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Ask HN: How to cancel Adobe CC subscription without paying a “cancellation fee”?
I want to cancel my Adobe CC subscription. I don't use the software anywhere near often enough to justify the cost of it.
When trying to cancel my subscription I was faced with a ridiculous "cancellation fee." Surely this can't be legal? How do I avoid paying this outrageous money grab?
It goes without saying that I'm never going to use any of their products again.
- detaro 4y agoAFAIK you only pay a cancellation fee if you want to cancel a subscription early (E.g. you booked a yearly plan and then cancel it a few months before renewal), which of course is legal. At some point there was the hack that you could switch your subscription to a offer they throw at you when you try to cancel, and then that counted as a new subscription, which you could cancel within the first 14 days. Not sure if that still works.
- omgwtfusb 4y agoA few months ago it worked for me. I am in EU so IIRC they are legally required to let you cancel your contract for 14 days if you entered into it remotely (phone, internet etc). It seems like changing subscription plan counts as getting a new contract with Adobe.
- InCityDreams 4y agoI'm in the eu. What would not count as remote, where you are (added for all the USAians that think it's actually one [socialistic] country)? *where i am at the moment, if i buy something in a shop i have 7 days to return it as i could have 'examined' the item there. Online, delivered, i get 30 days. Empty shops, retailers, empty shops...I 'remote' purchase. But i do go looking first in your store...
- kevincox 4y agoIt seems to me that this is likely not legally required in this case as they could claim that the release of the old contract was part of the new contract and if you cancel that you are still responsible for the old one. However I'm not surprised that they haven't bothered to implement this in code.
- mjrpes 4y agoIt is of course legal, but it's possible OP got deceived into an annual subscription when they thought it was monthly, as discussed 7 months back on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30222165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30222165
- gervwyk 4y agoalso been tricked by them. if some services did not lock pdfs to only be opened in adobe reader, there is no way I’d touch anything adobe. Hate these practices and their updater and installer is extremely intrusive! Someone should run a poll for most hated software providers..
- fire 4y agofwiw there are tools to remove the copy protection / "unlock" the pdfavailable on github, like this one[1] for windows and a number of them[2] for *nix based on qfed[3] or ghostscript 1: https://github.com/abatsakidis/PDFDeSecure https://github.com/abatsakidis/PDFDeSecure 2: https://www.google.com/search?q=remove%20pdf%20copy%20protection%20site%3Agithub.com https://www.google.com/search?q=remove%20pdf%20copy%20protec... 3: https://github.com/wilfredwee/wilfred-TILs/blob/master/command-line-pdf/decrypting-a-pdf-file-without-owner-password-on-the-command-line.md https://github.com/wilfredwee/wilfred-TILs/blob/master/comma...
- jbverschoor 4y agoIt’s not as a consumer in the Netherlands. This is what gyms used to do. Now you can have a 1 year contract, after that, you’re able to cancel anytime
- davidandgoliath 4y agoThat is not the case with adobe, the contract autorenews.
- arrow7000 4y agoExactly
- lukasgraf 4y agoStill worked for me yesterday. Temporarily "switched" to a yearly (paid monthly) InCopy subscription, and was able to cancel that about 5min later. If you don't get the "do you want to switch instead of cancelling?" retainer dialog, you may have already declined it. Clearing cookies and local storage did the trick for me in that case.
- Buttons840 4y agoMy gym has a cancellation fee like this. I came to accept it because it is equivalent to them giving me a discount if I stay a certain amount of time, which is fair. Fortunately, they made it all clear when signing up; hidden fees always suck.
- WasimBhai 4y agoTalk to their representatives on the chat and they will help. That is how I avoided paying the cancellation fee.
- AlbertCory 4y agoUse privacy.com and give them a temporary credit card. Close the card when you want to cancel. Is this ethical? You're not using the software anymore, so you're not getting something for nothing. Rather, you're avoiding paying something for nothing.
- NLPlatypus 4y agoBut he received a discount on his monthly rate when he agreed to subscribe for a year at a time.
- AlbertCory 4y agoThere is a power imbalance between him & a giant multinational corporation, and he's just rectified it.
- daniel-cussen 4y agoOh that's what this is about?
- arrow7000 4y agoI don't remember subscribing for a year at a time. I almost always subscribe to things on a monthly basis, and the money certainly comes out of my account on a monthly basis
- JBits 4y agoHe's breaking his agreement with Adobe but it wasn't ethical for Adobe to obscure the fact he was agreeing to a cancellation fee in the first place.
- bognition 4y agoThis won't stop Adobe from sending collections after you
- AlbertCory 4y agoHas that ever happened?
- sprkwd 4y agoIf you update / change your subscription to another one, you go back into the 14 days free cancellation policy. Then just cancel.
- desindol 4y agoYou switch plans and quit the new one…
- boredpudding 4y agoThis worked for me a year ago. You can cancel the new one within x days. Couldn't believe it worked, but was happy with it.
- arrow7000 4y agoI can't work out how to change my plan. The "manage plan" page only has the option to cancel my plan. There doesn't seem anywhere on the website where I can change my plan, only to buy new ones
- desindol 4y agoGo on the side and click cancel on your current plan after that press "It's to expensive" and you get offered another plan.
- arrow7000 4y agoIt doesn't for me :/ I think it's possible that I've gone through this flow before and accepted a slightly cheaper offer to keep me as a customer. I wonder if that permanently removes such offers from appearing again?
- flaxton 4y agoPay the cancellation fee and learn from it, to read the terms and conditions before you buy. Then in the future, depending on your needs, use alternative applications, like many of the excellent Affinity programs such as Affinity Photo (vs Adobe Photoshop), Affinity Designer (vs Adobe Illustrator), etc. that are an affordable one-time purchase. Likewise Luma Fusion video editor (on iPad) instead of Adobe Premiere Pro or Final Cut.
- iLoveOncall 4y ago> to read the terms and conditions before you buy No need to go that far, you just have to read the very obvious part that says it's an annual subscription. This thread is baffling.
- flaxton 4y agoI meant to add that Luma Fusion also runs on the M1/M2 Mac as well as iPad.
- mutant 4y agoI pay via PayPal then cancel the billing subscription. Privacy.com is how my partner got out of it.
- ceejayoz 4y agoThey can, in theory, send you to collections and ding your credit for that.
- petefromnorth 4y agoFuck Adobe. It triggered the auto-renew while on vacation for a year, I cancelled within a week later, and was forced to pay a massive cancellation fee. One of the worst companies I've interacted with, will never use their products again.
- brudgers 4y agoI recently switched to Corel because they still sell perpetual licenses. On physical media. I won’t say it is as good or better than Adobe. Only that it is good enough for me at this time.
- hey2022 4y agoDepending on your needs, there is also Pixelmator Pro and (I just found it, haven’t used) Affinity Designer. Pixelmator Pro has all the features I missed from Photoshop and more. Both apps are not subscription based.
- brudgers 4y agoThanks. I understand why people might not choose Corel. I first bought a copy of Corel in 1998. The version I bought this year — prefixed “2021” — is not all that different from how I remember the oldest one which I stopped using around 2010. For me, that’s a feature. The hammer has a familiar handle, and my nails haven’t changed much. Benign neglect provides stability. Particularly in regards to user interface. When it comes to my creative tools, I am the slow part of the loop now that computers are so well resourced. I mean I’ve gone from a PIII with 128mb of RAM and 320 mb of spinning rust to four cores hypertheadeed, 8GB RAM + 4GB on the GPU with a two TB SSD. But 300dpi and 32 bits are still the same. Basically what required a wait twenty-five years ago doesn’t because the new resources haven’t been consumed with new features. Or slowed to the speed of the internet to ensure speed is an argument for upgrading.
- d23 4y agoThanks for the heads up. I just checked, and apparently I got scammed into an annual plan by a customer support agent without realizing it. Even better, they don't appear to have a way for you to delete your old credit card information, even after adding a new one. Time to finally look for Adobe alternatives.
- buildartefact 4y agoPay it. Then tweet @ them how disgruntled you are that you have to pay it. Worked for a buddy of mine.
- whitepirate20 4y agoPrivacy.com and freeze the card
- zxienin 4y agoThis doesn’t answer your question, but it may help folks who haven’t ended in this situation. Amazon sells (at least in EU) CC annual prepaid subscription. Buy that instead and redeem it on Adobe to activate subscription. No direct purchase from adobe, no credit card on file. End of one year, your subscription will just expire out.
- benj111 4y agoIf you're in Europe you could do a subject access request, request phone calls or whatever way you entered into the contract and see if they messed up.
- hey2022 4y agoI did exactly that around 4 months ago. Luckily I subscribed using PayPal, so when Adobe charged me the cancellation fee I immediately contested it. My guess was that Adobe won’t bother to deal with a contested fee of around $100. They didn’t, so PayPal refunded me the fee. Edit: I replaced Photoshop with Pixelmator Pro, which is an excellent piece of software. Most other needs are covered by Sketch/Figma. Haven’t found a good Illustrator alternative yet, but didn’t look much.
- brtkdotse 4y ago> Most other needs are covered by Sketch/Figma. Hoo boy, do I have some bad news for you! > Haven’t found a good Illustrator alternative yet, but didn’t look much. I’m very happy with Affinity Designer
- hey2022 4y agoFingers crossed FTC will block the acquisition.
- exolymph 4y ago+1 to Pixelmator Pro, the price is super reasonable
- Shadowed_ 4y agoMaybe CorelDraw could be a good replacement for Illustrator. Disclaimer: I did use CorelDraw but not Illustrator (at least not significantly), so maybe I'm missing something.
- drummer 4y agoPiracy is once again the better choice.
- t0bia_s 4y agoSure. You can get rid off telemetry and tons of unvanted processes. Well if you know, where to pirate.
- corobo 4y agoTell them your employer is now paying for your subscription Worked for me plus two others that I know of
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- synicalx 4y agoCancel your card, the fee is small enough that it won't be worth their time to actively pursue you for it. EDIT: I should append this with "It Depends"/YMMV/Do this at your own risk. Based on my years working in and around the collections space, I can say with a fairly high degree of certainty that you will most likely not be pursued in a meaningful or enforceable way for a small amount like this. But then again Adobe might sell your "debt" to someone who will choose to pursue you heavily for it in the hope that they can find a court to agree with them.
- no1groyp 4y ago
- runnerup 4y agoI'm currently testing what happens when I sign up for a free trial with a card from privacy.com that has a $1 spending limit. Now that the free trial is over, Adobe keeps trying to charge my card for the monthly fee every 2-3 days or so. I'm not sure if my Acrobat license will get disabled and everything will be dropped, or if my account will get sent to collections, or what. Eager to find out.
- wizwit999 4y agoCancel and open a dispute on your credit card.
- t0bia_s 4y agoI would also like to know, how to debloat CC. There are tons of unvanted processes and verifying subscription every day. It is not even possible to use legally CC offline.