Auto Renewal - Price Increase with no notice

[Shawn_Van_Brunt]

I am very disappointed as I have been a long time Adobe Creative Cloud customer and I had a renewal coming up the beginning of this month. I had for a year been paying $29.99 for a membership and they renewed me, jacking the rate up to $49.99, I never expected this to increase. I contacted support for the first time about this Tues July 11th. I was try to get the support person online to drop me down to a $9.99 Photoshop plan as I couldn't see any other solution. They worked on this for about 35min without any success. I had to go to a meeting and said I would try again. Friday July 14th I tried again (2nd time), after being on for an hour trying to switch me they were not successful and said that my case was "high priority to our senior level to solve your issue" & "It will be taken care of within 24 hours". I come in today and the issue is still not fixed. Now on the third time working with another guy for over an hour he transfers me to someone that will cancel and recreate my account and this guy STILL cannot fix my account. He says maybe it is my credit card details which I check and see that everything is accurate (they didn't have any problem billing me two weeks ago.). I got frustrated and cancelled my account, which the person tells me I shouldn't have done because I was already charged $49.99+taxes which I am going to have to eat and now they are going to charge me for $300 (50% of a year) even though I don't have any account or ability to use the service any longer. Is this outrageous or what? Why doesn't Adobe know how to manage their own accounts? Why have I been on support 3 times for almost 2.5 hours and they still can't resolve my issue? When I originally contacted support it was within the 14 days of my order so I should not be receiving any penalty, however because of support's issues in assisting me I am now getting stuck with a cancellation fee?

[Nexahs1138]

1) Where are you from, America, Canada, or Australia? If it's Australia then the pricing over there has been increased, from a few months back.

2) What type of subscription did you have, student or professional? Student pricing is discounted in the first year and is then increased in the second, which Adobe does notify you of before it renews.

3) How long did you wait to contact support?

4) there is a grace period of charges, I don't know if it follows over for renewals but if you cancel then you are charged 50% so as not to be cheating them of the service.

[Shawn_Van_Brunt]

1) I am in the US.

2) Professional

3) I contacted Support 6 days after my membership renewed. Even me cancelling today is only 12 days since my renewal and I am supposed to have 14 days for full refund.

4) The grace period is 14 days from order date. I don't know if this applies to renewals. I am certainly not cheating them of service, I am just trying to get this corrected and I should be within the appropriate window.

Thanks for your response Nexahs1138

[Shawn_Van_Brunt]

I don't mind giving this info, however, it still doesn't explain why after working with 4 different support people, 3 different times, for 2.5 hours they can't fix an account problem.

[Sheena Kaul]

Hi Shawn,

I apologize for the trouble and the support experience that you have been through.

Could you please help me with the case reference number for your interaction with support so that I can help you further?

In the meanwhile, I would request you to go through the Legal subscription terms | Adobe

Regards,

Sheena

[Shawn_Van_Brunt]

My case id is case id: 0222570202.

[Sheena Kaul]

Shawn, I have escalated the concern and the team will be contacting you shortly.

Appreciate your patience.

[Shawn_Van_Brunt]

My renewal date was July 5th, I cancelled on July 17th. According to your agreements I have 14 days to cancel. I cancelled after 12 days even though I was trying to fix my account on July 11th, that support was unable to help me with.

My support representative that I dealt with yesterday was trying to tell me that July 5th was 1 month and 12 days ago ???? I have the transcript of the conversation.

It is so shady that support is trying to railroad me into another purchase, won't help me and Adobe is not honoring the rules of the agreement. Right now support is telling me no refund and $300 penalty.

"Annual contract, paid monthly

Service begins as soon as your initial payment is processed You’ll be charged the rate stated at the time of purchase, plus applicable taxes (such as value added tax when the stated rate doesn’t include Tax/VAT), every month for the duration of your annual contract. If the applicable Tax/VAT rate (or other included tax or duty) changes during your one-year term, the tax-inclusive price will adjust accordingly. Your contract will renew automatically, on your annual renewal date, until you cancel. Renewal rates are subject to change, but we’ll always notify you beforehand. If you cancel within 14 days of your order, you’ll be fully refunded. Should you cancel after 14 days, you’ll be charged 50% of your remaining contract obligation and your service will continue until the end of that month’s billing period. Cancellations can be made any time by visiting your Manage Account page or by contacting Customer Support."

[Shawn_Van_Brunt]

I just saw that Adobe is trying to bill my credit card for US$292.13

[fenjas29325284]

If you cancel within 14 days of your order, you’ll be fully refunded.

This seems to be one of the most misunderstanded sentences in the terms & conditions because it's written directly past the renewal description. It better should be placed past the section "... every month for the duration of your annual contract ..."

You can get a refund only within 14 days of your ORDER, that is within the first period of your subscription. A renewal is not an order and so you don't have a new 14-days grace period every year.

Try again customer care for a change to the photography plan - some people had success in avoiding the penalty fee.

Wish you luck

Fenja

[Shawn_Van_Brunt]

Fenja,

Sorry what you are stating is incorrect. I found this in the statement about my renewal:

"Annual contract, paid monthly

Service begins as soon as your initial payment is processed You’ll be charged the rate stated at the time of purchase, plus applicable taxes (such as value added tax when the stated rate doesn’t include Tax/VAT), every month for the duration of your annual contract. If the applicable Tax/VAT rate (or other included tax or duty) changes during your one-year term, the tax-inclusive price will adjust accordingly. Your contract will renew automatically, on your annual renewal date, until you cancel. Renewal rates are subject to change, but we’ll always notify you beforehand. If you cancel within 14 days of your order, you’ll be fully refunded. Should you cancel after 14 days, you’ll be charged 50% of your remaining contract obligation and your service will continue until the end of that month’s billing period. Cancellations can be made any time by visiting your Manage Account page or by contacting Customer Support."

As long as you cancel your renewal within 14 days after it is executed you are entitled to a full refund and no 50% penalty.

A renewal is an order. If it wasn't that would mean you would never be able to cancel. That doesn't make sense.

[Nexahs1138 · Accepted solution]

That's true, I don't know what the other guy is talking about, a renewal IS an order.

Adobe offer three types of orders, a per monthly basis which wouldn't incur a few I don't think, and two annual plans, one is to pay once a year and the other is once a month. With both of  the annual ones you would have to wait for the year to expire if over the fourteen days but renewing that is an order because you can chose not to renew it at all.

[fenjas29325284]

No, I don't think so.

I'm not a native english speaker, but I would be very surprised if the conditions for english speaking people were different from the conditions for german speaking people (= my native language).

From the terms and conditions:

english: If you cancel within 14 days of your order, you’ll be fully refunded.

german: Wenn Sie das Abo innerhalb von 14 Tagen nach der Buchung kündigen, werden die Gebühren voll zurückerstattet.

The part "nach der Buchung" means definitely and unmistakable the start of the subscription and not the start of the next renewal.

A "Buchung" - english: order - means the start of a contract, a renewal means the elongation of the same contract.

However you'll have to clear this with the support people. Some of them are authorized to make change and prize concessions, I read this in older forum contributions.

Fenja