Adobe, which become more and more reprehensible as time goes on, has attracted a lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission for use of a myriad of hidden fees, including a positively larcenous account cancellation fee:
Adobe prioritized profits while spending years ignoring numerous complaints from users struggling to cancel costly subscriptions without incurring hefty hidden fees, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleged in a lawsuit Monday.
According to the FTC, Adobe knew that canceling subscriptions was hard but determined that it would hurt revenue to make canceling any easier, so Adobe never changed the "convoluted" process. Even when the FTC launched a probe in 2022 specifically indicating that Adobe's practices may be illegal, Adobe did nothing to address the alleged harm to consumers, the FTC complaint noted. Adobe also "provides no refunds or only partial refunds to some subscribers who incur charges after an attempted, unsuccessful cancellation."
Adobe "repeatedly decided against rectifying some of Adobe’s unlawful practices because of the revenue implications," the FTC alleged, asking a jury to permanently block Adobe from continuing the seemingly deceptive practices.
Dana Rao, Adobe's general counsel and chief trust officer, provided a statement confirming to Ars that Adobe plans to defend its business practices against the FTC's claims.
Of course they will aggressively defend themselves.
Monopoly rents and cheating your customers are the only way to make money in software today.
To lock subscribers into recurring monthly payments, Adobe would typically pre-select by default its most popular "annual paid monthly" plan, the FTC alleged. That subscription option locked users into an annual plan despite paying month to month. If they canceled after a two-week period, they'd owe Adobe an early termination fee (ETF) that costs 50 percent of their remaining annual subscription. The "material terms" of this fee are hidden during enrollment, the FTC claimed, only appearing in "disclosures that are designed to go unnoticed and that most consumers never see."
For individual users, accessing Adobe’s suite of apps can cost more than $700 annually, Bloomberg reported. For many users suddenly faced with paying an ETF worth hundreds while losing access to services instantly, the decision to cancel is not as straightforward as it might be without the hidden fee. the FTC alleged.
Because Adobe allegedly only alerted users to the ETF in fine print—by hovering over a small icon or clicking a hyperlink in small text—while the company's cancellation flows made it hard to end recurring payments, the FTC is suing and accusing Adobe of deceptive practices under the FTC Act.
Additionally, Adobe's "stealth ETF" may violate the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA), the FTC alleged.
"May" violate ROSCA? Very charitable of the FTC.
………
Adobe subscribers have long complained on social media and in submissions to the Better Business Bureau (BBB). They've detailed what the FTC said was "a range of difficulties consumers have encountered when attempting to cancel an Adobe subscription." Most frequent complaints suggest that the self-cancellation process sends customers in an unending loop and that support calls or chats are routinely dropped.
"During the phone call, they put me on hold, and when they came back the connection kept blanking out, until the line was silent, but they were still connected," an Adobe subscriber, Vicky K., wrote in a review posted on BBB last week. "I couldn't hear anything. I [feel] trapped in this subscription."
"Horrible, predatory," another reviewer named Seth L. wrote. "Never, ever sign up for a free trial. I've been on the hook an entire year with multiple calls to customer service. Insanely high cancellation fee. Awful."
The FTC believes that instead of acknowledging that customers were confused about the ETFs, Adobe knowingly used the ETFs as a "retention tool" to prevent or delay cancellations.
The FTC is also including two senior Adobe execs in the suit, which is good, but they should be talking to the DoJ about criminal charges, because frog marching these jamokes out of their offices in handcuffs would be a good thing.
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