Adobe tries to strong-arm me into keeping Creative Cloud
gist.github.com
gist.github.com
The rep ran through a couple of retention scripts, and then got mixed up because OP called on the last billing day. Then he promptly canceled the service without any charges, which is exactly what OP was looking for. (And no, it's probably not because of the threat to contact his supervisor; customers overestimate how scary that is.)
There is literally nothing to complain about here, except maybe OP felt a little bit annoyed. I'm all for calling companies on their BS, but this feels just a bit too trigger-happy to me.
In the age of click bait headlines, don't expect anything to change.
And with all due respect, the customer decided to end their plan on the same day the billing period renews which clearly confused the sales consultant and made it harder to cancel the plan. Why leave it to the last minute when you could have done it the day before, week before anytime prior to the renewal date? I am an Adobe Creative Cloud customer and even I am aware of how their billing works.
To my knowledge, this is exactly the same as to how any subscription works. They always auto-renew, although some let you opt out. Heck, it's part of the definition of the word "subscribe".
Without timestamps there's no way to be certain, but this entire conversation could have taken place over less than 10 minutes and it's highly unlikely it took much effort to type "no thanks, please cancel" a few times into a text box.
Considering that it didn't take much effort to cancel it, why is customer service dissuading someone to cancel a subscription worthy of discussion?
So yes, it's common practice. That doesn't mean it's not a practice that is loathsome and bad for society.
Note: I think strong arm is a completely reasonable description of this. The sales person offered multiple carrots, and then upon being rebuffed, brought out the stick (keep in mind that the context is someone cancelling on the last day of their subscription):
>Chaitra: Devon, you have purchased a subscription with annual commitment, since you wish to cancel the subscription before the end of one year period, you will be billed 50% of your monthly rate for the remaining months in your annual commitment as early termination fee.
>
>Chaitra: If you pay early termination fee, you will not be able to use the product, however If you continue with the subscription with 2 month free subscription you will be able to use the subscription and also get two months free subscription. In this case, I would suggest you to take an advantage of two months free subscription.
This wasn't a good faith misunderstanding, this was a situational script aimed at maximizing retention in the particular context. This is a lever that is being intentionally applied to cow people into buying an extra year of a service they don't want.
One thing I do find disagreeable (though not to the point of considering it strong-arming) is the use of the client's first name. "Hi Devon"? Since when has "Mr. Campbell" stopped being the norm?
So it's legal, it conforms to the written contract, buyer beware and all that, but it's simply incorrect to say that auto-renew is part of the definition of subscribe. No, that's how it works in some contracts.
How is that an excuse? "Yes, we're assholes, but so are all these other people?" We need to stop letting corporations whittle our standards down like this.
Fortunately a bunch of affordable, non-subscription competitors to Photoshop and Illustrator have sprung up in the recent years.
For example, Affinity Designer is a great replacement for Illustrator, and its cheaper than the academic Illustrator license I got years ago.
Maybe if I was a full time designer, I could justify renting Adobes tools, but for an occasional user they are way too expensive.
Also I think Polarr is fantastic! It's incredible what you guys can do with a little bit of JS. If you had library/organisation features I think I could ditch Lightroom/Capture One entirely. I wish you open sourced some of your stuff, I'd even add the features I want myself.
Picky also looks extremely promising. Does it do duplicate detection of some sort? That alone is a huge problem I have with LR and C1Pro. I spend a ton of time just picking out the least blurry from a series of photos that are otherwise exactly the same.
- Capture One Pro (Paid): This is the most complete alternative in my opinion. It can handle ingestion, taxonomy and editing. Ingestion and taxonomy are adequate but not fantastic. Editing is superior to Lightroom in my opinion. It's a little more complicated than Lightroom but I usually produce better results in a shorter amount of time. Also the processing quality in Capture One Pro is pretty consistently better than Lightroom in my experience.
- Photo Mechanic (Paid): This is solely for ingestion and to a limited degree, taxonomy. It has zero functionality for editing but plenty for moving photos around, copying them from places and to places etc. I often see it recommended by professionals as the fastest way to pull in and pick photos from a shoot.
- DxO Optics Pro (Paid): Zero taxonomy or ingestion capability. This is solely an editing tool. Its main target is superior optical correction and processing quality. I find it delivers on both of these but I also find its "magic" features like "smart lighting" to get in the way. Capture One Pro usually produces better results for me. One thing DxO does to fantastically though is noise reduction. Whatever PRIME is, it does a damn good job. On the other hand, DxO seems to have issues with my Sony A7II where the colour is consistently wrong (colours always have a red offset). I haven't noticed this with other cameras though.
- Polarr (Paid, with a free online version): Solely for editing. It's very much like Snapseed (an Android/iOS app) on the desktop. Interestingly, their desktop app appears to be a repackaged version of their web app (https://www.polarr.co/). I find it to be very high quality and very easy to use but I really prefer having my editor integrated with my library and keep coming back to Capture One Pro. If you're editing things separately, I think Polarr is a fantastic choice. I'd actually rate it higher than DxO Optics Pro (based on the output I've had from it).
- Darktable (FOSS): Does ingestion, taxonomy and editing but doesn't really any of them well. The UI is confusing and (at least to me) unappealing, the editing tools are limited and the taxonomy, while more present, is too complicated to figure out. I've tried to like Darktable but I just can't.
- RawTherapee (FOSS): Zero taxonomy but all the knobs and sliders you'd want when it comes to editing. They've put _a lot_ of effort into their image processing and it's high quality and extremely customisable. You can fiddle with demosaicing algorithms and the like all you want. Hell, you can even implement one yourself with little effort (I wrote one that's currently sitting in a PR somewhere). Same issue with this that I had with Polarr though, I like having my library and my photos integrated.
- Nik Collection (Paid): A product that was acquired by Google and still appears to be developed. They have a bunch of individual tools tailored to particular kinds of output that seem to produce high quality results but should really be integrated into a single package. No taxonomy or ingestion, pure editing.
strong-arm:
. using or characterized by force or violence.
Since today is the billing date, the monthly billing
has already been started and it is not possible to stop it.
First rule of Adobe in 2016; Don't piss of anyone who falls for this pay monthly for our software?
Yea, I know it was the first day of the new billing cycle, but at this point in the game; give the customer a day of your software. Adobe is not on the position to lose anymore customers. On Tuesday, in Novato this incident will be brought up in office meeting.
I don't need Adobe like I did ten years ago. My last purchase was Lightroom 1.0, and when they wanted more money for every minor improvement--I said hello IPhoto.
They were pretty polite the whole time, though, and when it became clear I didn't have any valid card to pay with, as is needed on overdue accounts before any changes, they actually canceled me with no fee even though I wasn't completely done with my subscription yet, after management approval.
So, yeah, it sucks getting bugged when you end your subscription and just want it ended. But sometimes they come through for you too. I was just expecting another bill to pay in the end, but hopefully less than keeping my subscription, but ended up being free. Will definitely buy Adobe again in the future.
> ...
> Chaitra: I am canceling it now
So, "Can you connect me with your supervisor?" are the magic words?
I got an email the next day thanking me for updating my Credit Card information and that my Adobe Creative Cloud subscription had been renewed because the charge on the new credit card info went through. I had to call Adobe yet again and jump through through many, many hoops but eventually got it taken care of.
What a terrible experience, I'm going Sketch all the way from here on out.
Y'all remember trying to cancel those AOL trials back in the day? Now _that_ was a nightmare.
Mate, it would be in the script. IT was clear the consultant was going through a checklist of offers.
This is a far cry from strong-arming.
Each year, I pick a day just before expiry and do the call rounds and negotiate a better price. This is either by threatening to cancel, or insisting on being upgraded to new plans that only "new" customers are eligible for - there's always an angle.
Worst case, most things you pay annually for in your personal life are a commodity with low switching costs, so its even practical to actually swap things like energy (cuz they are just retailers) every year to keep getting the best deal.
The fun part is that price is negotiable, but the contract is not. You can't say, "I'll pay standard price, but I want a month to month, no autorenew contract." Pfff, nope. They want you to forget that expiration date, because now they have a guarantee of at least 50% of the value of the next term at the non-negotiated rate.
Thanks for the tip OP!
They still call me almost weekly.
Have you tried asking them to not call you again?
I learned some new moves today.
Copy, paste, "No interest". After a point, escalate. Boom problem solved.