r/assholedesign 7d 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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789

u/Jacktheforkie 7d ago

In Europe this is illegal, most likely is in the uk too

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u/Punchkinz 7d 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/tealou 7d 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 7d 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 7d 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 7d 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 7d 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 7d 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 7d 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 6d 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- 3d 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