I had been paying monthly for 13 years straight and they still demanded a cancellation fee because it turned out I was on an annual commitment (which by the way they hiked the price of by 50% with a month’s notice and by the time you notice the larger payment go out you are in a whole new 12 months).
Ok so you were on an annual plan to save money and when you cancelled you had to pay an exit fee to account for the annual discount. Seems reasonable to me.
They gave you a months notice of the price increase and you didn't cancel until after it went into effect?
An annual plan shouldn't require a termination fee. If I purchase an Annual Subscription, I should be able to cancel it whenever, with no fee whilst retaining the benefits for my subscription, as I paid for a whole year up front anyways....
Adobe software being a subscription service is nonsense too, but thats for another discussion.
Yes, and if you get an annual plan from adobe and pay up front there is no fee for cancelling. The fee is if you get an annual plan with a monthly payment and cancel early.
I remember when it was like $600 for photoshop for a single version(like 25 years ago so what would that be today?). The subscription pricing is a steal.
If the subscription pricing was a "steal" and the perpetual licensing was genuinely more expensive and worse, they'd still offer the perpetual licensing.
Instead they killed it, they clearly do not want to cannibalize their subscription offing. It clearly makes them more money.
Your first point is valid, I was misunderstanding the yearly subscription pricing, they offer an upfront payment as well as a monthly (but with year commitment).
I believe still however, if you pay for a year, cancel, you still get access cut off. Which is absurd.
It’s perfectly normal to have a fee for breaking a lease. And that’s what an annual subscription paid monthly is anyway. It’s a commitment for an extended period of time.
If you could just stop paying and retain the discounted rate, what is an annual subscription vs a monthly one?
Because it is not obviously theft. If you are getting a discount for making a year-long commitment, and then cancel, breaking that commitment, isn't a cancelation fee appropriate?
Appreciate the suggestion but I'm terrible at editing so I just stick with PS because the cost for a month or two when I need it isn't much and it's really easy to find videos walking through exactly what I need to do. Even a single hour spent trying to translate a tutorial would more than wipe out the savings.
No, the complaint with Adobe is that if you cancel, they terminate access immediately rather than at the end of the billing period. There is no explanation for this other than a predatory one; they’re betting you’ll forget to cancel by the time your bill comes around. The immediate termination is effectively depriving you of the next N months of access for which you already paid.
This isn't true though. Again like with the annual plan people are confusing things. I just looked it up and checked a few reddit posts to confirm and heres what's happening.
If you cancel in the first 14 days they terminate immediately and refund you. After the 14 days the subscription is cancelled and you keep access until the point you paid for. If you signed up for an annual contract you have a cancel fee of 50% of the remaining agreed amount.
Your deceptive design link is literally outlining the plan discussed in the rest of this thread.
The first one in your deceptive design was:
Adobe: Unclear yearly subscription terms and cancellation fees
"Apparently monthly subscriptions, but you are signed up for a year. Cancelling early results in a 50% of remaining months subscriptions being applied as a cancellation charge."
Then you click through to look at it and the button the user selects says
Annual, Paid Monthly
Fee applies if you cancel after 14 days
With an information popup.
Scrolling through the rest all of it is them just selecting this option without reading the details then being upset when the Annual plan is an annual plan.
I have no clue why they decided to settle that lawsuit since they still have the same plan. I'm not a lawyer.
You are describing the current state of Adobe subscription. If you check out the post linked on the deceptive.design page [1], one of the replies states [2]:
after the original thread a year or so ago, team made a clearer way to show pricing options to give ppl/teams who buy an annual sub a discount w/o paying it all up front
So the clear language is new. And that doesn't touch on the losing access during the current billing period either.
> I have no clue why they decided to settle that lawsuit
Because they have changed their subscription page as part of the settlement. All the posters telling you how Adobe ripped them off are describing Adobe from before the settlement.
>No, the complaint with Adobe is that if you cancel, they terminate access immediately rather than at the end of the billing period. There is no explanation for this other than a predatory one
This is exactly what Shutterstock does. What's maddening is that you can be getting a monthly charge, but are locked into a year contract. If you cancel, they'll continue to charge monthly but without being able to use the service. It's absurd.
I hope freelancer.com will be the next one. I canceled and renewed my credit card because of them. Even though I deleted my account, they continued to withdraw money.
Canceling a card isn't the same thing as canceling a subscription. Most businesses will have you still pay via a different payment method to resolve your debt.
They'll invoice you but don't actually pay. They aren't going to take you to court over a $50/month subscription; the easier route for them is to just disable your account, which is what you wanted anyway.
Never give them your actual residential address (they don't need to know it), birth day, or SSN, or be tricked into giving them such. If they ask on any customer service chat or phone, the answer is they don't need to know it.
Without these things they can't exactly put it on your credit report, either. They may send it to collectors, but don't talk to them. Let them cry. They still won't serve you a court summons over $50.
Keep businesses in check from this money-grabbing behavior. Any kind of subscription should be easily cancellable.
They let you sign up for an annual discount but still pay monthly. The cancelation fee is if you try to end the annual commitment early. If you just sign up monthly(seriously always do this when you see these offers) there is no cancellation fee.
Daylight robbery.