Regarding your other concerns, I'm a Social Support Lead. I'm here to make sure people have the correct information about our software. I am not responsible for Adobe policy regarding pricing, or licensing. Thanks, Kevin |
Kevin, Adobe has a lot of hard working stuff that contrary to Adobe's philoshopy care about the customers. The thousand of complainst just shade a different light on Adobe's rosy marketing propaganda. Personally, most of the time I dealt with Adobe staff they were nice and trying to help, but unfortunatley also in most cases they had no real clue and I had to solve the problems with many unpaid! hours of trial and error myself. Some years ago I even had a support contract that was a waste of money. At the moment it looks again, that a lot of Adobe's staff is not well trained.
Here is what happened the to me yesterday:
More than two months ago I signed up for the full Creative Cloud to test it out. I like to work with new stuff and with the promo offer it was worth the try. Later I realized how bad the subscription model was and how much more expensve it is. At that time I still wanted to be able to use the CS6 promo offer of 29.99, which was announced to be for limited time only. I was afraid that only CS6 customers that (additionally) paid for the cloud would get this offer until “CS7” was supposed to be announced at MAX. Unfortunately I signed up a few days to early, because Adobe announced at MAX the new lower promo offer for CS6 for 19.99. Again Adobe screwed existing customers. The customers got lured or better pressed into the cloud, because Adobe offered a few updates only for cloud customers and those Adobe believers were than thanked with a higher price.
I called sales and complained about the lower promo code. They were friendly enough to allow me to cancel my subscription without any fine, after I have subscribed with the new promo code. They were not able to change my subscription price or give any discount. So I tried to sign up again. The website had trouble. I always ended up on the wrong page. Some pages didn’t show at all. The system tried to use an old ID of mine even I signed up with my new one, pushing me to the wrong language or sending me in circles. After half an hour, closing everything, restarting the computer and login out of the Adobe Application Manager (AAM) I finally was able to place my order. I informed sales and they cancelled my old subscription. I was told that my old subscription is still running for the already paid month. So when it will expire I just need to login again and the new subscription will take over. So far so good, but this is not what happened.
A few days ago, I started to receive messages that my trail subscription is about to expire. First I thought this is the monthly check. So I chose continue, signed in, and thought it is fine now, but the error message came back every day counting down. Today I finally had time to call support. I was told that the source of the problem is that I had CS6 installed before, which I need to de-install. Then I need to download all the GBs of the software from the cloud again and install it new. I did not believe it and was laughing loud. I asked if this is a joke for candy camera. I asked the staff member if she knows how much time it takes to de-install the software, download something 15 or more GB with a slow Internet connection and then install it again. She was aware of it and still insisted that it was the only way to solve the problem. I told her that I don’t have the time to do this, because I have urgent work to do and I will be on the road for a few days when the “trail version counter” will be at 0. After being some time on the phone I asked suggested that Adobe should remove the word professional from their software descriptions.
I remembered that I originally installed the Adobe Application Manager (AAM), deactivated my CS6 installation and then signed in with the AAM. All the applications were shown as installed and I was able to download and install the available updates. Now all the applications are shown as not installed. I was told that this is not possible. She was sure that I didn’t install any updates and that after I deactivated my CS6 I was running on a 30 days trial version. I ensured her that I had downloaded and installed the updates and the AAM showed that everything was up-to-date until a few days ago when I installed an update to the AAM. Strangely the Adobe cloud website still showed that I should install the new version of the AAM even after I already installed it. I also said from previous experience with Adobe activation that normally a 30 day trial period is not possible after the software was already activated. (I once was in a train without internet connection when Photoshop crashed and after reopening wanted to be re-activated. Since I had no Internet connection I was not able to work with Photoshop for the whole day until I was in the hotel.)
When I realized that I deactivated my CS6 already about 50 days ago I said it is not possible that I’m running on a 30 days trail that runs out in 2 days. After arguing for almost one hour where I didn’t buy the explanations and refused to download and re-install everything she double checked my account. After waiting in line the result was that my old subscription hadn’t been cancelled, but I was charged any money for this month. I still don’t understand this. The new subscription that I ordered and got a confirmation for was not active. Apparently I wasn’t charged for it either. I was told that probably the sales rep who handled my case didn’t place the order correctly. I told her that I ordered it via the Adobe website, but she didn’t believe me. I insisted that I ordered via the website. Anyhow the non-active subscription was apparently the reason why I got the error messages. I was told the only solution was to cancel both the old and the supposed to be new subscription and order another new one. Arggh!
So she cancelled the subscriptions for me. In order not to have a problem with the website again I chose to be transferred to sales rep and did the order over the phone. I had to explain everything again, but after almost 2 hours on the phone I had an active subscription. This was still much better than wasting a whole day to re-install everything. Still AAM and the cloud website don’t recognize that I have the all the apps installed. They continue to be reported as to install, but so far I can start the apps without getting the trail error message. A few minutes ago I opened AAM again. Strangely I had to sign-in and accept the terms again. Suddenly AAM showed my apps as installed. While being in AAM I checked the default setting and I saw that the language was Czech for whatever reason. After I changed the language all my apps were displayed as not installed again. What the f… !!!
By the way many customers reported in various forums and blogs problems that their cloud subscriptions unexpectedly reverted to trail versions. See also http://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite/kb/trial--1-launch.html.
I further wanted to make sure that my subscription won’t be extended automatically, because for sure I won’t continue with the cloud after that one year is over. I was shocked when I was told that this is not possible! I was told that I will get an email at the beginning of the last month of my subscription period and then, not before, I have to call customer service to cancel my subscription. This is awful and makes me really angry—not to use the f-word! The Adobe cloud is so bad that Adobe needs to press and bind its customers, because they would not stay voluntarily when they realize what they got.
We have multiple CS6 Master Suites. Normally I would have upgraded all of them immediately to the next version, but Adobe won’t see any extra money from me anymore. This is not just because of my bad experience with the Creative Cloud, but also because of the general problems that come with a subscription only model. Additionally it counts big how Adobe treats its long-time loyal customers. Adobe doesn’t offer the value anymore that I want to pay for and also doesn’t stand anymore for the a company I want to do business with. They should change their slogan into: Yes, you can pay us, but we still only care for us and not for you.
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