minimum head-up time for cancellations that's not bound to some full year cycle. There are many established ways of adding friction to cancellations that wouldn't cause any outrage at all.

But if those ways weren't good enough for Adobe and they wanted to have it both ways, advertise "cancel any time" and but still have "(you can do that, but then you have to pay in advance for the remainder of the year to do so)" or something like that in the fine print then they deserve all the hatred. And maybe even lawsuits for deliberately misleading labeling, but they probably have a legal team tweaking that communication in each jurisdiction to the exact shade of dark grey containing enough white for discouraging lawsuits.

And I suspect that the pattern/scheme doesn't pay for itself at all, that it's just the unfortunate outcome of a bad compromise between one group in the company advocating for honest monthly and another group advocating for honest annual.