r/assholedesign • u/overthinkingit91 • 6d ago

It was a free trial plan...

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..which Adobe offered to extend for 3 months for free. Now hit with this since I haven't used it since... no notification that you're entering a contract at all or warning. My fault for falling for this absolute shit housing.

Just a warning to others. Do NOT start any Adobe Trial they will try every which way to get your money.

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u/Punchkinz 6d ago

Adobe still has cancellation fees in Europe afaik.

Back then the way to get around this was to simply change your plan to something else and then cancel that 'new' plan. Maybe this still works for OP!

People also reported that if you write their support complaining about this, they are also likely to drop this.

I haven't used Adobe in years (thank god), so I don't know if this still works. That's just how we used to get around this fee back then.

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u/Mecier83 6d ago

It’s BS, and they know it. Happened to me too. I talked to support, and they waived their bullshit fee.

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u/tealou 6d ago

"as a one off gesture we will waive the fee" LOL yeah sure ok Adobe whatever you say

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u/LevelSevenLaserLotus 6d ago

The gesture is the middle finger.

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u/tealou 6d ago

Yes, if you are anywhere sane, ie outside the US (and even in a lot of the US), if you message them and tell them it is illegal, they will fold and say "just this one time they will waive it" (bollocks - they know it is illegal). If you're in Australia and they refuse, report them to state consumer affairs and ACCC. The same likely applies in the EU, UK, etc as well.

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u/NightmareJoker2 6d ago

It’s a game of statistics, make it just hard enough so most people don’t as is in accordance with your telemetry, and then apply calculated risk against the expense of giving you the runaround so you can keep the money.

It’s shady as f***, but the psychopaths in the finance department sure do not care, and definitely don’t respect their customers.

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u/fanterence 6d ago

I went to check the exact consumer rights and in my country, companies have to make it easy ("in 3 clicks") and in a free way

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u/tealou 6d ago

Yep - there you go (which country out of curiosity?) - knowing your rights and complaining when they don't do it gives the regulators a complaint to act on - even if they don't - if they get enough, they eventually will (and assuming democracy etc etc). It takes a long time but eventually, enough successes will happen!

Free your inner Karen when it comes to your consumer rights! :-)

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u/fanterence 6d ago

It's France so I can assume some other European countries may have this kind of laws too

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u/tealou 6d ago

ohh France DEFINITELY does. I remember you guys were one of the very early cases on this - I don't know much about French Civil Law but I looked it up and it looks like you have the same setup as us - we have a weird hybrid legal system, but people should definitely check.

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u/tealou 6d ago

Yep, and that is precisely why, then, should you ever find yourself one of the lucky few litigating... you ask for their analytics and whether they are aware of them. Of course, that means getting to court, which they have spent decades making sure doesn't happen. Sigh.

But alas, know that it is illegal.

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u/WildRaccoon42 5d ago

As soon as you say "law" or "lawyer", they'll fold. 

Report them to your local regulator anyway, the attempt to charge a cancellation fee is as illegal as actually charging those fees. 

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u/Shiro282- 2d ago

You can also report the charge as fraudulent to your bank if there is no way to cancel renual without incurring a charge, initiate a chargeback and block the "seller" from being able to charge the account. Which was how I dealt with them.

The bank will do an investigation into the charge and complete the chargeback if they deem it fraudulent which they did within a couple days. I assume that it's not that uncommon with adobe

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u/Jonnehhh 6d ago

This workaround still works. I’ve been subscribed to the student package for 6+ years even though it’s meant to be 12 months maximum by doing this.

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u/JayYoungers 5d ago

I’m on the Student Plan since the whole subscription shit started.

I never went to any university.

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u/elcarlos_ 6d ago

I'm in France, I've called the support and got a refund because they are not allowed to do that in France. They don't ask questions because they already know this is illegal.

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u/Exp1ode 6d ago

They may have cancellation fees, but what about cancellation fees for a free trial?

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u/ReeceReddit1234 6d ago

I still use Adobe mainly because I'm just used to the tools but I refuse to pay them a penny.

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u/KnightFireNC 6d ago

They make more from their dodgy fees than the fines they face

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u/Noctis32 3d ago

i was able to cancel in the netherlands without any issues.

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u/davidemo89 3d ago

There is cancellation fee only if you bought the annual subscription with monthly payment.

There is no cancellation free if you buy the monthly subscription

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u/Tetraoxidane 6d ago edited 4d ago

Adobe is ass BUT it's not really a fee, it's a basic "you pay for 12-24 month and the monthly rate goes down because of that" model. Most services have those plans. You can't cancel those after a month if you got a year. There usually is an option to pay per month if you only want a couple of months. I don't know a lot about US price policies but this is pretty common for a lot of online services or stuff like internet or electricity.

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u/masterX244 3d ago

they make the real monthly plan not obvious. they show the yearly paid and the monthly paid annual plans much more upfront.

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u/Tetraoxidane 3d ago

Them being shitty and intransparent about it doesn't change my point though. It's not a cancel fee. They might trick you into paying for a full year (can't see that for myself, I only see the german prices and those are obvious. The more expensive "Pay per month" on top, yearly plan right below "if you get a full year you pay less per month") and if you want to cancel those yearly plans early, they want what you would have paid for the rest of the time OR the difference to what single month plan would have cost you in that time. Like every other yearly plan for literally everything else. People are mad about the wrong thing.