Adobe Exit fee scam. The easy way to deal with it.

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
September 8, 2020
3 replies
8529 views

Hi everyone,

I've seen a lot of messages about the scams adobe pulls off with the exit fees. Just wanted to share my brief experience with that, in case it may help anyone.

In short, I got the InDesign free trial, did not realise that I'll start getting charged at the end of the trial, and didn't notice the charges for a few months. Fair enough, I could have been more carefull, no biggie. I go on their website to cancel the subscription to which I didn't give any explicit consent anyway, only to be hit by a warning that there's an early exit fee.

However, a quick live chat solved the issue. I made it clear that if I see any such charge on my card I will report it as fraud and take it to the authorities. Within 2 minutes the operator canceled the damn thing for free.

Point is, they know what they are doing is illegal (or at least in most countries; I am currently in the UK), so if you stand your ground and threat immediate with legal action, you'll save yourself a lot of frustration.

The main takeaway here is, if you can, avoid adobe like the plague.

kaleichav62920324

Participant

Thanks - I am feeling soooo scammed by Adobe, I'll give that a go - they just keep saying I'll have to pay fees and then try to offer me deals to sign up again for another year!

M

Manan Joshi

Community Expert

Hi There,

I understand what you feel and can empathize, but I would also like to add some points to what you said

There is no cheating, the terms of conditions clearly specify the charges, cancellation, and refund policy. Even you did accept the importance of being a little more careful in reading these. This is the same for every other service, not just Adobe. For the uninitiated read the following link before you sign up
https://helpx.adobe.com/manage-account/using/creative-cloud-subscription-terms.html
Now I would not pretend to say that I know about the legal implications of the policy Adobe has around refunds. But if you look through this forum then you will find that lots of refunds are in fact issued for aggrieved customers who present their problems to the support executives properly. I am not suggesting that all will be refunded, the only point I am trying to make is that the support executives do provide these relaxations irrespective of the country of jurisdiction and other things.

Based on the points I present anyone can make a fair judgment on how things are and make an informed decision.

-Manan

A

Andrei98C6Author

Participant

Hi,

Appreciated the replies from both of you, however I'd like to clarify that I'm not complaining about the trial continuing into a subscription. While immoral and abusive of customer trust (as the purpose is obviously taking advantage of those who forget about it, such as myself), at the end of the day this practice is industry standard, and adobe is hardly the only company employing it.

Also, I'm not chasing any refund for the ammounts I have been charged as a result of adobe's anti-consumer practices. It's really not worth the effort.

However LinSims, can you please clarify where is the exit fee so "clearly"mentioned, as you stated? Because that "Cancel before 29 Sep to get a full refund and avoid a fee" very much sounds like the 'fee' refers to the first month's charge, I would never interpret that as refering to an "exit fee". The page linked under "Learn more" is equally ambiguous. And as sure as hell, I don't see anything, anywhere about a 50% of a full year's charge.

Manan Joshi the link you posted does indeed make it clear, however it is not present in the free trial signup flow. Or if it is, it's hidden somewhere, as I definitelly didn't stumble upon it, and I even tried just now to go through the first steps of that flow, just to look for it.

You know where I did find a mention of that 50% fee just now, though? In the automated email I received from adobe when signing up for the free trial, somewhere at the bottom, in a minuscule font, in a dark gray colour, on a slightly darker gray background. As "clearly" as it gets, no? This is precisely why in most countries, this stuff just does not fly, legally speaking.

And speaking of legality, while it will obviously differ from country to country, here are some excerpts from https://www.gov.uk/

"Don’t just accept the business can keep your deposit and advance payments or ask you to pay a cancellation charge if you cancel the contract. The business can only do this if the contract term is fair. A cancellation charge is not fair just because it’s in the contract you signed – it needs to be reasonable."

"If you cancel the contract, the business is generally only entitled to keep or receive an amount sufficient to cover their actual losses that directly result from your cancellation (eg costs already incurred or loss of profit).

Businesses must take reasonable steps to reduce their losses (eg by re-selling the goods or services). Cancellation charges must be a genuine estimate of the business’ direct loss."

Anyway, my post was not aimed at adobe community managers, nor employees. It was aimed at those users who may not be aware of their legal rights, as adobe is clearly doing its best to obscure them.

And indeed Manan Joshi anyone can make a fair judgement on how things are, and they are doing just that: https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.adobe.com

Or even simpler, just search for the term "scam" on these forums, you'll find a lot of people who have been making "fair judgements on how things are".

M

Manan Joshi

Community Expert

Andrei,

I never intended to fault you, also neither I nor LinSims are Adobe employees we too are users just like you. The only thing I tried to do is present some other facts as well. You are absolutely correct that there are lots of people who complain about such issues on a daily basis. What I meant is however unclear/obscure the terms might look, we as users overlook them at our own peril. Also, in my opinion, Adobe is aware of these issues and that is why I think such refunds are issued on a case by case basis. I agree lots of improvements are needed on these fronts and also hope that the people with power to make this happen would be working on them.

-Manan

LinSims

Community Expert

You had to acknowledge that you had read and agreed to the subscription terms when you signed up for the trial.

The subscription terms are linked to on the page where you provide the billing information required before you can even begin the trial. The subscription terms clearly state that the subscription is started automatically unless you cancel it within a specified period of time. They also state that there is a cancellation fee if you cancel the subscription before it ends. They also state that the subscription automatically rolls over at the end of each contract year.

Adobe is hardly perpetrating a scam when they tell you, up front, that this is what will happen. More than likely the CSR canceled things without fee because they were tired of arguing with yet another person who couldn't be bothered to inform themselves of the subscription terms before clicking through everything in their hurry.