
Adobe tries to strong-arm me into keeping Creative Cloud - firloop
https://gist.github.com/roddds/a1f42bae598028ac7809
======
yangez
How is this "strong-arming"? If we keep devaluing the meaning of words, we
won't have any left when something serious actually happens.

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.

~~~
alexkavon
> How is this "strong-arming"? If we keep devaluing the meaning of words, we
> won't have any left when something serious actually happens.

In the age of click bait headlines, don't expect anything to change.

------
DigitalSea
I would not call this "strong arming" just a sales consultant trained to try
and keep a customer from leaving. This not something unique to Adobe, it
happens when you try cancelling a phone plan, when you try switching utility
providers and plenty of other things. The fact the customer was available to
resolve the situation without subsequent follow-ups to me indicates that Adobe
did nothing out of the ordinary here.

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.

~~~
tetrep
> 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?

~~~
shawn-furyan
High pressure sales techniques are awful, and they exist because they work. I
don't think having to say "no" 50 times is reasonable, and it makes you feel
like an asshole just for not being an easy mark that can be pressured into
buying something s/he doesn't want. I've learned to close the door in the face
of over-aggressive solicitors, but I know people who have trouble with it,
because it's objectively rude to do something like that. The only reason I
find it acceptable is that these sales techniques are intentionally designed
to exploit people's hesitancy at being rude to other human beings.

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.

~~~
icebraining
I agree that the early termination fee is a dishonest ripoff. That said, it's
a poor culture if people feel like assholes for having to refuse a few
counter-offers (and no, I don't think it's a core human trait, as haggling is
common around the world). Negotiation is an important skill to have as an
adult, and this is the 101 level.

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?

------
jakobegger
This is why I refuse to buy software-as-a-service. If I run software on my own
hardware, I want to own it. When Adobe introduced recurrent billing, I decided
to switch.

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.

~~~
voltagex_
I wonder if there's any (paid or unpaid) alternatives to Lightroom (and Apple
Photos).

~~~
Veratyr
There are numerous, with upsides and downsides:

\- 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/](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.

~~~
voltagex_
Excellent. Many thanks

------
nness

      strong-arm:
      . using or characterized by force or violence.
    

This is clearly a sales representative trying to retain a customer.

    
    
      Since today is the billing date, the monthly billing
      has already been started and it is not possible to stop it.
    

That sounds fair, albeit far from ideal. I mean, the last\first day of a
billing period is always a point of contention between the customer and the
provider — it was good of Adobe to relinquish the contract instead of
persisting. Then again, would've been bad-will to do so anyway.

~~~
marincounty
Wouldn't Adobe be better off if this story wasen't on Hacker News?

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.

~~~
voltagex_
and then iPhoto turned into Apple Photos and lost a few features - does it
still work for you?

------
lnanek2
I canceled Creative Cloud recently as well after losing my job. Yes, the
customer service agent did make a bunch of offers to try to keep me. I assume
they are required to do that by management, so I don't really hold it against
them.

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.

------
rossy
> _Me: Can you connect me with your supervisor?_

> ...

> _Chaitra: I am canceling it now_

So, "Can you connect me with your supervisor?" are the magic words?

~~~
PhasmaFelis
They always are.

~~~
sundvor
On a rather remotely related note, when dealing with automated call routing
systems (the jungle that is automatic voice recognition menus), I've found
that resorting to swearing _will_ connect me with an operator.

------
jpambrun
My wife had a similar issue last week. She just notice the 600 CAD charge on
her credit card. She is on maternity leave and, therefore, she is not using
the software. She had no warning prior to the automatic renewing date and no
invoice after the charge. She called to cancel as soon as she noticed and they
decline saying that the 14-day grace period had passed. They "can" only
reimburse 50% of the yearly subscription. I know some will say that it is her
fault for not having marked the calendar or something, but I disagree. I think
that this unfair practices. Furthermore, I'm 95% sure that this kind of
behavior is illegal in Quebec. We are still waiting for an email from the
"supervisor" on that issue. To be continued..

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Interesting. I thought you could reverse with the credit card company, _then_
deal with the supplier. Do credit cards work differently in Canada?

~~~
jpambrun
I am not familiar with the conditions needed to withhold payments although it
is defensively possible in Canada as well. I will keep that in mind, thanks.

------
interpol_p
So it sounds like you can lower your subscription cost from $50 to $30 per
month just by asking to cancel. Has anyone done this?

------
madebysquares
I wouldn't consider that so much strong arming but someone trying to retain a
customer using either uninformed or false information.

------
touchofevil
I work in the vfx/animation industry and I have to say that I find Adobe's
Creative Cloud billing is horrible for studios. The idea that you have to
commit to a year is terrible for post-production companies because they scale
up and down wildly. Need 10 artists for one week? Sorry, you'll need to commit
to renting 10 licenses of Creative Cloud for a year! Other software that is
even more expensive than Adobe's Creative Suite (like Autodesk Maya) have also
moved to a subscription model, but Autodesk allows you to rent Maya by the
month, if you want. Adobe is getting the best of both worlds here by not
allowing you to own their software and at the same time not giving you
flexible rental options. Linux support at least for After Effects would be
nice as well, if you're reading this Adobe!

------
swang
Maybe it's just because the custrep was confused and maybe English isn't the
custrep's first language. I mean personally that convo was kinda confusing.
But nothing in the conversation looks deceptive, just another long, annoying,
and boring process of canceling something.

------
nicklo
Went through a similar process when I cancelled by Creative Cloud. I got an
email that my credit card had expired, so I put in the details for the new
credit card. I hadn't even realized I was still paying for Adobe CC, so I then
called to cancel the service. Support agent went through this same script, I
was forced to pay the absurd termination fee and thought that was the end of
it.

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.

------
noahbradley
So they tried to keep a customer? It's not like they refused to do it
outright. They just tried to convince him to stay. Cool.

Y'all remember trying to cancel those AOL trials back in the day? Now _that_
was a nightmare.

------
ojm
Looks like they were trying to trick him into paying 50% for this year? I'm
sure a lot of people would go "oh damn, better paying full price 'cos I'm not
using it".

------
mc32
That's ugly. I can see trying to entice the customer with discounts etc. to
keep them going hoping they let it go on for longer, but the shenanigans about
billing cycles, etc. is really not good. I'm guessing Adobe doesn't officially
condone this behavior, but they should see to it that this behavior is swiftly
defeated by policy so no one in customer retention does this and also
continues to work for them.

~~~
windowsworkstoo
> I'm guessing Adobe doesn't officially condone this behavior

Mate, it would be in the script. IT was clear the consultant was going through
a checklist of offers.

------
kyriakos
This is one of the reasons Adobe's software gets pirated. Although I must
admit 29.99 is not a bad deal why isn't that the price to start with?

------
davidu
This isn't the most pleasurable experience to cancel, but frankly, some of the
offers to stay might have been compelling.

This is a far cry from strong-arming.

------
akulbe
This sounds like Comcast tactics, if you ask me.

------
r3pl4y
After this post, everybody is going to negotiate Adobe down by threatening
them to cancel the subscription :)

------
viraptor
Sigh, so to get the real price on CC you have to pretend you're cancelling?
Same as with mobile phones?

~~~
windowsworkstoo
You can use this to your advantage with a bit of upfront wokr. I have a bunch
of stuff I have maneuvered to expire around the same month each year (stuff
like insurance etc).

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.

------
unsignedint
You should just tell them you are moving to the platform that they don't
support. When I canceled some services when I made my move to Linux, places
didn't try hard to retain me. (Well, they can't if they don't have workable
solutions available.)

------
mcminno782
Turns out "May I please speak with your supervisor?" are the magic words to
get out of an early termination fee from Adobe. If only it were that simple
with Comcast...

Thanks for the tip OP!

------
mathnode
Developers on macs, you have lots of alternatives! Affinity Designer and
Pixelmator, for vector and raster graphics. Apple Motion is still in the app
store for compositing.

------
nemith
If you think this is bad. Make sure you never ever ever get SiriusXM even if
it's just free with your new car.

They still call me almost weekly.

~~~
ipsin
"Please take me off your list" seems to work on legitimate businesses.

Have you tried asking them to not call you again?

------
briansteffens
Adobe sucks, stop using them for stuff.

------
throwaway_exer
Well played, Adobe!

I learned some new moves today.

------
yummybear
I recently changed my credit card. That solved the issue with Adobe.

------
zghst
Wow we've allowed these companies to implement horrific consumer practices,
holding us hostage, making canceling incredibly inconvenient. We need new
consumer protections, this goes beyond trying to keep a customer, it is
borderline harassment.

~~~
windowsworkstoo
Wow, how do you manage in the real world?

Copy, paste, "No interest". After a point, escalate. Boom problem solved.

~~~
zghst
You must be a corporate shill who thinks its a acceptable to hold someone's
money hostage by extending past my "no interest", wasting my time and really
trying to sell me crap I don't need or want. We should be able to cancel as
easy as we sign up. In the real world it is never as easy as "no interest"
with many of these companies, look at all the stories of people trying to
cancel their cable packages.

------
ing33k
does the customer service rep get some negative points if an account is
cancelled by them ?

~~~
quicklyfrozen
Well, if you work in the retention department, how else would your performance
be measured except by the number of customers you retain? :-)

