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Decived Customer
Decived Customer
Participant
November 23, 2024
Question

Feeling deceived by predatory cancellation fee

  • November 23, 2024
  • 2 replies
  • 1005 views

I signed up for a Trial. The welcome message stated: "After the free trial ends on August 25, 2024, you will be charged CAD $29.37 (incl. tax) monthly. Your subscription will automatically renew annually until you cancel (price subject to change)."

Note the use of 'monthly' here.

When I went to cancel they will bill for for the remained of the year, in my case another $116.96.

I feel deceived, and I have a very low opinion of the predatory billing practice. Shame on Adobe.

 

I will make an effort publicize this practice to help other prospects from making a similar naive mistake. 

 

I see the Better Business Bureau has this when I logged this experience there:

Current Alerts For This Business

Government Action: BBB reports on known government actions involving business’ marketplace conduct::
FTC vs Adobe Systems
The Federal Trade Commission is taking action against software maker Adobe and two of its executives, Maninder Sawhney and David Wadhwani, for deceiving consumers by

    2 replies

    Decived Customer
    Decived CustomerAuthor
    Participant
    November 23, 2024

    The situation is that Adobe has used the term monthly when actually it is yearly.  This is misleading and unethical. If this is an honest mistake rather than a deliberatly exploitative and predatory billing practice Adobe needs to either:
    Change the language to remove any mention of monthly in their terms,

    or
    Make the billing truely monthy rather than annually, 

    and offer an apology and rectifaction - allowing customers who misunderstood the terms due to confusing language to cancel without a pro-rated full year expense for doing so. 

      kglad
      Community Expert
      kgladCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      November 23, 2024

      adobe has, up to, three subscription options:

       

      1. annual paid annually 

      2. annual paid monthly 

      3. monthly paid monthly 

        Decived Customer
        Decived CustomerAuthor
        Participant
        November 23, 2024

        I have reported this experience on the Better Business Bureau, Trust Pilot, Reddit, and Ripoff Report.  Just getting started. 

          kglad
          Community Expert
          kgladCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          November 23, 2024

          if you understood the terms, and didn't agree, why didn't you cancel (which reverses all charges)?

          Decived Customer
          Decived CustomerAuthor
          Participant
          November 23, 2024

          I saw 'monthly fee' in the welcome message and made an assumption without
          fully reading the fine print - my bad. I also forgot to cancel in time,
          before it started to bill - my bad.

          However I am not alone in feeling deceived, in feeling this is unfair. And
          I am taking responsibility to help Adobe have less reputation harm, by
          trying to alert others of this situation, before they also may come to feel
          deceived and develop a low opinion of Adobe.

          FTC vs Adobe Systems
          The Federal Trade Commission is taking action against software maker Adobe
          and two of its executives, Maninder Sawhney and David Wadhwani, for
          deceiving consumers by hiding the early termination fee for its most
          popular subscription plan and making it difficult for consumers to cancel
          their subscriptions.

          <removed-kglad>

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