Student Plan - unfair cancellation fee

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
January 20, 2021
3 replies
442 views

I'm writing on behalf of my students. As a media studies teacher in the UK, I advised them to purchase the student creative cloud plan to be able to work at home while self-isolating. Many of them did this and now no longer need it. In these circumstances when we as teachers are desperately trying to help our exam students succeed can't there be some way of allowing these 16-year olds to cancel without a termination fee. £70 is out of reach for many of them. I also can't believe that student accounts are only available as an annual subscription when most only need it for short-term projects.

What can Adobe do to help me help my students? We even have a licence in school that we can't use at the moment so Adobe is still making money!

Thank you for considering this. I look forward to hearing back.

Account management

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LinSims

Community Expert

Adobe does have special programs to support education (teachers and students) during the COVID-19 shutdowns. These programs have to be set up through the school, but if your school has a license then they should be able to do this: https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/tips/learn-and-teach-remotely.html

Specific information on the program can be found here:

https://helpx.adobe.com/enterprise/kb/covid-19-education-labs.html

Since you advised your students to subscribe on an individual basis, I suggest you now tell them to contact Adobe customer support directly and explain their individual situation. There's nothing we can do for them, as help of this nature requires an Adobe employee. However, Adobe has been known to waive subscription fees or even cancellation fees if the pandemic has affected your financial situation. This is not an official policy and seems to be handled on an individual basis. There is no guarantee that your fees will be waived. Your students will have to talk to customer care directly and work something out with them.

Click the following to contact Adobe customer support staff for help:

https://helpx.adobe.com/contact/support.html

You must be signed in with your Adobe ID and allow cookies in your web browser for this to work. Disable any ad, pop-up, or script blockers.

This is the link to the US website. If you are not in the US, the site should redirect to the page appropriate to the region associated with your ID.

Click the chat icon at the bottom right of the page to open a chat session. Typing AGENT into the chat window should connect you directly to a CSR rather than the AI.

If the CSR refers you to the forums, insist on speaking with a supervisor and keep moving up the chain until you get someone who knows what they are talking about.

You can also search this page for a regionally appropriate phone number for customer support.

https://helpx.adobe.com/contact/phone.html.

Be aware that because of the pandemic, wait times are far longer than usual due to reduced staff and higher demand. Please be patient with the people to whom you speak. Like you, they are feeling a great deal of stress. A little patience and understanding will go a long way to helping you in your particular situation.

John T Smith

Community Expert

>thought they could cancel it after a couple of months

When you 'click to agree' to the subscription terms while buying a subscription, that means that you really do need to read BEFORE you buy a subscription... https://www.adobe.com/legal/subscription-terms.html

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So you actually advised your students to sign up for an annual contract? Did you remind them of the terms and obligations?

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Sian5E7BAuthor

Participant

I did not realise that it was an annual contract, otherwise I wouldn’t have advised them to do anything! I looked into it as best I could at the time and saw that it was a monthly fee and thought they could cancel it after a couple of months. There is nowhere on the page that explicitly says that there is a cancellation fee for ending it early- indeed it says simply ‘You can cancel your subscription at any time...’. You have to navigate to a separate page to find out that this fee exists, where it is listed right down near to the end after all of the monthly options which is what I thought it was.

I admit I missed this as I misinterpreted the deal but I still feel like in these pressured circumstances for teachers, having to switch in and out of school at very short notice I was doing the best for my students- I couldn’t at the time see another option. I am not a specialist in this technology and am just trying to do something to mitigate the impact on my students.

One of them has been offered three free months. Even this as a blanket offer to them all would be something. But could it be extended to more given the school pays for a licence anyway?

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I would recommend great caution before advising anyone to accept the "three free months" that may be offered. After the 3 months, the contract is reset to a fresh year-long commitment, so people will end up paying more, not less.

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