BY AATIF SULLEYMAN (4-13-21)
A $291 Adobe cancelation fee has provoked fierce criticism of the creative software company.
A post from a customer has gone viral on Twitter, after he discovered that he would have to pay nearly $300 to bring his Creative Cloud subscription to an end.
It has sparked a discussion about Adobe’s practices, with many others coming forward to say that they too have faced extremely steep cancelation fees when they’ve tried to cut ties with the company.
A screenshot uploaded to the micro-blogging site by Twitter user @Mrdaddguy showed that they faced a $291.45 fee to cancel their Adobe Creative Cloud plan.
At the time of publication the tweet has attracted more than 13,000 retweets, more than 4,000 quote tweets, and more than 70,000 likes.
Twitter users have been almost universally in agreement in their criticism of the company, with some describing the cancelation fee as “absurd”, “disgusting,” and likening it to being held hostage by the company.
“Adobe has been holding me hostage for the better part of a year on a free trial that magically converted to a yearlong subscription with a wild cancellation fee,” wrote Twitter user Laura Hudson. “Blink twice if they have you too.”
Some have weighed into the conversation by suggesting alternatives to Adobe’s suite of products, such as Clip Studio Paint, Procreate, Blender, Krita, Paint tool Sai, many of which are either free to use or available as one-time purchases.
Others, meanwhile, are arguing that Adobe’s penalty fees are so severe that it should be considered “morally correct” to pirate the company’s software in revenge.
“Adobe on their hands and knees begging us to pirate their software,” wrote Twitter user JoshDeLearner.
“This thread is a great reminder of why it’s morally correct to pirate Adobe products,” wrote Dozing Starlight. A multitude of similar tweets can be found here.
by looking up “adobe cancel fee” you can instantly find numerous people talking about this everywhere. what essentially happens is that you usually sign up for the full adobe creative cloud programs or multiple programs as you so wish, and pay monthly for them.— asgore enjoyer 💖 (@MRDADDGUY) April 12, 2021
however when you enter the subscription, you are usually not given the terms of service to read over in detail at all! you are supposed to directly go and find this information that despite paying a monthly fee, you are actually in an annual one and if you try to cancel early,— asgore enjoyer 💖 (@MRDADDGUY) April 12, 2021
you will be charged a ridiculous amount to make up for the charges you “didn’t pay” for the year. and the most infuriating thing about all of this is that you are not even shown this information when purchasing!— asgore enjoyer 💖 (@MRDADDGUY) April 12, 2021
Newsweek has asked Adobe for comment, and this article will be updated with the company’s response.
There have also been widespread complaints from customers who say that they thought they had subscribed to one of Adobe’s services on a monthly basis, only to find that they were actually on an annual contract.
Adobe’s cancelation terms are not consistent across its various subscriptions and packages.
For instance, the firm’s Subscription and Cancellation Terms for a Creative Cloud, Document Cloud and Acrobat annual contract, paid monthly, state that customers who cancel after 14 days will be “charged a lump sum amount of 50% of your remaining contract obligation and your service will continue until the end of that month’s billing period.”
However, the same product is also available on a month to month subscription plan, which states that “Should you cancel after 14 days, your payment is non-refundable, and your service will continue until the end of that month’s billing period.”
Twitter user @Mrdaddguy added that they managed to successfully swerve the cancelation fee after contacting Adobe’s customer support team.
