My week of freedom is almost over and in a another two days things will be back to what we call normal with the arrival of my better-half from LA.  My week of loafing is ending and thankfully so has the rain and wind of Arthur.  It wasn’t until the third day of rain I even knew about Arthur because I was ignoring the television as much as possible.  My only connection to the outside world was my phone and I was desperately trying to ignore that as well. I spent a lot of time on the  Internet trying to resolve issues with the Adobe Corporation and a purchase I made.  Here’s my sad story which should be a warning to you all about their company and it’s approach to customer service.

Last week I made the mistake of attempting to buy software on-line and to download it direct to my computer.  I’ve been using Adobe’s Photoshop Elements for years to catalogue and store my photographs.  I decided that maybe it was time to convert from Photoshop Elements 7 to the new version Photoshop Elements 12.  That was my first mistake.

I checked a few retailers on-line and found the price to be hovering around $100.00. I told my better-half that I wasn’t comfortable with downloading the program directly and I drove to Best Buy to see if they had it in stock.  I found Adobe’s Premiere Elements 12 and made the purchase for $75.00. I headed home very proud of the money I’d saved.  I got home, installed the software and surprise, surprise, it was the wrong product. Adobe in it’s typical retailer wisdom named two products in a similar fashion and I was I unobservant enough to fall for it.

Premiere Elements 12 is a program for cataloging and editing videos and not still photographs.  I felt stupid and a bit embarrassed by my mistake and decided to let it go and take the loss. But Adobe suckered me a second time with a pop-up add during the install to download the product I was actually looking for a price of an additional $99.00. Being frustrated and pissed off I gave them my credit card number and began the download. I’d now spent $180.00 dollars.

That was the beginning of three days of BS in trying to deal with a company that has turned over the majority of it’s customer service duties to a live on-line chat only.  It’s almost impossible to talk to a human being except in chat mode.  I was at my wits end because the download wasn’t working as advertised and their method of copy protection was pure insanity.  After hours of frustration and waiting on the telephone for forty-five minutes I finally connected with some company representative who’s grasp of the English language was almost non-existent but was to expected when you live in the suburbs of New Delhi, India. I became a bit rude and belligerent and demanded an effing refund since my credit card had been immediately charged $105.00 for that second product.

It took two days for their investigation to verify I didn’t have a working copy of their damn Photoshop software and my refund was finally posted 48 hours later. By then I was feeling highly agitated, used, and abused. The biggest problem in this whole scenario is that their product is the best on the market and I still wanted it.  I tried not to think about it anymore because it was sending my blood pressure through the roof.

Another week passed and I was still looking around for a solution to my problem when I found a site that would permit me to upgrade my existing copy of the Adobe Elements 7 at a cost of only $69.99 as a direct download from Adobe.  At no time during this fiasco was that option every mentioned to me by Adobe which pissed me off all over again.  I refused to be baited a second time with another download and let it go once again.

Two days later I happened upon a deal I couldn’t refuse.  eBay came to my rescue when I found a vendor in the Midwest selling a package deal of photo editing software. They offered Adobe Photoshop Elements 12, a Roxio editing program, and a Font package, for $49.00.  I made that purchase and it’s now on it’s way to me as we speak.

I have only two things to say to end this rant.  Adobe Photoshop software is the best around but the Adobe company and it’s employees suck.  That is my humble opinion and I’m positive they could care less. Their approach to business is to make as much money as possible as fast as possible and the hell with the customer. My second comment is a warning for anyone buying on-line.  Many companies use the Internet as a device where they can disconnect from their customers. Shop around for the product your wanting to purchase but don’t buy directly from the manufacturer.  It’s similar to going to a car dealer to get your car repaired. The only certainty is that you will be overcharged and treated as a second class citizen.

In all my years of Internet crawling and making purchases this was my absolute worst experience.  I’m stuck using Adobe software but I won’t buy any new products from them in the future. Just an awful few days that could have been handled easily by a company that actually cared about their customers.

Thanks for nothing Adobe.