Ooh, this is my Twitter account. Hello everyone! A few comments:
1) This is from 2022. At the time, Adobe's CPO Scott Belsky responded saying "we can do better". Perhaps Adobe have adjusted their UI since then, I haven't checked. [EDIT] - I've just learned that there is an ongoing FTC investigation: https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1735565342565343417
2) I explain this example in a bit more detail in a talk I gave at a European Parliament IMCO public hearing, about a year ago. The part about Adobe starts at roughly 3m30s. https://vimeo.com/710684291
3) If you find this topic interesting, I run the website deceptive.design which catalogs examples like this, along with legal cases and laws. I've also written a book on this topic: https://www.deceptive.design/book
This is the way. It’s entirely guilt-free, too. The thought of not paying Adobe a single dime of subscriptions actually makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. You - yes, you - should definitely try it sometime.
Adobe have amended and expanded the subscription options since this was posted, listed the penalty-free "cancel by" period alongside each one, and included a tooltip with a more verbose reading.
Adobe are the new Oracle. They've just last week been sued [1] for the same shady privacy practices that Oracle got sued for recently [2]
I'm curious how quickly they'll revert this shit after a high charge back rate on their credit card transactions. Banks don't like that, Adobe will pay the fees, and for these amounts it doesn't make sense for them to go to court to make some random consumer pay the "cancellation fee" especially if that consumer claims never to have signed up for 12 months. No way to prove that easily, and you can't really collect on a disputed claim like this without proving a sign-up.
I just noticed that they did this to me. Can I dispute this transaction?
I tried Photoshop for some funeral photos, but I didn't end up using it.
I forgot to cancel the free trial because I was dealing with burial stuff. I noticed the subscription charges two months later and cancelled, but this extra charge came in 2 weeks after I cancelled.
False pretenses have become very common in the past 15yrs. We often roll it up into the idea of constant change and private individuals being free to change their mind on a moments notice, or withhold majorly important caveats.
The idea of a true pretense and the trust that used to go with it, has been pretty firmly buried.
But you just cancel within the 7 days.
You just cancel right after you sign up. And by the way I'm not defending Adobe just pirate their software plainly just do that instead but this is exactly what I do with everything that is incredibly difficult to pirate is if I feel like doing the free trial as soon as I sign up I cancel because you pretty much always get the trial even if you cancel until the trial period is up you don't have to wait six or seven days you could just cancel right after you sign up and there isn't a penalty because it clearly says you have this many days for a free trial but there isn't a problem if you cancel right after you sign up and there isn't a problem if you cancel the next day or cancel 5 days later just literally don't wait until the free trial is over because that's literally what it says in the terms if you wait past 7 days and then cancel then you are not in a free trial anymore you are in a period in which you can be charged.
The most devious thing here is that if you cancel the plan before the end of the contract, you lose access immediately while also paying 50% of the remaining months.
What happens is - and I felt 2 years on that - you wait to cancel by the last month, which is not surprisingly easy to forget.
1) This is from 2022. At the time, Adobe's CPO Scott Belsky responded saying "we can do better". Perhaps Adobe have adjusted their UI since then, I haven't checked. [EDIT] - I've just learned that there is an ongoing FTC investigation: https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1735565342565343417
2) I explain this example in a bit more detail in a talk I gave at a European Parliament IMCO public hearing, about a year ago. The part about Adobe starts at roughly 3m30s. https://vimeo.com/710684291
3) If you find this topic interesting, I run the website deceptive.design which catalogs examples like this, along with legal cases and laws. I've also written a book on this topic: https://www.deceptive.design/book