If you produced expensive, frequently pirated software, you’d probably want the process for buying it to be as easy on the customer as possible, right? If you’re Adobe, not so much. Yet another reader writes in to share her frustrations with trying to buy Adobe’s Dreamweaver.
Our reader writes:
About three weeks ago now, I went to Adobe.com to buy a copy of Dreamweaver CS3 online, as I couldn’t find one locally. As I have Adobe CS2 Premium, I qualified to buy the version that is the upgrade from GoLive to Dreamweaver. So I find this version on their store, add to cart, and buy it.
Problem #1 – While most other versions of Dreamweaver are available as downloads, this one, inexplicably, is not. I’m told it will be shipped in about a week. As I had a trial version of Dreamweaver CS3 installed already, I contacted their live chat system and asked if the serial number could be sent via email or something in advance, so I could get to work. No can do.
I wait – and a week later, the box arrives. I tried the serial number received on the trial version at first. Problem #2 – It cannot find my Adobe CS2 (to verify I qualify for upgrade) even though that had been installed in the standard, default directory. So it asks me to enter the Dreamweaver CS3 serial number, then pick what version I’m upgrading from, and enter the GoLive serial number.
Problem #3 – It tells me the serial number I’m putting in does not match the product I’m upgrading from. This in spite of the fact I copied and pasted it directly from Go Live’s help menu, and also tried typing it in manually several times. (The only thing I can figure, in retrospect, is that since my choices were upgrading from GoLive 6.0, GoLive CS, or GoLive CS2, the fact that I have CS2 Premium was the issue). I tried uninstalling the trial and installing fresh from the CD, but got the same issue.
I surf over to Adobe’s customer support portal, which promises an answer in one business day. I have to register first, of course (grr), but I submit a ticket with all the appropriate information first thing on a Thursday morning.
The following *Tuesday* (six calendar days, four business days later), I get this gem (emphasis added):
Hello ________,
Thank you for contacting Adobe Customer Service.
Due to the Support Portal being closed on weekends [?!], we were unable to
respond to your e-mail. We sincerely regret any inconvenience this may
have caused and appreciate your patience.________, I understand that you purchased the upgrade version of
Dreamweaver CS3 (serial number). As you already had the
trial version of CS3 installed, you took the serial number from the box
that arrived and put it in. It accepted that, but then asked you to
verify that you was eligible to upgrade. You went to your copy of GoLive
CS2, and copied the Serial Number directly out of Help>System Info and
pasted that in to the CS3 dialogue, but it is telling you that the
GoLive CS2 number does not match what you have selected. You tried
selecting Go Live 6.0, GoLive CS and GoLive CS2 and it does not allow
you to proceed under any circumstances.I understand your concern with this issue and apologize for the
inconvenience caused.It would have been a pleasure to assist you with this issue. In this
regard, I would request you to contact Adobe Customer Service phone
support at 1 (800) 833-6687 from 6:00am to 8:00pm, PT, 7 days a week.
This is not an issue that can be resolved through this portal and they
are best equipped to handle such issues. They will provide you step by
step assistance through this issue…”Problem #4: It’s taken their customer service portal nearly a week to tell me … they can’t provide any customer service.
I grit my teeth and call the 1800 number. I called at 11:45 EST, and after the first five minutes, put the phone on hands free, so I could at least work while I listen to the dreadful hold music. I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And at precisely 1:07 EST… I was … disconnected.
As I’ve had this happen after lengthy hold times with other companies, I suspect this some sort of slate-clearing standard procedure.
I write into the portal, politely, but firmly, to complain about this, and request that one of their reps call ME instead. I suggested that since I’d been waiting a week’s shipping time, six days “customer service portal” time, and an hour and 20 minutes hold time to get what should have been a straightforward purchase, that they had a deadline of the following Monday to get it sorted.
I get:
“Hello _______,
Thank you for contacting Adobe Customer Service.
_______, thank you for your reply.
I understand your concern with this issue and apologize for the
inconvenience caused.It would have been a pleasure to assist you with this issue. In this
regard, I would request you to contact Adobe Customer Service phone
support at 1 (800) 833-6687 from 6:00am to 8:00pm, PT, 7 days a week.
This is not an issue that can be resolved through this portal and they
are best equipped to handle such issues. They will provide you step by
step assistance through this issue…”So here I am. Please warn your readers (again) to stay away from Adobe; meanwhile, I’m off to issue a chargeback request to my credit card company, and to shop for something else.
We’ve written about Adobe not being able to actually sell its software before. Twice. These stories are only a fraction of the complaints we get about Adobe. Adobe, if you wonder why your software is so popular on bittorrent, here’s one reason: Even the people who want to buy it can’t get it from you. Here are some email addresses for Adobe’s executives, hopefully they can help: rburgess@adobe.com, cboesenberg@adobe.com, selop@adobe.com, igiffen@adobe.com, sgomo@adobe.com, harris@adobe.com, dlucas@adobe.com, bnelson@adobe.com, snakama@adobe.com, efoley@adobe.com, ushike@adobe.com, mrozen@adobe.com, sofferma@adobe.com.
(Photo: Getty)
even if i pay for software, i almost always install the warez version.
especially with adobe and anything with activation.
@MonkeyMonk:
I get Michael’s points and yours as well, but I think the scheme he’s alluding towards isn’t as far fetched as you think it is.
If the companies *could* get away with this, believe me they’d already be doing it.
DRM isn’t only to cripple piracy, it’s to lock people in to a company’s ecosystem of products, and make it more difficult to *switch* to other products as time goes on, by removing things like second hand sales, refusing to allow content to work on other devices, etc.
“Well, I want to switch to _____, but I can’t sell my copy of Photoshop to offset the cost, so I guess it’s just cheaper to go with the upgrade…”
I work for a small software company and have had the misfortune of dealing with many Adobe employees. They are actually famous in my office for being aggressive and incompetent.
Activation is a difficult issue – we use it, but, we would never give a customer the runaround like this. If you can’t solve it by email, the next step shouldn’t be ‘have the customer wait on hold for an hour and a half’.
“It would have been a pleasure to assist you with this issue”
I love that line.
@twophrasebark: @CaliforniaCajun: I’m sure the OP will be glad to give you the information and get it straightened out with Adobe by Monday since you seem to have plenty of time on your hands. Please be sure to let us know about your experience with Adobe CS by posting the ressults here.
@acasto: Charging per call, per minute, or on a “service” contract basis?
Let’s say I buy a car from my neighbor. Money changes hands, the title is signed over to me, but the neighbor refuses to allow me physical possession of the car or the keys. I’m going over there and claim my property by towing the car and having the ignition and locks changed. This is the equivalent of turning to piracy when what you paid for will not work because of fucked up DRM. There is nothing whatsoever either illegal or immoral about it. I would love to see a case like this come to court where the company would not remedy the unworkability of legally purchased software due to DRM and the user was forced to turn to warez. They paid their money – they have one working copy of the software. Where’s the crime?
kamel5547 got it right, near the top. The GoLive serial number you’re copying and pasting is deliberately truncated in the help menu, or the about menu to prevent it from being shared too easily. There IS a way to find the whole number, and if Adobe actually would answer the phone, they should be able to help you with that.
If you kept your original GoLive package, typing the number in as it appears there should work.
Hmmm,
I agree the process is slow. I just upgraded to CS3 and what I found was that if you needed the CS2 serial you go through the deauthorize screen and at the bottom there is a button to do by phone(or mail can’t remember) and it shows you the full TRUE serial.
Yes this is not documented and this does not work in CS3 as the process is different.
I talked to Customer Service to get my CS3 upgraded to 3.3 (Acrobat 9) and though took sometime they go it done. So for me other than time spent on phone had no real issue.
I think part of their problem for legitimate buyers is that they complicate the process with multiple tiers and strange upgrades. Fun times was had when I did an upgrade from Photoshop 4 on Floppies!
I had this exact same problem with an upgrade for Illustrator. I was able to talk to “customer service” in India but they just seemed to be reading off of a script. No help whatsoever. I had to resort to downloading a SN generator to create a CS2 SN that the upgrade to CS3 would accept. Now I can legally run my legally purchased software. Adobe products cost too much money to be this messed up for paying customers.
A similar thing happened to me with a Final Cut Express upgrade. It turns-out that there were extra letters and digits on the slip that came with my old version that what were shown in the dialog box. That was annoying to figure-out.
@Snullbug: This to me is right up there with downloading a copy of a song I already ‘own’ on cassette or LP.
It’s not actually piracy, even though the industry would want it punishable.
@Snullbug: Except you’re buying the specific license linked to the serial number that you bought.
This analogy is better: I just bought a car, money changes hands and the title is signed over to me, but the dealer refuses to allow me physical possession of the car. I can’t get to the car I want as it is locked up in the garage. But look! The dealership has another car just like it parked outside on display! Same year, same model! Sure it’s not the one I bought but it’s the same model! I’ll just take that one.
If Adobe is being stupid then don’t buy its products (or return the broken crap)…but don’t be reduced to stealing. That’s the height of a culture of entitlement.
A better analogy would be: You just bought a car, money changes hands and the title is signed over to you. The dealer asks for your trade in, but all you can find is the title, the physical car is nowhere to be found.
There is a reason you backup your original discs and put them somewhere secure. This is exactly the reason. All this could have been avoided fairly simply.
I’m usually pretty lucky when I talk to Adobe support, 90% of the time I get competent helpful employees, the other 10 not so much.
The one thing I have a gripe with is, every time I reinstall the Adobe CS3 suite, I have to jump through a few hoops. Since our CS2 was a volume license, and the license we bought for my CS3 upgrade was retail, it never recognizes my CS2 serial as valid. After about 15-20 minutes on the phone though, it gets all straightened out and I get the CS3 activated.
@Michael Belisle: I have to agree with Michael Belisle as well. I’m more than willing to pay. I’m just to willing to pay to be frustrated by poorly implemented DRM. My company even gave up on ordering Adobe SW because the DRM is too much of a hassle for the IT teams to deal with.
@CaliforniaCajun: Get real man. Your soapbox needs a podium.
Oops. I meant to say “I’m just NOT to willing to pay to be frustrated by poorly implemented DRM. “
botched the html… lol
The problem is that you already HAD upgraded your system to CS3 by installing the trial version. The CS3 sees the trial version but doesn’t see anything to upgrade from on your local computer. This should be pretty easy for Adobe to clear up as the CS2 information should still be somewhere in the registry. Keep trying, you’ll get it installed.
Working in the field, don’t feel like individual customers are the only ones who feel the Adobe pain. Adobe is absolutely terrible when it comes to licensing and servicing us and we’re on a significant contract. Plus, their products are absolutely ridiculous in how invasive they are to your computer. They won’t even let you uninstall them if certain directories get removed or corrupted – MICROSOFT OFFICE directories. Adobe puts its fingerprint on all the software on your machine, grabs ahold, and puts you in a death grip.
i have had the same crappy telephone support via Adobe in the past.. and even after 2 years it STILL hangs up on you. When I finally spoke to a human and told them about it they said at the time that they were upgrading their system that week and were working out the kinks… guess they still are working those kinks out.
@darksunfox: Wow. Just wow. I’m looking at 8 boxes of CS3 Premium lined up here on the department software shelf, thinking of how large an outlay of money that is for a small business, and how horribly we get treated if we need support from them. For larger organizations laying out a damn fortune for the software, that’s highway robbery.
I wish Adobe didn’t have the print industry in a death grip. I would be more than happy to use something else.
As someone who used Freehand since 1995 or so right along side Illustrator, saying you’re proficient in something that’s not Adobe is the industry equivalent of those Stuart sketches on Mad TV…”Look what I can do!”
…Doesn’t amount to a hill of beans to some since it’s not the newest software, despite the fact that you can get the exact same end result.
Though I can understand people within the industry’s suspicion. I mean the amount of unusable dreck that average people send in created WITH Adobe software, I’d hate to see what incompatible monstrosities they’re creating with free/shareware.
Problem #1:
There was a bug with many Adobe programs that made the 30-day trial or 30-day grace period before authorizing expire after only 1 day, if the software was installed in the month of June. Adobe’s solution was to remove free trial downloads from the web site.
Best solution? Probably not. But it explains why you couldn’t download Dreamweaver.
Problem #3: You cant copy and paste your serial number from another product; Adobe doesn’t display the whole thing to prevent piracy. R’ingTFM would have helped here.
The irony here is that the biggest provider of web development software has the worst damn web support in the world!
I had a similar situation (I had my old serial number but it would not work on the CS3 upgrade). This person was very patient. After not hearing back from Adobe for 2 days, I called Amex and had the money snatched from their account.
Know what, I heard from them within 12 hours.
12 hours. And then they had the gall to say they would not help me with the situation until I paid them back. Yeah, not doing that.
The difference between Cs2 and Cs3 dreamweaver is not worth the hassle of dealing with Adobe.
You buy software that according to the company, you qualify 100% to buy. They take your money, but…
What is the difference between these:
1) Buy software, get sent empty box.
2) Buy software, get sent box full of disks that have non-functional DRM installed.
End result of both: You can’t use what you bought and it is 100% the fault of the company. You’d chargeback for them sending you an empty box, so why not chargeback for them sending you disks that are so secure that they cannot be read?
Having a similar problem with Flash. It says you can upgrade to the new version if you have the 2004 Macromedia version. Well, I have that version, and when I try to install the upgrade it asks which previous version I have and even lists it in a drop-down menu. It then tells me that, no, it cannot find a previous version and to input the serial number. I do so and it does not recognize it. What happened to Adobe? They used to be so great and now they suck balls!
I ran into issues with DW CS3 but much more irritating. The DRM Macrovision FlexNET IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH PROMISE RAID CONTROLLERS. The software would not load after setup – I could not even enter a serial number just a blank screen.
Adobe took two days before they gave me a canned air head response. No solution just a bunch of reinstall this garbage. Just when I was 2 steps from hack the loader my self, I noticed the program was hanging at a REGISTRY setting involving a trusted storage device. Hmm… so then I spent a few minutes searching the forums for others that had issues with any Adobe product and FlexNET for trusted storage.
This is what I found:
[www.adobe.com]
Yes, a patch for Acrobat in Vista fixes the DRM garbage for DW CS3 in Win XP. I have not tested this but it could ales work with the trials – as I had exactly the same issue a few before using the trial. Adobe denied support with the trial – I went ahead and purchased thinking it must be a small trial bug.
Adobe will not acknowledge and post a patch for this issue.
Adobe truly has become the next Microsoft of support. Thick headed, understaffed, and outsourced.
@MonkeyMonk: I think you make a bunch of good points but really blunt your message by straying too far into hyperbole.
I’m in central time, so it was written during a fit of insomnia. Please accept my apologies.
I no longer buy DRM music files from iTunes
Neither do I. Amazon and iTunes plus are great. If it’s not available DRM-free, I go without.
The ones I did buy play just fine at home, at work, at my vacation home, on my ipod, etc.
Clearly your office machine doesn’t run Linux. “I shouldn’t have to break the law to listen to my music here,” I thought. (Sure, I could have burned a CD. But that’s a workaround, not a solution.)
This is mostly a nonissue with music now, but it still applies to movies.
I stand by what I wrote.
The customer had some weird expectations and is not that credible in my opinion. What Consumerist reader would expect that someone in email customer service is going to be able to have someone in phone customer support call you?
When has that ever happened?
What Consumerist reader would think that “a serial number could be sent in advance?”
When has that ever happened?
In addition, getting technical support for a product is always much more difficult. I’m afraid some of you are misinterpreting what I wrote. I agree that it sucks, but if you give up this easily when having problems with software, you won’t be getting much software.
Overall, based on the OP’s post, I would bet with about 95 percent certainty that she did not properly follow the directions regarding what software qualified for the upgrade.
Also: Why did the customer WAIT for days and days for answer from email. Why didn’t she use the live chat she mentioned? Wouldn’t most of us looked for a phone number if it was obvious their email system wasn’t providing a reply?
Anyway, we’re not going to find out, but I would bet you she does not have the correct serial number. I would bet my lucky nickel!
@twophrasebark: I agree that it sucks, but if you give up this easily when having problems with software, you won’t be getting much software.
The system sucks. We’d like Adobe to fix it. Other companies are not so totally incompetent when it comes to product support.
I would bet you she does not have the correct serial number. I would bet my lucky nickel!
So what? Adobe should have been able to help her figure that out about 3 weeks ago.
It doesn’t have to be like this. This is why we are all gathered here today, huddled around a tragic story and a list of Adobe executive email addresses.
@Michael Belisle: I don’t disagree with anything you wrote!
I know exactly how you feel. I had to reformat my computer because of a glitch with Vista and when I reloaded adobe cs2 it wouldn’t let me because it said I had already loaded it previously and was only good for one load and I had to contact customer service. In which I did and customer service wouldn’t help me. Is it illegal to crack or use a keygen on a legal copy that you bought?
@unmeitatakau: Yes, but that shouldn’t stop you.
Problem #5, you tried to install software legitly without instead of using keygen / cracked software.
srsly, buy the ‘ware if your conscious would kill you otherwise, but just used a cracked version. We all know DRM ruins everything: this [story] isn’t exactly news.
Oddness indeed. I didn’t any problems myself and I did the exact same upgrade.
Adobe products have way too many bugs and way too many really useful features nowadays.
I wish there was a good alternative to Photoshop, *sigh*.
I heard GIMP is good?
The only reason why people still buy a software that is easily available for free on BT and P2P is: customer service. Especially when you pay hundreds of dollars. Great job Adobe for possibly forcing another honest, legit buyer into pirating.