U.S. Sues Adobe Over Subscription Fees

In the creative community we have long been away of some of the tactics Adobe has used if you cancel your service early. It appears that the federal government has also taken notice.

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[tarabooartarmy]

I canceled my debit card to keep them from charging me their ridiculous termination fee. I’ll never subscribe to them again.

[GearsScrewlose]

If buying isn’t owning, then pirating isn’t stealing.

[marianolaguzzi]

"subscription services are convenient, flexible and cost effective"
Adobe clearly hasn't realised they were meant to talk about the subscription from the consumer's perspective instead of their own 😒

Glad to see them being sued, hope this fucks them over royally

[fkdump]

Cancellation fee itself should be illegal too.

[xmlthegreat]

I think the worst part is how Adobe keeps buying up competition or other creative apps and trying to monopolise. That needs to be stopped.

[Domzyses]

This comes the line "It's always morally correct to pirate Adobe softwares".

[carlosrincon]

We need to roll back to the glory days when you bought a version of a software and YOU ACTUALLY OWNED IT, it stayed with you for like... FOREVER.
goddamnit

[DanniV]

I remember cancelling my subscription. "Are you sure you want to cancel? You'll lose all access" - Yes. "We will really miss your money, are you sure?" - Yes. "Maybe you would like a different subscription with less application for a cheaper price?" - No. "What about if we lower the subscription price of your current subscription?" - No. "Fine, we will cancel then. Are you sure?" - Yes.

[Shinigamiof]

who would have thought probably the most pirated software company would turn out to be pirates.

[Dillonbninja]

I tried canceling that annual/monthly plan when I was in college, and was shocked when the customer support agent told me the cancelation fee I had to pay. The whole reason I was canceling was because I couldn't afford to keep paying for it. I had zero idea there was going to be such a hefty cancelation fee. I can't even afford the monthly fee, and they expect me to pay so much to cancel?? What's the point if I'm not using it?
Fortunately for me, they decided not to charge me after all because they understood I was a broke college student lol. Hiding that information though is ridiculous. I can't believe they got away with it for all these years.

[NEILSTER]

I cancelled last night and didn't get charged the £75 termination fee. I simply typed the following in the chat and copy pasted it to any of their responses. "Close my account and do not charge the termination fee as it wasn't clear when I signed up there would be one. I don't want any offers of free months, just close my account." I got bumped to a manager and he closed my account and confirmed i will not be charged any more.

[ardent]

As soon as they went to a subscription model and forced you to accept creative cloud I saw this coming. I even lost a job because I refused to sign up for Creative Cloud to use After Effects, the person hiring me acted like I was a degenerate because I wasn’t comfortable with Creative Cloud.

[deuswulf]

I still have a thick CD case full of Adobe products, but I can't use it anymore because Adobe retroactively decided not to honor those licenses anymore. It was all to shove people onto their subscription plans. At that point I don't think Adobe has much right to set their prices when they can't even honor or provide perpetual licenses. I'm a fan of software being a product, not a service.

[simplastic]

Even more sketchy is that they do not allow you to remove your payment method from the website. Its like they own your credit card.

[SAMZIRRA]

I never, EVER, buy anything attached to a subscription anymore.

[chrisrioux]

Fun little hack to get around their cancellation fees (just went through this). When you go to cancel (and they show the huge several hundred dollar cancellation fee), just click "change this plan", select any one of the cheap plans of another adobe software (like acrobat).

Then you can wait a few minutes and immediately cancel that plan for no fee. It will immediately refund you that cheaper plan and you are out of the expensive one for no cost.

[kingsantos]

They gave me such a hard time canceling. I will never use them again.

[DefiningDave]

Back in the day, I was excited to about Macromedia as an affordable competitor, then Adobe bought them out and jacked up all the prices. Adobe has been evil for a VERY long time.

[RobertWGreaves]

As a professor, several years ago before these complaints added up, I took on the adobe cloud subscription at a reduced instructor price. However over time, the price started going up, so I called to cancel. That was when I discovered it was an annual fee. Furthermore, discussing this with customer service, they told me that if I canceled, I still had to pay immediately for the entire rest of the year, but that I would also immediately lose access. I asked can’t I call you now to inform you that I want to cancel when my annual time is up? To which I was told, no I have to call during the last month. So let me get this straight — I can cancel right now and immediately lose access, but I still have to pay up for the rest of the year, is that correct? Customer service agent told me that it was correct. I wasn’t sure just what my rights would be and so, I paid off the year and canceled? I have been sharing my displeasure with Adobe ever since. I am now the happy user of a paid for Davinci Resolve.

[darylcheshire]

When Adobe sold Photoshop, they would charge US customers about $700 but Australians about $1200. This was not caused by differences in the exchange rate. This was the downloaded product, there were no freight charges. We would call it the Australia Tax. Once the Australian dollar was equal to the US dollar and Adobe still charged about 40% more.
Microsoft and Apple and others did the same thing.
The Australian Senate called them into a hearing but they basically said they charge Australians more because they can. They made vague references to “The Cost of Doing Business in Australia” but they couldn’t explain this to the Senate.
The problem soon went away because of the subscription model, at the time, it was easier to cancel and I could use Photoshop for six months or so.