9 ms·

Or you can just block the recurring payments and wait for them to come at you? Anyway a "free" trial that asks for your cc number is obviously not free. Better

by bambax 5y ago

Or you can just block the recurring payments and wait for them to come at you? Anyway a "free" trial that asks for your cc number is obviously not free. Better to stay away of those to be on the safe side.

awslattery 5y ago
They didn't "come at me" when I've done this a few times in the past, but thankfully I haven't been in a position to put their akin-to-malware on my system in a few years.
AlfeG 5y ago
There are stories when Adobe charged for several missing years as soon as credit card were linked.
- dymk 5y ago
  CC chargeback time
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    Chargebacks aren't the magic spell people think they are. The credit card company may elect to side with the merchant, or the merchant may decline to do business with you again in the future (not ideal if your income relies on access to these tools in the future), or the merchant may take legal action against you, or the credit card company may decide to close your card account. You can't just do whatever you want and then claim 'chargeback!'
    - beeboop 5y ago
      I use privacy.com for throw-away cards and you can set spending limits and close them at any time.
      - chrisseaton 5y ago
        > close them at any time Closing your card doesn't have any impact on legal obligations you had, or a merchant thinks you had, or any impact on whether a merchant will choose to do business with you in the future.
        marcosdumay 5y ago
        Yeah, and a software provider hiding a non-cancel clause somewhere in a dozens of pages after the deal "contrat" doesn't impact on your legal obligations either.
        chrisseaton 5y ago
        I would guess that ‘annual plan’ is presumed to be clear enough, you didn’t have to read the contract.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        marcosdumay 5y ago
        Hum... Annual plan is not stated on any of the large text. It is stated on the "review order before you buy" as part of the name of the product, what makes it nothing any similar to "clear". "Completely confusing" is more apt. Near it the price information carries the monthly price only, with no indication that you are signing up to 12 times that amount. The only saving feature is that you don't need to read dozens of pages. If you open the contract, it is confusing from page 1. But it's also not clear at all what is going there.
        lostcolony 5y ago
        In terms of legal obligations, sure - however, for SaaS, it's almost never worth it. If it's "we charge you at the start of the period", then you received no goods, they received no payment, there is no legal obligation. If it's "we provide the service and charge you at the end of the period", then there is a legal obligation, but the cost to them to collect is probably too large; they could always send it to a debt collector, but good luck proving that debt ("the issuer of the debt provided access to a service" "...that I was unaware of and never used? Sounds fraudulent"). In terms of merchant choosing to do business with you in the future, they may or may not have a choice; depends what they use to identify you with. Certainly, if they don't make canceling easy, it's probably not the kind of business you want to deal with. All that said, this is why anything that auto-renews, that I don't know if I want to keep renewing (i.e., will I still be using it at the end of the trial period, end of the month, end of the year), I immediately cancel. If it's a trial and that terminates access, I will take that as a sign not to use them. If it's paid and that terminates access, I will also take that as a sign not to use them, but I'll also email them and basically say "hey; I paid for X period, wish to use it for X period, but am unable to use the service for X period. I either need you to reinstate my account, sans auto-renewal, or I expect a refund". That tends to get a response, since otherwise -they- are legally on the hook.
    - claviska 5y ago
      As a [small] SaaS owner, I immediately refund, cancel, and block the user from reactivating their account until they reach out to me. In more than 10 years, I’ve seen less than a dozen “accidental” chargebacks. Most are from users who are too lazy to login and hit the cancel button. I don’t believe in using dark patterns as a retainment strategy, so I make it very easy to cancel from the same screen they signed up on. The domain is listed on their CC statement. I also send out reminders well before annual subscriptions renew with a link to update or cancel their plan. I used to dispute chargebacks when the user was very clearly using the service actively and provide screenshots, logs, and written evidence, but what usually happens is the bank takes 30+ days to complete each interaction and almost always sides with the cardholder anyways. In the meantime, users get frustrated because their money is locked up in limbo and I can’t even refund them until their bank responds. The only chargeback I recall “winning” was one where the user accidentally canceled but still wanted the service. They called their bank directly and the bank canceled the chargeback. It’s just not worth the hassle, so immediately offloading the responsibility of chargebacks to the user is well worth the $15 chargeback fee. They’ll let you know if they want to come back. Big companies, I’ve heard, may put you on a block list and if you’ve submitted any identifiable info (address, phone number, etc.) they’ll know when you create a new account.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - the__alchemist 5y ago
      I've never had Amex side with the merchant.
- AlfeG 5y ago
  https://twitter.com/controlflow/status/1469253842109968385?t=M0utQicnR9RrNbrvxMX5Iw&s=19 https://twitter.com/controlflow/status/1469253842109968385?t... Finally managed to find source
2ion 5y ago
Not a good idea if you, in the future, may actually need Adobe's services again.
- chongli 5y ago
  At this point I intend to avoid Adobe's services for the rest of my life. If I ever feel like I need Photoshop or Illustrator I'll find an alternative. There are a lot alternatives to these, both open source and proprietary from small businesses.
  - FranksTV 5y ago
    Sure, but if you are a design professional they are pretty much indispensable.
  - dheera 5y ago
    I use Linux but I'm mostly content with Gimp and Inkscape. I know Photoshop have some "content aware fill" and things but that's just their re-branded name for neural networks that are already open source, it's just a matter of time before it's available in Gimp. I might even consider writing those plugins too but my time is limited.
    - account42 5y ago
      There has been a GIMP plugin for this for a long time - no idea how the quality compares to Photoshop's content aware fill though: https://github.com/bootchk/resynthesizer https://github.com/bootchk/resynthesizer
    - andi999 5y ago
      I thought the big problem is that gimp uses only rgb color encoding, which is fine for non-print, but if you want to print something professionally you need at least cmyk.
      - chongli 5y ago
        Yeah if you need to work in CMYK you're kind of stuck. Personally, if I needed to do a lot of print work then I'd pick up an old Mac and an old license for Photoshop CS6.
arcticbull 5y ago
You may get sent to collections and thats a whole pile of misfortune.
- dheera 5y ago
  Most online services just terminate your service after a couple warnings and don't bother with collections. In any case just set it as your policy that you don't talk to collectors, you only engage with businesses directly. Send Adobe a written notice of termination of the agreement, stop payments, and I believe that's all you need to do, but IANAL.
  - kevincox 5y ago
    IANAL but if you agreed to a fixed term contract you can't just inform the other party that you are leaving early. You need to use an exit clause within the contract or somehow invalidate it. (For example by saying that you didn't knowingly enter into a 1 year contract.)
    - gaius_baltar 5y ago
      > IANAL but if you agreed to a fixed term contract you can't just inform the other party that you are leaving early. Also IANAL, but he whole point is that the user is still in the 14 days "free trial, just cancel", and Adobe is refusing to honor the "cancel" part, right? This approach can be handy, specially in countries where there is a way to send legally valid electronic notification letters.
      - phgn 5y ago
        No, during the first 14 days you can actually cancel for free. This is talking about months later when you discover the "annual commitment" part for the first time. It's a perfectly legal contract, just deceptive.
        account42 5y ago
asdefghyk 5y ago
A person meeds to have a cc where transactions are disabled. ( My bank via its online customizer accounts - allows a person to turn this on / off for security )
- ferminaut 5y ago
  I got a X1 credit card a little bit ago. You can have unlimited "virtual" credit cards, trial subscription cards, and one time use cards. I now use it for everything, with a different "virtual" card for every business. I wish more credit cards offered this. (not affiliated with x1)
  - estro0182 5y ago
    CapitalOne offered this feature too, which I used heavily. Then they _got rid of it_. Blows my mind, it was incredibly nice.
    - ed 5y ago
      They're still offered through the Eno extension https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/eno%C2%AE-from-capital-one%C2%AE/clmkdohmabikagpnhjmgacbclihgmdje https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/eno%C2%AE-from-cap...
      - posguy 5y ago
        Is there a way to use this outside the Chrome browser?
  - rabuse 5y ago
    Citi also offers this, for those who didn't know.
- brainbag 5y ago
  I do this with privacy.com. Every site gets a unique credit card with a custom limit.
jibbit 5y ago
this is very bad advice
josephcsible 5y ago
> Anyway a "free" trial that asks for your cc number is obviously not free. There is a legitimate reason to do that: to keep people from making a bunch of accounts and getting free trials with them forever.
- musicale 5y ago
  Virtual credit card numbers where you can set a low limit + early expiration date can be useful for avoiding the dark pattern of "free" trials that you can't cancel.
- smaudet 5y ago
  Part of the problem it could be argued is the CC card here - you want my CC number? Fine. I should have to initiate the transaction, hit "Go", not the other way around. I can block charges, but this would be a more valid reason if it really were just about limiting "freebies". Actually for this reason I prefer to use a small account with limited liability e.g. Paypal or a low limit CC, precisely because there's less risk for me. Why should company XYZ have unlimited power to randomly charge me tens of thousands of dollars? They shouldnt.
- rabuse 5y ago
  I always just create a virtual number through my CC, set the maximum to $1, and have it expire within a couple months. Works like a charm.
  - JJMcJ 5y ago
    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.
    - victor106 5y ago
      I use https://privacy.com/ https://privacy.com/ for this. One of the best discoveries I found on hn a few years ago
_dain_ 5y ago
>Anyway a "free" trial that asks for your cc number is obviously not free. Better to stay away of those to be on the safe side. A few years ago I signed up for a "free" Audible trial and later forgot about it. They rolled it over into a paid subscription somehow and charged me money despite never giving them my card details in the signup process. I believe what happened is it got linked to my Amazon account and charged the card connected to that. They refunded me after I contacted them but I didn't get the entire amount back.
megiddo 5y ago
This is exactly what I did, worked a charm. I signed up, but their product kept crashing - it never worked. I called to cancel, they asked for 50%. I said, I don't owe it because the product didn't work - contracts require consideration by both parties. CSR said I would pay. I got his contact info and told him that not only I wouldn't pay, but that Adobe would cancel my contract for free before a year. Anyways, I blocked the transaction. Within 2 months, they cancelled my subscription. I sent a screenshot to the CSR email. Never heard back.
throwaway058527 5y ago

by bambax 5y ago

awslattery 5y ago

They didn't "come at me" when I've done this a few times in the past, but thankfully I haven't been in a position to put their akin-to-malware on my system in a few years.

AlfeG 5y ago

There are stories when Adobe charged for several missing years as soon as credit card were linked.

dymk 5y ago
CC chargeback time
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  Chargebacks aren't the magic spell people think they are. The credit card company may elect to side with the merchant, or the merchant may decline to do business with you again in the future (not ideal if your income relies on access to these tools in the future), or the merchant may take legal action against you, or the credit card company may decide to close your card account. You can't just do whatever you want and then claim 'chargeback!'
  - beeboop 5y ago
    I use privacy.com for throw-away cards and you can set spending limits and close them at any time.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      > close them at any time Closing your card doesn't have any impact on legal obligations you had, or a merchant thinks you had, or any impact on whether a merchant will choose to do business with you in the future.
      - marcosdumay 5y ago
        Yeah, and a software provider hiding a non-cancel clause somewhere in a dozens of pages after the deal "contrat" doesn't impact on your legal obligations either.
        chrisseaton 5y ago
        I would guess that ‘annual plan’ is presumed to be clear enough, you didn’t have to read the contract.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        marcosdumay 5y ago
        Hum... Annual plan is not stated on any of the large text. It is stated on the "review order before you buy" as part of the name of the product, what makes it nothing any similar to "clear". "Completely confusing" is more apt. Near it the price information carries the monthly price only, with no indication that you are signing up to 12 times that amount. The only saving feature is that you don't need to read dozens of pages. If you open the contract, it is confusing from page 1. But it's also not clear at all what is going there.
      - lostcolony 5y ago
        In terms of legal obligations, sure - however, for SaaS, it's almost never worth it. If it's "we charge you at the start of the period", then you received no goods, they received no payment, there is no legal obligation. If it's "we provide the service and charge you at the end of the period", then there is a legal obligation, but the cost to them to collect is probably too large; they could always send it to a debt collector, but good luck proving that debt ("the issuer of the debt provided access to a service" "...that I was unaware of and never used? Sounds fraudulent"). In terms of merchant choosing to do business with you in the future, they may or may not have a choice; depends what they use to identify you with. Certainly, if they don't make canceling easy, it's probably not the kind of business you want to deal with. All that said, this is why anything that auto-renews, that I don't know if I want to keep renewing (i.e., will I still be using it at the end of the trial period, end of the month, end of the year), I immediately cancel. If it's a trial and that terminates access, I will take that as a sign not to use them. If it's paid and that terminates access, I will also take that as a sign not to use them, but I'll also email them and basically say "hey; I paid for X period, wish to use it for X period, but am unable to use the service for X period. I either need you to reinstate my account, sans auto-renewal, or I expect a refund". That tends to get a response, since otherwise -they- are legally on the hook.
  - claviska 5y ago
    As a [small] SaaS owner, I immediately refund, cancel, and block the user from reactivating their account until they reach out to me. In more than 10 years, I’ve seen less than a dozen “accidental” chargebacks. Most are from users who are too lazy to login and hit the cancel button. I don’t believe in using dark patterns as a retainment strategy, so I make it very easy to cancel from the same screen they signed up on. The domain is listed on their CC statement. I also send out reminders well before annual subscriptions renew with a link to update or cancel their plan. I used to dispute chargebacks when the user was very clearly using the service actively and provide screenshots, logs, and written evidence, but what usually happens is the bank takes 30+ days to complete each interaction and almost always sides with the cardholder anyways. In the meantime, users get frustrated because their money is locked up in limbo and I can’t even refund them until their bank responds. The only chargeback I recall “winning” was one where the user accidentally canceled but still wanted the service. They called their bank directly and the bank canceled the chargeback. It’s just not worth the hassle, so immediately offloading the responsibility of chargebacks to the user is well worth the $15 chargeback fee. They’ll let you know if they want to come back. Big companies, I’ve heard, may put you on a block list and if you’ve submitted any identifiable info (address, phone number, etc.) they’ll know when you create a new account.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - the__alchemist 5y ago
    I've never had Amex side with the merchant.
AlfeG 5y ago
https://twitter.com/controlflow/status/1469253842109968385?t=M0utQicnR9RrNbrvxMX5Iw&s=19 https://twitter.com/controlflow/status/1469253842109968385?t... Finally managed to find source

2ion 5y ago

Not a good idea if you, in the future, may actually need Adobe's services again.

chongli 5y ago
At this point I intend to avoid Adobe's services for the rest of my life. If I ever feel like I need Photoshop or Illustrator I'll find an alternative. There are a lot alternatives to these, both open source and proprietary from small businesses.
- FranksTV 5y ago
  Sure, but if you are a design professional they are pretty much indispensable.
- dheera 5y ago
  I use Linux but I'm mostly content with Gimp and Inkscape. I know Photoshop have some "content aware fill" and things but that's just their re-branded name for neural networks that are already open source, it's just a matter of time before it's available in Gimp. I might even consider writing those plugins too but my time is limited.
  - account42 5y ago
    There has been a GIMP plugin for this for a long time - no idea how the quality compares to Photoshop's content aware fill though: https://github.com/bootchk/resynthesizer https://github.com/bootchk/resynthesizer
  - andi999 5y ago
    I thought the big problem is that gimp uses only rgb color encoding, which is fine for non-print, but if you want to print something professionally you need at least cmyk.
    - chongli 5y ago
      Yeah if you need to work in CMYK you're kind of stuck. Personally, if I needed to do a lot of print work then I'd pick up an old Mac and an old license for Photoshop CS6.

arcticbull 5y ago

You may get sent to collections and thats a whole pile of misfortune.

dheera 5y ago
Most online services just terminate your service after a couple warnings and don't bother with collections. In any case just set it as your policy that you don't talk to collectors, you only engage with businesses directly. Send Adobe a written notice of termination of the agreement, stop payments, and I believe that's all you need to do, but IANAL.
- kevincox 5y ago
  IANAL but if you agreed to a fixed term contract you can't just inform the other party that you are leaving early. You need to use an exit clause within the contract or somehow invalidate it. (For example by saying that you didn't knowingly enter into a 1 year contract.)
  - gaius_baltar 5y ago
    > IANAL but if you agreed to a fixed term contract you can't just inform the other party that you are leaving early. Also IANAL, but he whole point is that the user is still in the 14 days "free trial, just cancel", and Adobe is refusing to honor the "cancel" part, right? This approach can be handy, specially in countries where there is a way to send legally valid electronic notification letters.
    - phgn 5y ago
      No, during the first 14 days you can actually cancel for free. This is talking about months later when you discover the "annual commitment" part for the first time. It's a perfectly legal contract, just deceptive.
      - account42 5y ago

asdefghyk 5y ago

A person meeds to have a cc where transactions are disabled. ( My bank via its online customizer accounts - allows a person to turn this on / off for security )

ferminaut 5y ago
I got a X1 credit card a little bit ago. You can have unlimited "virtual" credit cards, trial subscription cards, and one time use cards. I now use it for everything, with a different "virtual" card for every business. I wish more credit cards offered this. (not affiliated with x1)
- estro0182 5y ago
  CapitalOne offered this feature too, which I used heavily. Then they _got rid of it_. Blows my mind, it was incredibly nice.
  - ed 5y ago
    They're still offered through the Eno extension https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/eno%C2%AE-from-capital-one%C2%AE/clmkdohmabikagpnhjmgacbclihgmdje https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/eno%C2%AE-from-cap...
    - posguy 5y ago
      Is there a way to use this outside the Chrome browser?
- rabuse 5y ago
  Citi also offers this, for those who didn't know.
brainbag 5y ago
I do this with privacy.com. Every site gets a unique credit card with a custom limit.

jibbit 5y ago

this is very bad advice

josephcsible 5y ago

> Anyway a "free" trial that asks for your cc number is obviously not free. There is a legitimate reason to do that: to keep people from making a bunch of accounts and getting free trials with them forever.

musicale 5y ago
Virtual credit card numbers where you can set a low limit + early expiration date can be useful for avoiding the dark pattern of "free" trials that you can't cancel.
smaudet 5y ago
Part of the problem it could be argued is the CC card here - you want my CC number? Fine. I should have to initiate the transaction, hit "Go", not the other way around. I can block charges, but this would be a more valid reason if it really were just about limiting "freebies". Actually for this reason I prefer to use a small account with limited liability e.g. Paypal or a low limit CC, precisely because there's less risk for me. Why should company XYZ have unlimited power to randomly charge me tens of thousands of dollars? They shouldnt.
rabuse 5y ago
I always just create a virtual number through my CC, set the maximum to $1, and have it expire within a couple months. Works like a charm.
- JJMcJ 5y ago
  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.
  - victor106 5y ago
    I use https://privacy.com/ https://privacy.com/ for this. One of the best discoveries I found on hn a few years ago

_dain_ 5y ago

>Anyway a "free" trial that asks for your cc number is obviously not free. Better to stay away of those to be on the safe side. A few years ago I signed up for a "free" Audible trial and later forgot about it. They rolled it over into a paid subscription somehow and charged me money despite never giving them my card details in the signup process. I believe what happened is it got linked to my Amazon account and charged the card connected to that. They refunded me after I contacted them but I didn't get the entire amount back.

megiddo 5y ago

This is exactly what I did, worked a charm. I signed up, but their product kept crashing - it never worked. I called to cancel, they asked for 50%. I said, I don't owe it because the product didn't work - contracts require consideration by both parties. CSR said I would pay. I got his contact info and told him that not only I wouldn't pay, but that Adobe would cancel my contract for free before a year. Anyways, I blocked the transaction. Within 2 months, they cancelled my subscription. I sent a screenshot to the CSR email. Never heard back.

throwaway058527 5y ago