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I got hit with this a few years back. I signed up for Ps CC for a month (I thought) to create an anniversary gift for my wife. I used it ONCE. Tried to cancel a
by alias_neo 6y ago
I got hit with this a few years back. I signed up for Ps CC for a month (I thought) to create an anniversary gift for my wife. I used it ONCE. Tried to cancel and they told me I had in fact signed up for a year, and that if I didn't cancel now, they'd give me two months free.
I didn't want it at all! Anyway, I sucked it up, got on with the remainder of the year, because they wouldn't let me put the cancellation in early, had to do it X months before the end. Then life happened and I missed the deadline to cancel and got suckered for a second year!
Fuck Adobe and this practice is all I have to say, I stick strictly to Open Source options now. It may have been my fault for not reading the first time, but robbing me a second time by counting on me missing the cancellation because they wouldn't let me do it there and then is just scummy.
- toxik 6y agoIt really should be illegal.
- thendrill 6y agoWe make it legal when we click agree on the TOS
- playpause 6y agoPSA: Clicking "I agree" does not automatically make terms legal or enforceable.
- helloguillecl 6y agoThat'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.
- xg15 6y agoYou're always free not to use any kind of recent software and throw your computer in the bin. Consumer choice alright!
- RiveDroite 6y agoIt doesn't mean the TOS should be legal though.
- walrus01 6y agoSounds like Adobe hired some executives from the cable TV or satellite TV industry, where the fine print on some packages locks you into 24 or 36 month contract terms. They know exactly how to do it with the minimum legal amount of notice to the customer when signing up, and how to write the terms of service for acceptance to make it ironclad. Same with 2-3 year terms on cellular carriers with a "free $0!" new samsung phone. For a long time the local telephone company in British Columbia (Telus) was giving away "free" xboxes or 46 inch flat screen TVs if you locked yourself into a triple play service contract. Of course the buy-out price to end the contract early far exceeded the value of the product given out.
- Gustomaximus 6y agoAustralia brought in some consumer law business that didn't have costs or you don't use, could not lock you in. So for example a phone on a plan is fine as there's a capital good but a gym isn't.
- sir-alien 6y agoNot as good in the U.K. but we do have some protections. A company can lock you into a contract however at the end of the contract it must default to a rolling 30 days term and the consumer must explicitly renew for a lengthy contract again if you want it. So even if you forget to cancel, you won't get renewed for X amount of years again.
- gruez 6y agoThere's two possible outcomes for this. 1. adobe waives the cancellation fee for australian customers 2. adobe eliminates the discounted annual plan for australian customers
- cptskippy 6y ago> Same with 2-3 year terms on cellular carriers with a "free $0!" new samsung phone. I really like the moves T-Mobile has done to change this. They very transparent that you are financing the phone on your monthly bill and then receiving monthly credit to off set the monthly payment.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agoAOL pioneered this. And became extremely wealthy for it. Unfortunately it works
- rwoerz 6y agoRemember https://youtu.be/R8-p_fPH4UQ https://youtu.be/R8-p_fPH4UQ ?
- MrTortoise 6y agowhat are AOL doing these days?
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agoThe execs cashed out after taking advantage of their user. Milked it for everything it was worth, then exited with a sale to Verizon when it was clear it was worthless (actually by then I'd be surprised if any of the original team was still there -- for example Ray Oglethorp left in 2002).
- dybber 6y agoKrita is pretty decent replacement, if you want a paid alternative, then Affinity Designer / Affinity Photo is half price right now, and they don't use a subscription model: https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/ https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/
- prox 6y agoYup Affinity and OS are great unless you have very specific needs.
- p1necone 6y agoKrita is basically (one of the) best in class applications for digital sketching/painting specifically. But it's not really a replacement for photo editing or graphic design.
- mathnode 6y agoI hear this criticism a lot, but it's simply not true. What doesn't help is what people mean by "photos" or "photo editing". RAW Photo import and editing is currently limited in Krita, and you cannot export RAW formats. But even professionals tend not to use destructive layer based editors like gimp/krita/photoshop/painter/paintshop pro etc and are instead using dedicated software like lightroom, rawtherapee and darkroom. But if your output format is not RAW, then you have more than enough to edit "photos". You have layers, masking, vectors and spatial bitmap editors. That's all any of these editors workflows have been since the 90's. Anything else is extra. Put me in front of Photoshop on modern mac or IFX Amazon Paint on Irix and my workflow and (sloppy) output would be the same.
- p1necone 6y agoI didn't say you couldn't edit photos in Krita, just that it wasn't best in class for that use case. Probably because it isn't really a primary goal of the project. It's less about what features are technically supported and more about what workfkows the ux is built around, at least for me. I am just an amateur though, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt.
- ramchip 6y agoJapanese cell phone companies did something similar for many years, they all offered two-year contracts with a cancellation fee of around $100, and you could only cancel in the last month before it auto-renewed. The government finally passed new regulation to stop this a few years ago. The extra insult was they called it a "discount package" (50% off!), but it was already baked into all the advertised prices. In other words you pay double the listed price if you don't take the lock-in.
- yamakadi 6y agoThey still have very misleading text on their contracts and their sales people will try to imply canceling has a cost attached. You could usually get the fees waived if you wasted enough of their support staff’s time.
- demosito666 6y agoI use a very simple solution for this: whenever I'm handing my credit card information to some service, if there is a slightest chance of such bullshit (which is always the case with any subscription-based service), I just use a virtual card with just enough money on it to pay for whatever I intend to pay. Then they can prolong the subscription, sneak their stupid extras all they want.
- distances 6y agoThis may work in the US (does it, really?) but mostly not in Europe. If the service provider thinks you are a subscriber and don't pay, you will eventually end up in collections. You can't just "stop paying", that will not terminate your subscription.
- IG_Semmelweiss 6y agoThis is true, but Most of the time it doesnt make a difference. You can make up any persona on the account and they wont know who to pursue. The account name and address can really be anything... and this is also true for the CC on file.
- unixhero 6y agoAlthough this is true and will work. It also amounts to some degree of fraud.
- michaelt 6y agoFraudulently avoiding being defrauded? Poetic.
- unixhero 6y agoCapitalism and the machine usually wins.
- yanderekko 6y ago
- mihaaly 6y agoNo more Adobe for me!
- 987yghj 6y agoI wonder if this would have been enforceable. Just because their contract says something does not mean it holds up in court.
- bregma 6y agoAll it would take is your fleet of lawyers against Adobe's office towers full of lawyers. If you have the resources to back that, be a sport and make the sacrifice for the rest of us.
- 987yghj 6y agoAll it takes is saying 'no' and then THEY have to sue YOU, which would be in small claims court where you really don't need a lawyer.
- pbhjpbhj 6y agoIf that's how it works in your country then it seems likely your country is also broken/corrupt and is effectively 'in on it' (helping the likes of Adobe to steal from you). Not sure what one can really do about it. I think also the whole "you'll need an army of lawyers" idea is probably born from confirmation bias (settled cases get NDAs). I wonder if we shouldn't require registering a settled case, if there was any court action (arranging a date, say) then settlement details would be published? I guess it might encourage frivolous suits.
- yanderekko 6y ago>If that's how it works in your country then it seems likely your country is also broken/corrupt and is effectively 'in on it' (helping the likes of Adobe to steal from you). How does this get settled in a non-broken/corrupt country? You lodge a complaint and the government launches a fleet of lawyers on your behalf? I'd be surprised if that's a routine response to consumer complaints anywhere.
- ncallaway 6y ago
- dukeofharen 6y agoI don't know where you live, but I live in the Netherlands and here it is illegal to bill you for a second year of a subscription automatically. After year one, you can cancel at any time (with, I think, a month of notice period).
- alias_neo 6y agoI live in the UK. In the second year, Adobe gave me the same option, don't cancel and get 2 months free, or pay the buyout at full price (I took the 2 months so the cost to me was lower) and set a calendar reminder every day for the month proceeding the end date to make sure I didn't forget to cancel it this time, even if I was busy.
- pc86 6y agoThis is why any time there is anything with a date associated with it more than a week or so out I go into my work calendar and add a reminder. Depending on what it is that may be on the date, or a week or even month prior. If it's super important I'll add it to my Google calendar which I don't use for anything except alerts like this that a year+ out where I may not be at the same job but still need to remember.
- alisonkisk 6y agoWhy not your personal calendar?
- pc86 6y agoOnly because I have Outlook open most of the day, and I don't really use my personal calendar for anything.
- dylan604 6y agoI don't want my employer to know jack and shit about what I do outside of work hours. Personal info does not belong on corp resources. That includes personal calendar data on corp Outlook/Goog's/etc. That means not using corp network to surf personal social media, shopping on amazon, etc. I would very much encourage you to really look into this unwise practice. It's not a matter of if, but when, this will come to haunt you someday. You have a personal mobile device, use it for personal stuff. Use your corp provided devices for corp related stuff.
- EricE 6y agoIt always amazes me how much info people are willing to turn over to other entities that have no business with it. My favorite are co-workers who allow mobile device management profiles on their personal phones so they don't have to carry around a separate work phone. No way in hell would I ever agree to that! Stupidity for convenience :p
- Tenoke 6y agoThis is exactly how contracts for a lot of things, most notably ISPs work in Germany and it's infuriating.
- mmarx 6y agoExcept that you can put in your cancellation notice early, even on the very first day.
- Tenoke 6y agoHere you could, too as far as I understand you just get 2 months free if you don't. At any rate, what's even worse for me is that you can't cancel in the last 3 months of the contract with ISPs which nobody tells you so it's even easier to get stuck with it for an extra year.
- FireBeyond 6y ago> At any rate, what's even worse for me is that you can't cancel in the last 3 months of the contract with ISPs which nobody tells you so it's even easier to get stuck with it for an extra year. Which is ridiculous. It doesn't require 90 days to de-provision a circuit.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago> they wouldn't let me put the cancellation in early Everything they did was legal until this. If they won’t process it, send them a letter with your state attorney general’s consumer affairs (or, if you’re a business, commercial division) Cc’d. Address it to their general counsel. State you cancel your contract with them effective such and such date. Contract termination is quite strictly defined in law, for obvious reasons.
- alisonkisk 6y agoHow can you back out of a contract without paying consideration/fee?
- ncallaway 6y agoThey're not backing out of a contract. They're opting not to renew the contract early in the term of the contract.
- yamakadi 6y agoI had this exact issue. I specially chose the more expensive monthly options and read all the fine print, but apparently the cancellation fee snuck by somehow. My solution was removing my credit card, adding a “you don’t deserve to get paid” prepaid VISA charged with ¥200, and canceling anyway. They tried to charge me on and off for about a month — and a random charge attempt 3 months later. Having to do this is a terrible felling and I feel like a bad person, but I at least put the cancellation fee I would have paid to good use by buying Affinity Designer.
- alisonkisk 6y agoDid it show up on your credit report?
- vineyardmike 6y agoIt shouldn’t if you didn’t consent to taking out debt.
- yamakadi 6y agoI’m not sure how it works in the US, but in Japan, companies usually send a final notice by snail mail that outline the consequences of not paying. Adobe hasn’t even sent an email saying yet charge failed and I have to update my payment method out anything else. It’s as if they are aware of how shady the cancellation fee is and won’t chase you down for it.
- bjornjajayaja 6y agoHonestly, you signed up for the annual subscription so it’s on you. They give a decent cost discount for yearly subscription—it’s only fair to them that they get their end of the bargain. Important takeaway: only buy month to month plans when testing out services. EDIT: I’m not a huge fan of subscription models in general. Software doesn’t need to change at the rate it is these days, but it does work wonders for the bottom lines of all these companies. EDIT2: Monthly payments to open source software is a better investment because they actually need funding, and they aren’t paying shareholders profits.
- alexvoda 6y agoTheir website actively tries to trick you into falling for it.
- FireBeyond 6y agoHonestly, not so much. Perhaps it did before. It isn't great, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it a dark pattern. It does list the "Best Value" plan, but when you go to "Buy", it presents a shopping cart with the following text (no fine print, no other tricks), and even uses the word "commitment": "Commitment: Annual plan, paid monthly: US$52.99/mo." Even at that point, the above is in a drop-down, and you can change it to "Annual plan, pre-paid", or "Monthly plan".
- tobr 6y agoHow is it not a dark pattern? If they are confident in the value of the subscription, why not print out the whopping minimum total of $635.88 everywhere they mention the price? They do it this way because it is misleading in a way that benefits Adobe.
- ChildOfChaos 6y agoJust because they benefit from stupid people is not adobe's fault, when it is this clear, people should really be careful about just clicking things and signing up, it's the individuals fault, people or companies are not your friends, this is the case for everything, it's just the way the world works, getting mad at that and then blaming the individual is stupidity and lack of personal responsibility. They want to charge you as much as possible and get as much money from you as they possibly can, you want the opposite, the end result is something between the two, it's on them to reach there goal, so it's on you to take care of your own money and what you do with it.
- alexvoda 6y agoThis is why for such services (though I haven't used Adobe software in more than a decade) I use single use debit cards like the ones offered by Revolut. Adobe is in the same ring of trust as a random shady website and one ring above a Nigerian prince.
- CogitoRegrooved 6y agoCaveat Emptor. I subscribed to Revolut "Premium" in order to have unlimited disposable virtual cards but changed my mind since and they too charged me the cancellation "break fee". Apparently everyone is using this tactic these days.
- copperx 6y agoAs if subscriptions weren't consumer unfriendly enough.
- Closi 6y agoThis is a super effective way to get debt collectors sending you messages! It depends on the company and sales contract, but as you signed up to an agreement for the subscription on these terms it's possible that Adobe would be able to sell the unpaid fees off to collection agencies.
- skeeter2020 6y agoThat contract you signed with Adobe has residual value when they give up on charging you. They don't just move on, they sell it to a debt collection service and then you will really learn about aggressive tactics.
- Strom 6y agoWhat are these aggressive tactics? Are you talking about spam-like contact attempts or some kind of gangster type activity?
- mavhc 6y agoPaying for things is a sucker's game. Pay for movies, DRM breaks it Pay for software, it's discontinued
- johnsoft 6y agoPay for food, you'll just be hungry again tomorrow
- Mandatum 6y agoIf you're in Australia, I've submitted a case to ACCC. If you're an Australian reading this - do the same, you'll get your refund.