Feeling cheated [CS6 serial number revoked]

[saibalguha]

Hi,

Below is my recent experience with one of the Adobe products and their Customer Support.

In 2013 while in UK I purchased a standalone version of Adobe Dreamweaver CS6 from online store (iSoftware.co.uk) The dealer was supposed to be authorized and genuine – at least there was no reason to doubt the genuineness of this company from my side. I registered the product with Adobe and since then I was using this without any issue until recently.

Recently after formatting my laptop hard drive when I tried to re-install the product (that worked many times in past) it failed saying that "The serial number you entered has been revoked. This product cannot be installed. Please contact Customer Support." I searched online and tried to contact Adobe hoping that they will resolve the issue and open my key. The only contact option I found was thru “Chat”. After long wait time and one failed attempt I at last got one support person and explained him the scenario. At my dismay, he said that Adobe found this key invalid and revoked the right to use it. I asked him several questions (given below) and he only apologized saying he cannot do anything. As last he told me someone will call me after one hour and ended the Chat session. Nobody called ever after that.

My questions:

1. I purchased the software paying the full price and registered the key with Adobe. If they could tell me then that the key is not genuine I could have claimed a refund. Why are they telling me this after five years when the source company no more exists?
2. Is it not Adobe’s responsibility to protect its customers from fraudulent software? Why did they not take any action and place proper system to help its customers to protect from frauds for so many days and suddenly victimize their customers for using their product?
3. The Customer Support told me that there are thousands of such cases happened and I am sure Adobe just washed their hands of this issue without solving any problem (like mine). Is the money now only driving factor for this company?

My purchase detail is given below.

Adobe Dreamweaver CS6 (iSoftware.co.uk)
30-Nov-2013
Your order number is 39379.
Order confirmation – iSoftware
1 x Adobe Dreamweaver CS6 Windows Full Edition - Electronic Download @ £229.95

License Order ID 39379. License Ref: EV791279001LP. 
Order ID: R1908-39379 
Product Name: Adobe Dreamweaver CS6 Windows Product Serial: 1192-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-9931

Hope to hear someone from Adobe to answer my questions. From Adobe forum I can see that they fixed few issues by providing them with a new serial number but probably I am not that close to Adobe to get the fix for me.

Below are some related links from other’s experience on same issue.

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1669657

[Nancy OShea]

This is a user-to-user product forum.  We can't help you.

Contact the re-seller who sold you the product.  

[cdeatherage]

Hmmm. If you registered your serial number with Adobe, can you not log into your Adobe account, find it in your list of registered products, and download the install files from there? Or has Adobe retired the servers that the software needs to communicate with in order to complete the installation?

Chris

[Jon Fritz]

According to the OP, it sounds like they were sold an illegal volume license seat by an unauthorized reseller. They activated the product initially with no issue, but after Adobe discovered the license was being sold illegally, they revoked it. That revocation would affect all users who were sold the illegal license with a "License Revoked" error when attempting to activate at a later date (usually due to uninstall/reinstall or installing on a new machine).

It happens pretty frequently actually.

Adobe Genuine Software this page includes a phone number to contact support directly, as mentioned above, this is a user to user forum, there aren't many Adobe employees around, and those that are typically can't help with this type of issue.

[phillipt91434251]

Wow, that is not good, you have to be careful about how you deal with

others. you must make sure that all avenues are safe and legal.

On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 9:29 AM, Nancy OShea <forums_noreply@adobe.com>

[Nancy OShea]

If you don't have to for regional reasons, it's always best to buy directly from Adobe instead of a 3rd party re-seller who may or may not be legit.   And stay away from eBay as that's no place to buy software.

[Jon Fritz]

One thing to really watch out for is the "too good to be true pricing" on third party vendor sites, it's a dead give away of a scam when it comes to Adobe software.

When Adobe's current price for something is in the neighborhood of $300 and the same product can be found on discountsoftware.co.uk.tz.ru for $125, it's not a great deal, but very likely a scam.

The problem is, they're not selling pirated/counterfeit programs. Initially, they're 100% valid volume licenses being sold to companies in good faith. Those companies then turn around and start selling seats to third party end users, violating the terms of use and resulting in license revocation. That revocation takes time to be noticed, but everyone down the line will eventually be affected.

[Preran]

Moving your post to a more appropriate forum. The experts here should be able to provide more information.

[Jeff A Wright · Accepted solution]

Saibalguha, I am sorry, but I can confirm that the serial number you provided in case ADB-1711525-D3V3 was for a volume license of Dreamweaver CS6 for Windows, as was suggested by Jon in message #3 of this discussion.

I do see that you have a retail version of Dreamweaver CS6 for Windows that was registered today.  You can find details on how to locate your registered serial number at Find your serial number .  The retail installation files at Download Adobe Creative Suite 6 applications will work with your registered serial number.

In the future, please make sure that you can complete the serial number registration process for any Adobe software purchase you made.  Any new purchase made through Adobe directly will be automatically registered to the account.

Finally, for future viewers of this discussion, please see Invalid or revoked serial numbers if you do find that you have been victimized by being sold a volume license of Adobe software not designed for individual resale.  You can use the contact link in Invalid or revoked serial numbers to report the details of the purchase.

[saibalguha]

Thank you ALL for your concern and all the good suggestions. Adobe resolved this issue. Thanks to Adobe for showing they care.

[Preran]

Glad to hear that your issue was resolved.  Thank you for letting us know.

CS6 is now several versions old, and I suggest upgrading to Creative Cloud to ensure that you can continue to use Dreamweaver with the latest operating systems.

[robert.hicks]

I'm curious how they resolved the issue for you. They seem unable to resolve it for me.

Thanks!

[hendrev83285604]

Photoshop CS 6 13.0 bought on 2 July 2012

Updated from old MacBook Air to new MacBook Air 13 running High Sierra.

Using it without a problem on Mac Pro, High Sierra, but I can not activate it on new Mac Book Air.

I have deactivated it on old MacBook Air.

I bought a copy from Adobe and the version is registered under my profile.

[Nancy OShea]

See this help article.

Installing Creative Suite on macOS 10.12 (Sierra)

And this:

Solved: CS6 on High Sierra

[hendrev83285604]

I have installed the software without a problem.

I can not activate with my serial number.

It says serial number was revoked.

It was purchased from Adobe and is registered under my Adobe products.

[Jeff A Wright]

Locking this discussion.

Hendrev83285604, I am sorry that you are receiving the message that your serial number was revoked.  Please see post #9 of this discussion for steps you can take to gain access to licensed Adobe software titles.