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Comment by alias_neo | Hacker News Reader

I got hit with this a few years back. I signed up for Ps CC for a month (I thought) to create an anniversary gift for my wife. I used it ONCE. Tried to cancel and they told me I had in fact signed up for a year, and that if I didn't cancel now, they'd give me two months free.

I didn't want it at all! Anyway, I sucked it up, got on with the remainder of the year, because they wouldn't let me put the cancellation in early, had to do it X months before the end. Then life happened and I missed the deadline to cancel and got suckered for a second year!

Fuck Adobe and this practice is all I have to say, I stick strictly to Open Source options now. It may have been my fault for not reading the first time, but robbing me a second time by counting on me missing the cancellation because they wouldn't let me do it there and then is just scummy.

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Sounds like Adobe hired some executives from the cable TV or satellite TV industry, where the fine print on some packages locks you into 24 or 36 month contract terms. They know exactly how to do it with the minimum legal amount of notice to the customer when signing up, and how to write the terms of service for acceptance to make it ironclad. Same with 2-3 year terms on cellular carriers with a "free $0!" new samsung phone.

For a long time the local telephone company in British Columbia (Telus) was giving away "free" xboxes or 46 inch flat screen TVs if you locked yourself into a triple play service contract. Of course the buy-out price to end the contract early far exceeded the value of the product given out.

Australia brought in some consumer law business that didn't have costs or you don't use, could not lock you in.

So for example a phone on a plan is fine as there's a capital good but a gym isn't.

Not as good in the U.K. but we do have some protections. A company can lock you into a contract however at the end of the contract it must default to a rolling 30 days term and the consumer must explicitly renew for a lengthy contract again if you want it. So even if you forget to cancel, you won't get renewed for X amount of years again.

There's two possible outcomes for this.

1. adobe waives the cancellation fee for australian customers

2. adobe eliminates the discounted annual plan for australian customers

> Same with 2-3 year terms on cellular carriers with a "free $0!" new samsung phone.

I really like the moves T-Mobile has done to change this. They very transparent that you are financing the phone on your monthly bill and then receiving monthly credit to off set the monthly payment.

Microsoft does this out of all companies. It's not like something limited to "TV or cable", just practically everything.

What's wrong with that? If they are giving you 500+$ worth of stuff for you to sign on to a contract, I'm sure they are going to protect themselves from people just signing on to get free stuff and immediately canceling.

If you sign a 2-3 year contract and want to break it before it ends, there will always be some kind of penalty.

Japanese cell phone companies did something similar for many years, they all offered two-year contracts with a cancellation fee of around $100, and you could only cancel in the last month before it auto-renewed. The government finally passed new regulation to stop this a few years ago.

The extra insult was they called it a "discount package" (50% off!), but it was already baked into all the advertised prices. In other words you pay double the listed price if you don't take the lock-in.

They still have very misleading text on their contracts and their sales people will try to imply canceling has a cost attached. You could usually get the fees waived if you wasted enough of their support staff’s time.

Krita is pretty decent replacement, if you want a paid alternative, then Affinity Designer / Affinity Photo is half price right now, and they don't use a subscription model: https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/

Yup Affinity and OS are great unless you have very specific needs.

Krita is basically (one of the) best in class applications for digital sketching/painting specifically. But it's not really a replacement for photo editing or graphic design.

I hear this criticism a lot, but it's simply not true. What doesn't help is what people mean by "photos" or "photo editing".

RAW Photo import and editing is currently limited in Krita, and you cannot export RAW formats. But even professionals tend not to use destructive layer based editors like gimp/krita/photoshop/painter/paintshop pro etc and are instead using dedicated software like lightroom, rawtherapee and darkroom.

But if your output format is not RAW, then you have more than enough to edit "photos".

You have layers, masking, vectors and spatial bitmap editors. That's all any of these editors workflows have been since the 90's. Anything else is extra.

Put me in front of Photoshop on modern mac or IFX Amazon Paint on Irix and my workflow and (sloppy) output would be the same.

I didn't say you couldn't edit photos in Krita, just that it wasn't best in class for that use case. Probably because it isn't really a primary goal of the project.

It's less about what features are technically supported and more about what workfkows the ux is built around, at least for me.

I am just an amateur though, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt.

Seconding (or thirding) Affinity! I switched last year and apart from some functionality about charts and graphs, I am not looking back at all.

While Krita can be nice, it can also be a bit difficult and bothersome to use.

For example, there is no printing support. Units everywhere (other than document creation) are in pixels and cannot be changed to millimeters, etc. Tools (like drawing a rectangle) operate on the current layer instead of creating a new one like Photoshop, which makes drawing annoying. Guides aren’t that fantastic to use. There’s a lot of areas that require polish in Krita.

Why would you prefer drawing in a new layer when switching tools?

Because quite often I would like to move or resize an object (and only that object) after drawing it. Note I'm really only talking about drawing shapes, etc, using the standard tools. Not really brush strokes.

I see, thanks.

Curious... why not Photopea as it is handpicked by sites like https://alternativeshub.gitlab.io/graphic-design/ ?

I had this exact issue. I specially chose the more expensive monthly options and read all the fine print, but apparently the cancellation fee snuck by somehow. My solution was removing my credit card, adding a “you don’t deserve to get paid” prepaid VISA charged with ¥200, and canceling anyway. They tried to charge me on and off for about a month — and a random charge attempt 3 months later.

Having to do this is a terrible felling and I feel like a bad person, but I at least put the cancellation fee I would have paid to good use by buying Affinity Designer.

Did it show up on your credit report?

It shouldn’t if you didn’t consent to taking out debt.

I’m not sure how it works in the US, but in Japan, companies usually send a final notice by snail mail that outline the consequences of not paying.

Adobe hasn’t even sent an email saying yet charge failed and I have to update my payment method out anything else. It’s as if they are aware of how shady the cancellation fee is and won’t chase you down for it.

This is why any time there is anything with a date associated with it more than a week or so out I go into my work calendar and add a reminder. Depending on what it is that may be on the date, or a week or even month prior. If it's super important I'll add it to my Google calendar which I don't use for anything except alerts like this that a year+ out where I may not be at the same job but still need to remember.

Why not your personal calendar?

Only because I have Outlook open most of the day, and I don't really use my personal calendar for anything.

I don't want my employer to know jack and shit about what I do outside of work hours. Personal info does not belong on corp resources. That includes personal calendar data on corp Outlook/Goog's/etc. That means not using corp network to surf personal social media, shopping on amazon, etc.

I would very much encourage you to really look into this unwise practice. It's not a matter of if, but when, this will come to haunt you someday. You have a personal mobile device, use it for personal stuff. Use your corp provided devices for corp related stuff.

It always amazes me how much info people are willing to turn over to other entities that have no business with it. My favorite are co-workers who allow mobile device management profiles on their personal phones so they don't have to carry around a separate work phone. No way in hell would I ever agree to that!

Stupidity for convenience :p

If I don't have to open up a work laptop to check an email or copy a couple of spreadsheet cells into a reply, and can spend more time with family, I wouldn't call that stupid. Many companies aren't in a position to hand out fully-managed company phones and will just shrug you off.

MDM may be as light as a single app with its own policies, or something as heavy as device configuration (for VPN, remote wipe, etc). Containerised app groups seem to be a good balance.

Sorry, allowing anyone (especially corp) the ability to remote wipe my personal device is an absolute non-starter. That is something that I will never EVER volunter to allow happen. If a company insists as condition of employement, then that is not someone that I will work for. If they are that asinine about this one policy, then who knows where else they are making insane decisions?

Honestly, this was a reasonably inexpensive way to learn a life long lesson to keep calendar reminders for distant future, with recurring alarms for several days or more if required. I accepted the defeat, learned from it and moved on.

My wife was/is happy with the anniversary present.

This is why for such services (though I haven't used Adobe software in more than a decade) I use single use debit cards like the ones offered by Revolut.

Adobe is in the same ring of trust as a random shady website and one ring above a Nigerian prince.

Caveat Emptor. I subscribed to Revolut "Premium" in order to have unlimited disposable virtual cards but changed my mind since and they too charged me the cancellation "break fee". Apparently everyone is using this tactic these days.

As if subscriptions weren't consumer unfriendly enough.

This is a super effective way to get debt collectors sending you messages!

It depends on the company and sales contract, but as you signed up to an agreement for the subscription on these terms it's possible that Adobe would be able to sell the unpaid fees off to collection agencies.

That contract you signed with Adobe has residual value when they give up on charging you. They don't just move on, they sell it to a debt collection service and then you will really learn about aggressive tactics.

What are these aggressive tactics? Are you talking about spam-like contact attempts or some kind of gangster type activity?

I use a very simple solution for this: whenever I'm handing my credit card information to some service, if there is a slightest chance of such bullshit (which is always the case with any subscription-based service), I just use a virtual card with just enough money on it to pay for whatever I intend to pay. Then they can prolong the subscription, sneak their stupid extras all they want.

This may work in the US (does it, really?) but mostly not in Europe. If the service provider thinks you are a subscriber and don't pay, you will eventually end up in collections. You can't just "stop paying", that will not terminate your subscription.

This is true, but Most of the time it doesnt make a difference.

You can make up any persona on the account and they wont know who to pursue.

The account name and address can really be anything... and this is also true for the CC on file.

Although this is true and will work. It also amounts to some degree of fraud.

Fraudulently avoiding being defrauded? Poetic.

Capitalism and the machine usually wins.

Does it really come as a shock that you don't have a blanket right to lie about your identity to protect yourself from possible exploitation?

I would agree that in most cases this is true.

But we are talking about really deceptive sales practices by Adobe. Fighting fire with fire in this instance seems particularly reasonable.

That aside, engaging this tactic on transactions with merchants with reasonable cancellation terms would be borderline fraud. If you use the services and they satisfied your needs, you really should be paying for them.

How about not giving money or mindshare to a company you think is scummy?

Another option is to ask your state's attorney general's office to send them a letter. Companies do not like letters from the government.

True. But any refill that doesn't state the fact upfront is also fraud. If a company is transparent that you will be automatically charged every year, and has an easy way to cancel before the date, well then that's on me. I've paid those obligations even if I'm not using the product. But if the rebill terms are hidden during the marketing process, and buried away in fine print....good luck collecting from Sammy Davis, Sr, Dirtbag Co.

It mostly work though, although it might not be legal, most companies will drop your subscription after some time if you stop paying. You might receive some letters from collection agencies, but as long as the sums in question are an order of magnitude lower than what is worth bringing in front of tribunal, they will stop after some time.

Does Europe not have credit scores? Would these sorts of things not end up as derogatory events on them?

Yes, there are things like credit scores, e.g. "schufa" in germany. Also, collecting via court order ("gerichtliches Mahnverfahren") costs around 20 Euros in fees and isn't that complex, you hand in 1 form in triplicate and wait for the money.

Depends on the country, but mostly no, and thank fucking $deity. Credit score systems are an abomination that go against privacy and are used to entrap people into debt and keep not knowledgeable people poor. I find it ridiculous when Americans speak about the Chinese social score system - judging people on debt management and spend is marginally better than on communist-aligning speech. Especially when it's done by for-profit companies that have zero incentive to get anything right.

In most EU countries when you want to take out a loan, the bank takes a look at your current status ( employment, expenses, family, etc.) and debt history stored by the central bank ( which is basically you had a loan of 10k for 5 years, don't own anything anymore) and judge based on that if you're credit worthy or not.

You're saying it's OK to order stuff and not pay for it, as long it costs less than the cost of going to court?

No, it's okay to subscribe to something, stop using it and stop paying it. When your access is cutoff due to non-payment, what's the problem?

Their argument (and to be clear, how much I agree with it depends on the nature of the product/service, and the amount), is that your subscription had an intended duration, and was priced accordingly, and that you received discounts from the "on-demand" pricing that you would otherwise not have been entitled to.

> No, it's okay to subscribe to something, stop using it and stop paying it. When your access is cutoff due to non-payment, what's the problem?

Let's look at it from a different perspective. If a coworker and I build a service in my garage from the ground up where I let users pay $100/mo month-to-month, $75/mo for a six month agreement, or $50/mo for a twelve month agreement, you're saying it's fine to agree to the twelve month term, get the 50% discount for a few months, and then cancel your card even though the only reason I offered such a steep discount in the first place is because you promised you'd pay me for twelve months?

Yes. You can always demand 12 * $50 up front.

Just to be sure there's no miscommunication here, you believe it's alright to default on an agreement purely because the person you're doing business with is letting you finance it (at a steep discount and without interest of any kind) instead of demanding a lump sum?

I don't know where you live, but I know people who've gotten court summons due to non-payment of subscription services. In this case a travel ticket subscription and not Adobe's cloud stuff, but the escalation method is there and used in any case.

this is not true i have a default for £40 for a phone sim that they charged me for for 6 months after i cancelled.

I do not owe them the money yet they sold the debt. Nobody cares ... I now have a default on my credit reference.

The whole industry is crooked

Yup, I didn't update my card details and forgot to cancel hosting with a UK provider and they sent a collections agency after me for £16.

Why would you use your real name/address for a cloud subscription trial? I know with my disposable card provider, pseudonyms are a-ok. Sir Donald Mallard IV may have a ding in his credit report, the old chap, but I still can sleep and night somehow.

It really should be illegal.

We make it legal when we click agree on the TOS

PSA: Clicking "I agree" does not automatically make terms legal or enforceable.

That's a very common and harmful misconceptions in our society. But, besides the fact that laws can make abusive terms illegal (and do), it is also very bad for the economic system in general because it increases the transaction cost for the consumer (time, hassle or wrong product choice).

The consumer now has to worry not only about choosing a decent product, but also about ways the company could extract value from them without being transparent about that, or by hiding a clause in their TOS.

Could you imagine how much slower and inefficient the economic system would be if we were expected to read every TOS of every software we install and every single service we sign up for?

No, this is not fine. Do not accept bullshit terms meant to extract value from your pocket at no marginal cost for the business or no benefit to you as a consumer.

You're always free not to use any kind of recent software and throw your computer in the bin. Consumer choice alright!

It doesn't mean the TOS should be legal though.

> they wouldn't let me put the cancellation in early

Everything they did was legal until this. If they won’t process it, send them a letter with your state attorney general’s consumer affairs (or, if you’re a business, commercial division) Cc’d. Address it to their general counsel. State you cancel your contract with them effective such and such date. Contract termination is quite strictly defined in law, for obvious reasons.

How can you back out of a contract without paying consideration/fee?

They're not backing out of a contract. They're opting not to renew the contract early in the term of the contract.

I don't know where you live, but I live in the Netherlands and here it is illegal to bill you for a second year of a subscription automatically. After year one, you can cancel at any time (with, I think, a month of notice period).

I live in the UK. In the second year, Adobe gave me the same option, don't cancel and get 2 months free, or pay the buyout at full price (I took the 2 months so the cost to me was lower) and set a calendar reminder every day for the month proceeding the end date to make sure I didn't forget to cancel it this time, even if I was busy.

AOL pioneered this. And became extremely wealthy for it. Unfortunately it works

Remember https://youtu.be/R8-p_fPH4UQ ?

what are AOL doing these days?

The execs cashed out after taking advantage of their user. Milked it for everything it was worth, then exited with a sale to Verizon when it was clear it was worthless (actually by then I'd be surprised if any of the original team was still there -- for example Ray Oglethorp left in 2002).

I wonder if this would have been enforceable. Just because their contract says something does not mean it holds up in court.

All it would take is your fleet of lawyers against Adobe's office towers full of lawyers. If you have the resources to back that, be a sport and make the sacrifice for the rest of us.

All it takes is saying 'no' and then THEY have to sue YOU, which would be in small claims court where you really don't need a lawyer.

If that's how it works in your country then it seems likely your country is also broken/corrupt and is effectively 'in on it' (helping the likes of Adobe to steal from you).

Not sure what one can really do about it.

I think also the whole "you'll need an army of lawyers" idea is probably born from confirmation bias (settled cases get NDAs). I wonder if we shouldn't require registering a settled case, if there was any court action (arranging a date, say) then settlement details would be published? I guess it might encourage frivolous suits.

>If that's how it works in your country then it seems likely your country is also broken/corrupt and is effectively 'in on it' (helping the likes of Adobe to steal from you).

How does this get settled in a non-broken/corrupt country? You lodge a complaint and the government launches a fleet of lawyers on your behalf? I'd be surprised if that's a routine response to consumer complaints anywhere.

Small claims court is an attempt to address the problem of court being too expensive. I think legal costs have grown to a point that we need some kind of "medium claims" court in the US (or just dramatically expand the limits of small claims).

Scam victims complain to legislators

Legislators ban scam in consumer protection law

Subsequent victims just get the credit card charges reversed, or a trivially easy court victory.

Honestly, you signed up for the annual subscription so it’s on you. They give a decent cost discount for yearly subscription—it’s only fair to them that they get their end of the bargain.

Important takeaway: only buy month to month plans when testing out services.

EDIT: I’m not a huge fan of subscription models in general. Software doesn’t need to change at the rate it is these days, but it does work wonders for the bottom lines of all these companies.

EDIT2: Monthly payments to open source software is a better investment because they actually need funding, and they aren’t paying shareholders profits.

Their website actively tries to trick you into falling for it.

Honestly, not so much. Perhaps it did before. It isn't great, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it a dark pattern.

It does list the "Best Value" plan, but when you go to "Buy", it presents a shopping cart with the following text (no fine print, no other tricks), and even uses the word "commitment":

"Commitment:

Annual plan, paid monthly: US$52.99/mo."

Even at that point, the above is in a drop-down, and you can change it to "Annual plan, pre-paid", or "Monthly plan".

How is it not a dark pattern? If they are confident in the value of the subscription, why not print out the whopping minimum total of $635.88 everywhere they mention the price? They do it this way because it is misleading in a way that benefits Adobe.

Just because they benefit from stupid people is not adobe's fault, when it is this clear, people should really be careful about just clicking things and signing up, it's the individuals fault, people or companies are not your friends, this is the case for everything, it's just the way the world works, getting mad at that and then blaming the individual is stupidity and lack of personal responsibility.

They want to charge you as much as possible and get as much money from you as they possibly can, you want the opposite, the end result is something between the two, it's on them to reach there goal, so it's on you to take care of your own money and what you do with it.

There’s always someone in these threads who wants to put all the blame on the individual. The fact is Adobe is misleadingly making it look like just a monthly subscription. Proper consumer protection laws would not allow them to do this.

Adobe deserves all the badwill they are getting in this thread, it’s 100% on them.

No more Adobe for me!

If you're in Australia, I've submitted a case to ACCC. If you're an Australian reading this - do the same, you'll get your refund.

Paying for things is a sucker's game.

Pay for movies, DRM breaks it Pay for software, it's discontinued

Pay for food, you'll just be hungry again tomorrow

This is exactly how contracts for a lot of things, most notably ISPs work in Germany and it's infuriating.

Except that you can put in your cancellation notice early, even on the very first day.

Here you could, too as far as I understand you just get 2 months free if you don't.

At any rate, what's even worse for me is that you can't cancel in the last 3 months of the contract with ISPs which nobody tells you so it's even easier to get stuck with it for an extra year.

> At any rate, what's even worse for me is that you can't cancel in the last 3 months of the contract with ISPs which nobody tells you so it's even easier to get stuck with it for an extra year.

Which is ridiculous. It doesn't require 90 days to de-provision a circuit.

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