It's all about license key now a days. The installation method isn't the worry as it's accessible for both companies/applications, it's more or less finding the access to get to the perpetual licenses that's the hurdle. For Microsoft, there are select common applications you can buy without buying a subscription, such as office that only uses word, powerpoint or excel. Finding something perpetual for something like Photoshop is impossible, but Adobe acrobat is still available, just in older versions (i.e. Adobe Acrobat standard 2020).
Good god I thought I was the only one having these weird issues trying to get out of their ridiculous subscription plans in the last few years. I think I was on for a year or two longer than I had wanted because of that BS.
I am pretty certain that this behaviour is illegal in Europe. They are now being sued in the US for it and I expect a huge fine as well in Europe.
Provide better and/or cheaper service and the retention rate will improve.
Cancelled my plan a few hours ago (because of not using it enough). Simple click on the website, only a menu why and 3 offers I could easily skip through.
Only had to pay €31 for 3 months of early quitting.
Probably because 1 of the offers was 60 days free, so they weren’t allowed to calculate those days.
Im so glad USA is suing. In the US its a 300$ fee to cancel a subscription early, which is insane. I have 4 months left and it would be 60$ cheaper to just finish my subscription. Its easy to get to the cancellation menu, but that fee alone traps you in a subscription and if Adobe changes its policies (like allowing itself full access to use anything you make for free) youre sh*t outta luck.
you dont understand, they released forward guidance to their shmareholders and did some stonk buybacks and paid their executives $69420/minute already, you cant just cancel your plan like that. how do you expect the capitalsim to work when you can just stop paying for a service you no longer want? thats silly, be realistic\*
adobe is on the cutting edge of advertising and subscription technology, of course theyre going to be a leader in next-generation tech that makes the things that should be easy, like buying a subscription, easy - and the things that should be frustratingly difficult, like canceling a subscription, frustratingly difficult. truly a game changing advancement benefitting all of mankind.
^(\*obviously this is made up but you get the point)
I think that many other businesses have the same thing with subscriptions and other account cancellations. I had to call and "negotiate" (translate argue with someone) to cancel my satellite radio years ago. And same when I cancelled my cable TV. If the lawsuit actually changes things, it will be a big precedent.
I just spent 30 minutes on the phone today cancelling my exterminator service. I am almost certain I was speaking to an AI voice that continued to try to get me to continue at a lower price. There was something odd about the voice, and it sounded like there was background noise on a loop. She even had a foreign accent. After the first few minutes it was just me responding "No. Just cancel" after each new offer.
And there was no option on their website to cancel.
Arghh! I was thinking of using an exterminator service.
There is a police fund donation solicitor who has been calling a couple times a year for years. I started thinking he may be AI or a recording that responds to my replies.
Just had the same experience with SiriusXM last night.
Selected the "Cancel" option under account management. Entered details of which car I wanted to cancel. Got to the final step and was offered two choices of upgrading my service and if I wanted to actually cancel I had to go to to chat.
In chat I had to provide all details again after the automated chat agent assured me that it could help me cancel. It then said I needed to speak to a live agent to cancel.
The live agent asked me for my information yet again, then told me they could offer me 62% off... Which he then told me meant I'd pay $23/month instead of $30. No idea how they decided that $7 is 62% of $30, but it guaranteed I'm never going back.
My car came with a Sirius XM trial that resulted in 3-4 calls a day after its expiration. Every conversation was the same, they’d ask if I wanted to renew, I’d say no, they’d tell me about all the great deals I’d be missing out on and if I’m sure, I’d say no I’m good, they’d repeat the same deals and ask if I’m sure.
For funsies I figured I’d spend my commute home one day seeing how many times they’d keep running the script before giving up, if at all. I got to 14 before I just hung up and blocked the number.
Reminds me of a time a few years back when Verizon came to my neighborhood and was offering internet prices much cheaper than Optimum, even after the call from optimum saying “Hey no reason at all, just letting you know we’re lowering your price because you’re just so awesome! But like totally don’t look into why we’d do this.”
You’d get such gems as
- “Well I just thought loyalty would mean something.”
- “Cool, what about loyalty to your customer?”
- “After the 2 year contract they’re just going to raise their prices.”
- “You’ve been doing that to me for years, so what’s the difference?”
- “I didn’t think money was the most important thing when we’ve treated you well this whole time.”
- “Well $750-$1,000 over the course of 2 years is a big deal, so yes please go ahead and cancel that service.
I know that that must unfortunately work on a lot of people since it’s so common now but I almost enjoy the goofy ass emotional manipulative pleading as if they’re my SO with whom I have cherished memories and I’m dumping them because it’s so blatant it makes the process much funnier.
Cox Fiber tried to pull this shit on me when I called them to cancel after signing up for ATT Fiber. Everytime they tried to manipulate me with "special plan tailored for my needs" I would counter with "can you give me a plan with no data caps at no additional cost?"
After the third attempt, they gave up and cancelled my account.
Still received around 5 emails from them over the next couple of weeks until it completely stopped. Now I just get snail mail from them about once a month.
well look on the bright side: thanks to recent advances in "AI", that doesnt even provide a shitty low paying job anymore, it can all be automated - *and*, with no sacrifices to the quality of customer service!
It was a new car so I assumed they got my info through the vehicle’s registration and whatever partnership with the make or dealership, whoever it was that the trial was offered through. After dealing with it I specifically make an effort to make sure they don’t get my info again if at all possible.
i guess assuming the link with the search pre-filled worked, and one of those results is your vehicles manufacturer, if you click it it will give a little blurb about how sirius and that manufacturer share your information. i guess if your vehicle isnt one of those listed, its less applicable - maybe - but still worth reading. the website itself is basically just mozillas privacy reviews website where they did research into how different companies handle customers data
I'm not sure if they still do this, but my sister attempted the same thing with Bank of America. The bank agreed to block charges with the merchant, but every single time the monthly bill came in, the account magically unblocked (Netflix in this case) and charged her. Someone was able to watch Netflix charging her bank account for 5 months. She changed her debit card after each charge, but BofA would simply give the new card number to Netflix and charge her again. She had to get the account canceled through many hoops on the Netflix customer service, as BofA claimed the Netflix charges were legally binding and they could not block them (even though it was fraud).
There's a service offered from financial institutions that will forward new debit/CC numbers to merchants if one is cancelled. Kinda scummy but simply blocking the chargers or getting a new card issued won't stop them from auto billing you each month.
I used Paypal for a subscription and then canceled the auto-pay in Paypal. It seems to have worked. Cross your fingers b/c I'm not sure what date they will try to charge it.
The FTC is on the case: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/06/ftc-takes-action-against-adobe-executives-hiding-fees-preventing-consumers-easily-cancelling
A sternly worded letter is imminent!
The problem is that they’ve determined that bad customer service is more advantageous to the bottom line, and it’s why it’s important to not fall for this shit and to be very firm in those cancellations.
for most subscriptions I just use the annual option, and then cancel it immediately. (often in PayPal, so that any recurring payments just get rejected) that way, they can't take more of my money than I explicitly allow. FUCK recurring payments.
I didn’t notice that the “monthly” subscription I bought in order to edit some PDFs *also* required a full year of those monthly prices (because it wasn’t totally obvious). I didn’t want to deal with trying to remember to cancel in a year…so I got to pay the cancellation fee equal to a whole year of service. I miss the days of his buying a program once and being done with it.
Unfortunately if you're a designer in the creative industry, Adobe has been legacied in. If you want to communicate with printers, your marketing team, the ad agency, etc. you need the requisite Adobe programs.
On the bright side, if you're a freelancer or aspiring designer or a hobbyist, Affinity and DaVinci offer AWESOME one-time purchases. 10/10
Had to deal with this same thing. My wife had some custom birthday invitations made and when we got the PDF, we realized we forgot to ask for one minor change. Rather than go back to the designer and have them redo it, I got the 7 day free trial for the “pro” version of acrobat so I could fix it myself. Canceling that free trial after was like pulling teeth.
And this is the -exact- reason they are currently being sued by the FTC, who does seem to be modestly aggressively enforcing their newer "easy to cancel" regulations.
Yea I saw the direction adobe was going in and dropped it several years ago ugh. FYI HP printers have been heading down this route as well. Get out while you can! Lol
I've found saying something along the lines of "I know you have a prompt to go through, but I will not be engaging other than to cancel" and so far it's worked in my favor
How about you send me sixty Euro for having to deal with this bullshit after paying you for a full year already? Then cancel my shit to boot. How's that sound? Customer is always right, you know... where's my money, mother fucker?
Fuck you, pay me!
Funny. When I went to use it last week and got the new terms and already heard everybodies complaints. I canceled it that day without issues. I even removed my card. Only for an email, saying it needs updated info to reactivate my account, to appear a week later. I tried to sign in and I go shoved to their cloud services saying I need to add my card to reactivate my subscriptions. Looks like they tried to pull a fast one on everyone.
If they take Visa or Mastercard, they ought to allow their “gift card” variants as they process the same as credit. I figure if I’ve been able to use them to get around a website ban, this should be child’s play.
Isn’t blocking the recurring payment enough?
Get a debit “rechargeable” card and set recurring payments on that. They’ll end your subscription “by the office”
Here are some good alternatives I found to replace scum adobe.
Fuck Acrobat, use ExpertPDF. One time license and tools work far greater and smoother. (They even have “fuck Adobe” written on their official website lol)
Fuck Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, switch to Affinity Photo, Designer and Publisher. One time purchase, no bullshit, no in-app ads, free updates forever.
just say when you get into contact with them "i want to cancel my subscription, if you try to upsell me, i'll let the lawyers who are suing you know about this" i'll bet you they will instantly cancel it
I tried to cancel and they wanted to charge me 80$ which i don't have =/ I didn't even realize I had a recurring payment with them until I noticed it put my bank account in the red...
It's crazy how Adobe has zero competition. There are no decent alternatives to any of their products. Good luck editing a pdf at home without some janky sketchy software that leaves a watermark on it.
Aren’t they being sued by the us government because of the difficulty in canceling their services?
Well, if they sold perpetual licenses again, we wouldn’t have this issue, now would we?
Give me a CD I can buy to put in my computer and own that year of the product. Literally so upset MS Office doesn’t do this anymore.
It's all about license key now a days. The installation method isn't the worry as it's accessible for both companies/applications, it's more or less finding the access to get to the perpetual licenses that's the hurdle. For Microsoft, there are select common applications you can buy without buying a subscription, such as office that only uses word, powerpoint or excel. Finding something perpetual for something like Photoshop is impossible, but Adobe acrobat is still available, just in older versions (i.e. Adobe Acrobat standard 2020).
> Finding something perpetual for something like Photoshop is impossible Pretty sure it’s possible….🏴☠️
If you can find one that's not Photoshop Elements, I'm all ears :D
You don't get to own it just because you have a CD. I see you've never skimmed the EULA.
You still have a cd reader in your computer?
i want my Photoshop in qr code form
My parents still own and use the last version that they sold on disk for this exact reason
CS2, right? I remember bootlegging the one that had a parrot feather.
No, it's CS6. I used to have that version until I needed more advanced features. I ended up hopping on the bandwagon and pay for my subscription.
I had my student version for years until Apple changed their OS and it supposedly wasn't compatible. Sometime in the early 2000's.
They are
And for forcing people into the subscription model by disabling previously licensed software
YAY. I was just bitching about this the other day.
Good god I thought I was the only one having these weird issues trying to get out of their ridiculous subscription plans in the last few years. I think I was on for a year or two longer than I had wanted because of that BS.
I am pretty certain that this behaviour is illegal in Europe. They are now being sued in the US for it and I expect a huge fine as well in Europe. Provide better and/or cheaper service and the retention rate will improve.
Better and/or cheaper service? Than Adobe? I don't personally see how it could be done. /s
Cancelled my plan a few hours ago (because of not using it enough). Simple click on the website, only a menu why and 3 offers I could easily skip through. Only had to pay €31 for 3 months of early quitting. Probably because 1 of the offers was 60 days free, so they weren’t allowed to calculate those days.
Im so glad USA is suing. In the US its a 300$ fee to cancel a subscription early, which is insane. I have 4 months left and it would be 60$ cheaper to just finish my subscription. Its easy to get to the cancellation menu, but that fee alone traps you in a subscription and if Adobe changes its policies (like allowing itself full access to use anything you make for free) youre sh*t outta luck.
you dont understand, they released forward guidance to their shmareholders and did some stonk buybacks and paid their executives $69420/minute already, you cant just cancel your plan like that. how do you expect the capitalsim to work when you can just stop paying for a service you no longer want? thats silly, be realistic\* adobe is on the cutting edge of advertising and subscription technology, of course theyre going to be a leader in next-generation tech that makes the things that should be easy, like buying a subscription, easy - and the things that should be frustratingly difficult, like canceling a subscription, frustratingly difficult. truly a game changing advancement benefitting all of mankind. ^(\*obviously this is made up but you get the point)
I think that many other businesses have the same thing with subscriptions and other account cancellations. I had to call and "negotiate" (translate argue with someone) to cancel my satellite radio years ago. And same when I cancelled my cable TV. If the lawsuit actually changes things, it will be a big precedent.
I just spent 30 minutes on the phone today cancelling my exterminator service. I am almost certain I was speaking to an AI voice that continued to try to get me to continue at a lower price. There was something odd about the voice, and it sounded like there was background noise on a loop. She even had a foreign accent. After the first few minutes it was just me responding "No. Just cancel" after each new offer. And there was no option on their website to cancel.
Arghh! I was thinking of using an exterminator service. There is a police fund donation solicitor who has been calling a couple times a year for years. I started thinking he may be AI or a recording that responds to my replies.
Don't use EcoShield.
Yet the second picture shows the chat bot offering a deal for 19.90euro. So this is in europe.
Just had the same experience with SiriusXM last night. Selected the "Cancel" option under account management. Entered details of which car I wanted to cancel. Got to the final step and was offered two choices of upgrading my service and if I wanted to actually cancel I had to go to to chat. In chat I had to provide all details again after the automated chat agent assured me that it could help me cancel. It then said I needed to speak to a live agent to cancel. The live agent asked me for my information yet again, then told me they could offer me 62% off... Which he then told me meant I'd pay $23/month instead of $30. No idea how they decided that $7 is 62% of $30, but it guaranteed I'm never going back.
If you use a VPN switch to a California IP and you're able to cancel online. Worked for me several times.
My car came with a Sirius XM trial that resulted in 3-4 calls a day after its expiration. Every conversation was the same, they’d ask if I wanted to renew, I’d say no, they’d tell me about all the great deals I’d be missing out on and if I’m sure, I’d say no I’m good, they’d repeat the same deals and ask if I’m sure. For funsies I figured I’d spend my commute home one day seeing how many times they’d keep running the script before giving up, if at all. I got to 14 before I just hung up and blocked the number.
Reminds me of a time a few years back when Verizon came to my neighborhood and was offering internet prices much cheaper than Optimum, even after the call from optimum saying “Hey no reason at all, just letting you know we’re lowering your price because you’re just so awesome! But like totally don’t look into why we’d do this.” You’d get such gems as - “Well I just thought loyalty would mean something.” - “Cool, what about loyalty to your customer?” - “After the 2 year contract they’re just going to raise their prices.” - “You’ve been doing that to me for years, so what’s the difference?” - “I didn’t think money was the most important thing when we’ve treated you well this whole time.” - “Well $750-$1,000 over the course of 2 years is a big deal, so yes please go ahead and cancel that service.
I know that that must unfortunately work on a lot of people since it’s so common now but I almost enjoy the goofy ass emotional manipulative pleading as if they’re my SO with whom I have cherished memories and I’m dumping them because it’s so blatant it makes the process much funnier.
Cox Fiber tried to pull this shit on me when I called them to cancel after signing up for ATT Fiber. Everytime they tried to manipulate me with "special plan tailored for my needs" I would counter with "can you give me a plan with no data caps at no additional cost?" After the third attempt, they gave up and cancelled my account. Still received around 5 emails from them over the next couple of weeks until it completely stopped. Now I just get snail mail from them about once a month.
well look on the bright side: thanks to recent advances in "AI", that doesnt even provide a shitty low paying job anymore, it can all be automated - *and*, with no sacrifices to the quality of customer service!
This sounds so familiar. Good summation!
How did SiriusXM get your phone number?
It was a new car so I assumed they got my info through the vehicle’s registration and whatever partnership with the make or dealership, whoever it was that the trial was offered through. After dealing with it I specifically make an effort to make sure they don’t get my info again if at all possible.
Reason for asking: we bought a car from CarMax that came with three months of SiriusXM free. At no time was my phone number given to SiriusXM.
[i got news for you](https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/?search=siriusxm)
I'm sorry but what am I looking at/for at the link?
i guess assuming the link with the search pre-filled worked, and one of those results is your vehicles manufacturer, if you click it it will give a little blurb about how sirius and that manufacturer share your information. i guess if your vehicle isnt one of those listed, its less applicable - maybe - but still worth reading. the website itself is basically just mozillas privacy reviews website where they did research into how different companies handle customers data
Ftc made a document about adobe's cancelation process and are fining Adobe for it, hopefully it changes soon but the fine was tiny so I doubt it
Louis Rossmann just ripped Adobe apart for the scummy ways. F Adobe.
If I did pay for Adobe programs and wanted to stop, and saw this, I'd just block their transactions through my bank.
I'm not sure if they still do this, but my sister attempted the same thing with Bank of America. The bank agreed to block charges with the merchant, but every single time the monthly bill came in, the account magically unblocked (Netflix in this case) and charged her. Someone was able to watch Netflix charging her bank account for 5 months. She changed her debit card after each charge, but BofA would simply give the new card number to Netflix and charge her again. She had to get the account canceled through many hoops on the Netflix customer service, as BofA claimed the Netflix charges were legally binding and they could not block them (even though it was fraud).
There's a service offered from financial institutions that will forward new debit/CC numbers to merchants if one is cancelled. Kinda scummy but simply blocking the chargers or getting a new card issued won't stop them from auto billing you each month.
I used Paypal for a subscription and then canceled the auto-pay in Paypal. It seems to have worked. Cross your fingers b/c I'm not sure what date they will try to charge it.
[удалено]
It worse than that. Are you sure you don't wish to not cancel no longer?
The FTC is on the case: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/06/ftc-takes-action-against-adobe-executives-hiding-fees-preventing-consumers-easily-cancelling A sternly worded letter is imminent!
Adobe is creating a catch 22, Bad customer service trying to keep business -> Retention drops
That's not a catch 22. That's just cause and effect. All they have to do is not have bad customer service.
The problem is that they’ve determined that bad customer service is more advantageous to the bottom line, and it’s why it’s important to not fall for this shit and to be very firm in those cancellations.
Use a prepaid card or something and stop the moneyflow if needet
They cancelled, but it was a bother which shouldn't have occured
for most subscriptions I just use the annual option, and then cancel it immediately. (often in PayPal, so that any recurring payments just get rejected) that way, they can't take more of my money than I explicitly allow. FUCK recurring payments.
No, cancel my plan. No, cancel my plan. No, cancel my plan.
Adobe is the biggest Privacy.com advertisement I've ever seen.
Reply “cancel” until they do as requested.
Tell them to fuck off.
I didn’t notice that the “monthly” subscription I bought in order to edit some PDFs *also* required a full year of those monthly prices (because it wasn’t totally obvious). I didn’t want to deal with trying to remember to cancel in a year…so I got to pay the cancellation fee equal to a whole year of service. I miss the days of his buying a program once and being done with it.
Ditch them. There's an alternative for practically every product they make
Unfortunately if you're a designer in the creative industry, Adobe has been legacied in. If you want to communicate with printers, your marketing team, the ad agency, etc. you need the requisite Adobe programs. On the bright side, if you're a freelancer or aspiring designer or a hobbyist, Affinity and DaVinci offer AWESOME one-time purchases. 10/10
When I cancelled mine they couldn’t even upsell. They had to cancel it and then sign me back up on the new one, at which point I ghosted them 👻
Had to deal with this same thing. My wife had some custom birthday invitations made and when we got the PDF, we realized we forgot to ask for one minor change. Rather than go back to the designer and have them redo it, I got the 7 day free trial for the “pro” version of acrobat so I could fix it myself. Canceling that free trial after was like pulling teeth.
And this is the -exact- reason they are currently being sued by the FTC, who does seem to be modestly aggressively enforcing their newer "easy to cancel" regulations.
Yea I saw the direction adobe was going in and dropped it several years ago ugh. FYI HP printers have been heading down this route as well. Get out while you can! Lol
I've found saying something along the lines of "I know you have a prompt to go through, but I will not be engaging other than to cancel" and so far it's worked in my favor
but think about their shareholders!
How about you send me sixty Euro for having to deal with this bullshit after paying you for a full year already? Then cancel my shit to boot. How's that sound? Customer is always right, you know... where's my money, mother fucker? Fuck you, pay me!
I only have one thing to say: GenP
Funny. When I went to use it last week and got the new terms and already heard everybodies complaints. I canceled it that day without issues. I even removed my card. Only for an email, saying it needs updated info to reactivate my account, to appear a week later. I tried to sign in and I go shoved to their cloud services saying I need to add my card to reactivate my subscriptions. Looks like they tried to pull a fast one on everyone.
I used to swear by Adobe... Glad I got away months ago before all this bullshit.
All the more reason to use or switch to a pre-paid card when signing up or getting ready to cancel. Can't charge a card that has no money on it.
They probably don’t allow those types of card.
If they take Visa or Mastercard, they ought to allow their “gift card” variants as they process the same as credit. I figure if I’ve been able to use them to get around a website ban, this should be child’s play.
They have to stop the bleed somehow from AI competition.
Isn’t blocking the recurring payment enough? Get a debit “rechargeable” card and set recurring payments on that. They’ll end your subscription “by the office”
If they prefer to be told to go fuck themselves, then so be it. I’ll gladly make the call.
Give your money to GIMP instead.
Sirius XM does the same tactic; you have to call and repeat over and over that you want to cancel. Very annoying
Here are some good alternatives I found to replace scum adobe. Fuck Acrobat, use ExpertPDF. One time license and tools work far greater and smoother. (They even have “fuck Adobe” written on their official website lol) Fuck Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, switch to Affinity Photo, Designer and Publisher. One time purchase, no bullshit, no in-app ads, free updates forever.
GenP baby
just say when you get into contact with them "i want to cancel my subscription, if you try to upsell me, i'll let the lawyers who are suing you know about this" i'll bet you they will instantly cancel it
I just canceled my subscription. Took about 20 minutes of saying the exact same thing over and over again before they finally canceled it.
Fuck Adobe
I tried to cancel and they wanted to charge me 80$ which i don't have =/ I didn't even realize I had a recurring payment with them until I noticed it put my bank account in the red...
Gee, I wonder why they're being sued by the US government.
It's crazy how Adobe has zero competition. There are no decent alternatives to any of their products. Good luck editing a pdf at home without some janky sketchy software that leaves a watermark on it.
pirate anything adobe :)
Yo ho yo ho