Adobe forcing customers to change subscription plans?

[Meow2212]

Hello,

I was logging into Adobe.com to update my payment details and noticed that whilst the Adobe.com accounts page directs you to the Adobe Store to manage payments, I was getting constant errors no matter what I did:

After speaking to two chat agents, I'm learning that Adobe previously outsourced my subscription to Digital River, since "Adobe Store were not available for some of the countries then digital river use to work for them to make the purchase as it is authorized by Adobe". Now since there's some relationship issue or payments issue or some issue between Adobe and Digital River, I can't update my payment details.

The chat rep then very kindly and smoothly offers to cancel my current subscription and re-subscribe me on the Adobe.com direct subscription because it will resolve my payments issues as no extra charge.

My frustration here is:

1. Why wasn't this communicated to me as a customer? Why did I have to wait till there was some issue with payments to find out from a chat rep that this was happening?
2.  When I probed to understand the context behind this, I don't get clarity beyond pre-packaged responses and an apology. I understand the rep's situation but I do also want to understand how my subscription T&C changes with this. Yet I can't get that answer out of the rep.
3.  The way this has been managed feels like I'm being forced into a new contract with Adobe, under the pretense of 'oh we're making life easier for you! Check it out you can now make payments easily since we locked you out of the other one!'

I'd like to understand:

1. Are there others experiencing this issue as well?

2. Are there any concerns I need to be aware of with cancelling my current 'defunct' subscription, and signing onto a new one with Adobe.com directly?

[kglad]

i don't recall seeing other complaints like this, so it's not a common problem.  just how you got from adobe's website to digital river would is probably not reproducible.  in fact, it's not even understandable unless the adobe website detected you were in another country when subscribing initially.  were you?

[Meow2212]

Thanks for your response. Thought you might be right about it detecting i was in another country so i just tried logging into my account on a different computer. Same issue.

• So I log into adobe.com using my adobe account and I'm able to log in.
• There's then a pop-up that says the adobe site doesn't match my location. So I select the relevant location and two things happen:
  • It opens up a new window that results in an adobe "sorry we couldn't find that page" error; and
  • In the initial page, I get taken to my adobe account page. The one that lets you manage you subscription plan, edit your profile etc.
• From here, the Adobe FAQ pages say that if you want to change your billing/payment details, you've got to click "Go to Adobe Store"
• This again results in a new window popping up with an Adobe "sorry we couldn't find that page" error

To clarify, I didn't end up on Digital River's site at any point in this journey. I just learned from the chat agents who helped check on my account that my adobe subscription was signed up through Digital River, as they were the partner vendor for my country when the adobe.com stores weren't available in my country previously.

So this then takes me back to the 2nd paragraph on my previous post - that the issue here is there's some kind of issue between Adobe and Digital River, and that's resulting in me not being able to access the relevant Adobe Store pages to change my payment details.

Up until today when I spoke with the chat agents, I've been able to do everything like a normal subscriber would be able to - access my account pages (which I still can), and access the billing page to adjust payment details (which I now can't).

What's annoying is that there doesn't seem to be any explanation nor fix beyond "just cancel your subscription, and we'll sign you up with adobe.com". 

Hope that makes a little more sense?

[kglad]

see if you can get adobe.com to correctly recognize your country:

The country associated with your adobe id must match the store you purchase from and must match the payment address. otherwise, change what's necessary:

change your country on adobe.com, https://www.adobe.com/international/selector/

change country associated with adobe id - https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/policy-pricing/change-country-associated-with-adobe-id.html

change credit card and/or billing address, https://helpx.adobe.com/manage-account/using/update-billing-information.html

change currency - https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1999694 change store - http://www.adobe.com/store_selector/storeselector.html

change adobe.com website language - https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1999693

[Meow2212]

Hey, thanks for the swift response on this, and for sharing all the links!

I gave them a go, and unfortunately, no joy. With all the links, changing the country doesn't seem to stick, nor didn't resolve my issue.

It might be that my adobe account is working but the billing portion of it is now somehow stuck in limbo. To be honest, I'm resigned that I will need to contact the chat agents and just get them to cancel my current subscription and re-subscribe directly under adobe.com. Just miffed because this is all really opaque to me as a customer, and it's come about with no communication on why this issue is cropping up.

Interestingly, this link you shared (Change the country associated with your Adobe account) talks about how if the active subscription is purchased through Digital River (which apparently mine is), I can use the "Change Region" button at the bottom of the page to associate the account with the relevant country. Though, that didn't work either.

[kglad]

what a mess.

can you change things (and the changes persist) if you use a mobile phone to connect and make the changes?

[Meow2212]

Hello,

Hmm... tried it on my phone and the cross-checked on my computer. When I change th region using the "change region" button at the bottom of the page. That seems to persist. 

It still shows me an adobe error page, but I get a pop-up that says something like "This adobe site doesn't match your location", and it shows location options which includes what I had initially selected.

This probably won't help with context, but what's interesting is that this pop-up still appears even when I've selected the correct location.

I'm getting the sense that it's trying to direct me to a version of the adobe store page that no longer exists, like this one (Adobe Store), which is quite different from when I try to sign up for a new plan.

[kglad]

with your preferred browser on your computer, clear its cache and delete all adobe.com cookies. 

then restart your computer and see if you can then sign in to adobe.com and get things set up properly.

[Meow2212]

Hello,

No luck. After logging in, and double checking my country settings, when I try to click on the "Go To Adobe Store" button in my accounts page (see image below), it's directing me to https://www.adobe.com/go/dr_account

 Which is a site that seems to go nowhere.

[Meow2212]

I think it's trying to direct me to the Adobe Store page that's managed by Digital River, given the "dr" prefix in "dr_account", but that site doesn't appear to exist anymore.

[kglad]

i see a 404 page when using your link and when using the url in your link.

[Meow2212]

Yeah that's what I'm getting too. I think we might need to accept that this isn't something that can be fixed without doing what the chat agents said - cancel my current subscription and re-subscribe so that all the payment details will flow properly through Adobe.com.

[Meow2212]

Thanks @kglad for sticking with me through this. I really appreciate the support.

[kglad]

is there any downside to canceling and resubscribing? 

i know there won't be an early cancellation fee, and i know your 1 year subscription (assuming you have an annual subscription) will restart, but unless you want to end your adobe subscription asap, those aren't deterents.

[Meow2212]

As far as the reps told me, there wouldn't be any downsides, and the upside is that everything would be consolidated under Adobe.com so I shouldn't face payment issues like this in future since there's no third party vendor involved.

The main concerns I had were:
1. They were fairly opaque about helping me understand why I'm facing this issue with payments, but were very eager to switch me over to Adobe.com.
2. They were similarly coy about explaining how the terms and conditions would change with this switchover and what it would mean for my subscription history etc.

So all this raised alarm bells for me and got me a little riled up. Which is why I thought I'd check in with the community to see if there's similiar issues happening with other users.

I probably would've been more easygoing about cancelling and resubscribing if they had explained that, hypothetically, Digital River was no longer a partner, and that my subscription wasn't properly brought over to Adobe.com, so the proper fix would be to cancel and resubscribe.

That would have helped reassure me that this wasn't a case of trying to force me to cancel and resubscribe for something that might be less than what I currently have.

[kglad]

understood.

i can say the only downside i know of, assuming you keep the same adobe id, is extending the 1 year end date of your annual subscription, and that's only a negative if you are thinking you might want to cancel that plan early and pay the penalty.

[Carmdq]

Hello. May I ask how did you sort this out? I'm facing the exact same issue: billed through Digital River (not that I chose to) for years and now that my subscription is ending Adobe is forcing me to cancel and re-subscribe with them saying that now all countries have to use Adobe directly: 

Representatives on chat refuse to give a straight answer on why they want customers to undergo this process. They just repeat the same thing over and over. When asked if Adobe still works with Digital River, they've ended the chat. Not sure why the need to be so shady about this. Only makes customers suspicious.

[kglad]

to continue your chat, https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/policy-pricing/customer-support-portal.html

[Meow2212]

Hi, 
Sorry to hear you encountered the same issues I did. I basically got the same spiel as you, and when I tried to press for more explanation and details on how this shift would affect my subscription, I got vague answers and the same push to get me onto the adobe.com subscription.

I eventually gave up, and relented to them moving me over to adobe.com for the subscription, but double confirmed that my subscription fee wouldn't change in the meantime.

Agree with you that it feels very shady and it's exactly what got me riled up in the first place. If they were more forthcoming and transparent about things then I wouldn't have made this intial post.

Anyway, hope you manage to find some resolution with them. Seems like @marknicholas88 was able to find a solve, so it might be worth DM-ing them to see if they found a better way around this.

[marknicholas88]

Has this solution ever worked for anything. I know it's commonly recommended but in all the years I have worked on computers it has never worked for me. 

[kglad]

which solution?

[marknicholas88]

Clearing the cache etc.

[kglad]

with adobe website problems, deleting adobe.com cookies generally works better

[SSK1991]

Now facing the same issue as you. 

[kglad]

@SSK1991 

what problem is that?