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Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

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Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#531

Post by [deleted] »

damontal wrote: post #82
hedora wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For future reference, just tell the vendor "I did not authorize this charge. Please refund me". Don't engage them further. When that call fails (or, if they don't pick up the phone in a reasonable amount of time), call your credit card company and say "I want to issue a charge back". They'll ask if you tried to work with the vendor. Answer "yes", full stop. There should be a phone number associated with the charge on…

And what if they then send you to collections? Now you’ve got bill collectors after you and your credit affected.

[deleted]

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#532

Post by blinding-streak »

If you're replacing Adobe with something else, whatever you do, stay away from Skylum software like Luminar. And the rest of their suite. I feel so burned after being a customer of their crap for a few years. Constant frustration with upgrades and broken promises.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#533

Post by nopenopenopeno »

anu7df wrote: post #437
victor106 wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use https://privacy.com/ for this. One of the best discoveries I found on hn a few years ago

Thank you. Never knew about this service, was looking, obviously not hard enough, for exactly this. But really do think they should advertise better. This would help with managing expenses too.

I had to sit on a waiting list for a few weeks to get invited to it about 1 year ago. I don’t know what that was all about but it seems they aren’t in a rush for more users.

Btw their numbers don’t work with Adobe, but I used Privacy for a Microsoft Office trial about 6 months ago and I got an email every time Microsoft attempted to charge me, which was approximately once/week before I just deleted that card.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#534

Post by nopenopenopeno »

lelandfe wrote: post #484
victor106 wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use https://privacy.com/ for this. One of the best discoveries I found on hn a few years ago

The “personal” plan is free. I’m always cautious with free things that use my personal data - if you're not paying for the product, you are the product. How are they able to keep this free?

I don’t use it for everything. Only things I want to place a limit on. The data can’t be worth very much.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#535

Post by nopenopenopeno »

bsder wrote: post #481
JJMcJ wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't have a card that allows that, you can also buy a prepaid card, though I believe such cards may have distinctive numbers and it's possible a vendor may disallow.

Patreon, for example, will not accept a pre-paid card.

I use Privacy with Patreon. It works great.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#538

Post by disillusioned »

Even better, if you've been bamboozled onto an annual Teams plan, you get a weird single 30-day window at your renewal period to change your license/seat count downward without penalty. Otherwise, you're just perpetually on the hook for the full number of licenses contracted.

And the Twitter thread that shows someone's chat experience with canceling is the exact sort of 25 minutes in support agent hell it appears to be.

It's complete madness.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#539

Post by dannyw »

acherion wrote: post #509
ajxs wrote: post #455

Under Australian consumer law most of what's discussed in this Twitter thread is actually illegal. Just because it's part of a company's business process doesn't mean it's legal. I ran into the same problem when trying to cancel my service, and found myself presented with some utterly onerous cancellation fee. I told them I'd make a complaint with Australia's consumer affairs regulator, the ACCC[0]. They waived the f…

What staggers me is that everyone knows (in Australia) that the ACCC can be quite the toothless tiger in many aspects, yet the mere mention of those 4 letters can make Adobe fold over instantly. It's so telling that Adobe reacts in this way, when they present their terms of conditions in such a dark-pattern manner. It's like they know what they're doing is super dodgy, but want to toss whatever reputation they have l…

ACCC may be a toothless tiger, but suing the business in your local Tribunal is absolutely effective. The filing costs are $80 or so, and generally, if you make a good faith effort to resolve the issue before hand with the business and they don't resolve it, the magistrate will give you costs.

I've only had to do this once and it was a fairly simple process. Lawyers are not allowed. Just point to the specific consumer guarantee being breached, provide documentary evidence, and show up.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#540

Post by Phylter »

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.

I wonder how long it'll be until they tie up this loophole.
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