Subscription Services - Read the Fine Print

Last year my daughter needed a particular graphics program on her computer for school. She signed up for a special Students and Teachers Introductory offer for Adobe Creative Cloud Central Software. An annual agreement charged to credit card at $AUD 14.99  per month.

In January - a month before the year was up Adobe sent a notice by email saying the year was nearly up and the agreement would automatically be renewed unless she cancelled. She ignored the email.

Credit card was duly charged with the new amount, it's gone up, nearly doubled in price because no longer introductory pricing. Mum sees charge and asks daughter "do you still need this?" the answer is "No, I don't really use it any more" so daughter is instructed to cancel it, she goes online to do so and ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE. She is hit with a cancellation fee for $AUD 124.95, "half the remaining contract period", and to rub salt into the wound can no longer use the software.

The trap here was that it was an ANNUAL agreement, charged monthly. If you read the fine print it is reasonably clear, but as was said many times that night, it doesn't seem fair.

It is pretty good software, and if you need it in my opinion its worth the price. But if you dont it's kinda expensive!

If you are signing up for an online subscription service, check the cancellation terms. Just because you are paying monthly don't asume that is the contract period.

If you are in any doubt type the name of the service you are considering and the word subscription into a Google search, you'll soon find out if others have had unpleasant experiences.

At the end of the day my daughter has learnt a valuable lesson quite cheaply, being a clever girl she wont make that mistake again.