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Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

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Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#401

Post by tremon »

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?

It's not about the commitment, but the installments. Advertising "$52.99/mo" implies your will be paying exactly that amount, each month. But in reality, there is no option to pay $52.99 each month, you only have to option to pay $635.88 in one lump sum, or pay $79.49 each month.

That's scummy, and trying to apologize for such behaviour is scummy too.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#403

Post by yokoprime »

Cancelled my plan after reading this! No way i will stay locked in like this. I had the subscription as a “thing i use sometimes” with the idea i could cancel any time. It had of course renewed for another 12 months automatically (im not sure this is legal where i am) and they tried to pull the bullshit cancellation fee. Talked to their rep and had to say no to all their “N months free” crap and they let me go without a fee. Nice that they do own up, but automatically renewing for 12 months at a time is just nasty.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#404

Post by helloguillecl »

thendrill wrote: post #370
toxik wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really should be illegal.

We make it legal when we click agree on the TOS

That's a very common and harmful misconceptions in our society. But, besides the fact that laws can make abusive terms illegal (and do), it is also very bad for the economic system in general because it increases the transaction cost for the consumer (time, hassle or wrong product choice).

The consumer now has to worry not only about choosing a decent product, but also about ways the company could extract value from them without being transparent about that, or by hiding a clause in their TOS.

Could you imagine how much slower and inefficient the economic system would be if we were expected to read every TOS of every software we install and every single service we sign up for?

No, this is not fine. Do not accept bullshit terms meant to extract value from your pocket at no marginal cost for the business or no benefit to you as a consumer.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#405

Post by woodylondon »

wow - just lost a customer in Novmeber 2021. Its the cancel and you get nothing, cancel and you can use until November would be fair. But they auto-renew you into a new contract without you noticing is a scam.

So i had an account which looks like they renewed my account in November 2021 without asking me.

Logging into my account there is NO refernce to the start and end date of the contract i agreed to, i never agreed to renew. I tried to cancel and says £178 to cancel.

Adobe you are now the worse company for this crap.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#406

Post by sherry-sherry »

maccard wrote: post #385
sherry-sherry wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue the goalposts are related. "adobe charges subscription cancellation fee" — Adobe do not tell you how much the fee is ahead of time. In the conditions of the Australian purchasing page, the monthly price isn't even written in them. They can also renew it for another year while increasing the price without telling you. "adobe doesn't show the difference between monthly and annual", and "adobe doesn't display…

> All of this could be solved by saying "You are agreeing to pay a total of $923.88 over 12 months at $76.99 per-month. If you cancel, the minimum cost to you is $461.94 (50% of the total Annual plan), this decreases evenly each month. And presumably this must be on primary pricing page, not below the fold, have different options for with and without vat, and they must display this for the up-front annual sub, pay-mo…

> And presumably this must be on primary pricing page, not below the fold

It just has to be before you commit to the contract.

> Yes, they do. [1] clearly says

No, that page shows no prices whatsoever. Your minimum commitments should be shown before you agree to the contract.

People keep making it out like it's some huge imposition on companies to tell customer how much money they'll pay. Here's an example of a more complicated flow from an Australian phone carrier Telstra, purchasing a phone over 24 months: https://imgur.com/a/XycFkyP — it's possible, Adobe are lazy and this is a dark pattern.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#407

Post by 8fingerlouie »

jrockway wrote: post #395

The downfall of Adobe is interesting to watch. New releases get more expensive every year, but they aren't really adding features. I had to switch to Affinity to get an iPad version, for example. 21,000 employees and they can't port Photoshop to ARM? I think at this point, they're just coasting on brand recognition alone. They certainly aren't adding much value; all they can do is rent you their software at higher an…

Adobe isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Yes there are alternatives, Affinity, Pixelmator, etc, but all that's being taught in educational institutions is Adobe, and it's what the industry uses.

Private/small business users are a very small part of their business, but one that requires as many (if not more) support resources as large customers, so if anything they're probably happy to see them go elsewhere.

And no, i haven't used Adobe since they introduced subscriptions. I'll subscribe to media and cloud storage just fine, but not pay annual fees for micro software increments that 99% of the time doesn't add anything i need.

If they had something like Jetbrains where your subscription also gives a perpetual usage license for that specific version, then i could subscribe and upgrade when they actually added something i needed, and i'd likely reconsider.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#408

Post by Macha »

p49k wrote: post #333
DominikPeters wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're getting lots of replies from (I presume) Americans, who are used to much scammier business behavior than what I know from Germany and you describe in Australia. One related example is the pervasive practice in America of displaying a price without fees (like "resort fees" for hotels that can be +50%) and of course taxes, with the actual price only becoming apparent after additional effort is invested in the ch…

Also, let's be honest: a lot of replies from people who need to believe this is ethical because they want to reserve the right to use (or already use) this dark pattern in a product as a "growth hack". Or people who work for an employer who already uses dark patterns of this nature. Startups are rife with this kind of abuse.

Yeah, I've noticed that on HN with some scammy business practices, there is a definite case of "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." People would rather this is allowed and it becomes a game of buyer beware, because in many cases they are the sellers and know the average buyer will not beware.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#409

Post by indymike »

DominikPeters wrote: post #186
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…

You're getting lots of replies from (I presume) Americans, who are used to much scammier business behavior than what I know from Germany and you describe in Australia. One related example is the pervasive practice in America of displaying a price without fees (like "resort fees" for hotels that can be +50%) and of course taxes, with the actual price only becoming apparent after additional effort is invested in the ch…

American here. Adobe's actions are indefensible.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#410

Post by robin_reala »

8fingerlouie wrote: post #407
jrockway wrote: post #395

The downfall of Adobe is interesting to watch. New releases get more expensive every year, but they aren't really adding features. I had to switch to Affinity to get an iPad version, for example. 21,000 employees and they can't port Photoshop to ARM? I think at this point, they're just coasting on brand recognition alone. They certainly aren't adding much value; all they can do is rent you their software at higher an…

Adobe isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Yes there are alternatives, Affinity, Pixelmator, etc, but all that's being taught in educational institutions is Adobe, and it's what the industry uses. Private/small business users are a very small part of their business, but one that requires as many (if not more) support resources as large customers, so if anything they're probably happy to see them go elsewhere. And no, i…

It might be what part of the industry uses, but they’re steadily losing the rest. E.g. UX design has overwhelmingly moved from Photoshop to Sketch and Figma.
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