Adobe Extortion
We recently got new machines at work and so the slow process of reinstalling everything has begun.
Around 5 years ago or so, we had purchased Macromedia Studio MX. A few years later, we upgraded to Studio MX 2004. Good enough. I have no real need to upgrade to anything newer.
Alas, I ran into a snag. It seems that in my 6 years of employment, 2 cubicle moves, and several machine upgrades, I managed to lose the original paper sleeve of the original MX studio with the serial number on it. Since you need both the MX 2004 AND MX serial number to install, I can’t install the software we had purchased.
Thus begins the back-and-forth with Adobe:
- Adobe web site states that if there is a serial number issue, contact them with proof of purchase for new ones
- Adobe phone support claims they have no record of the MX purchase, and can only look up accounts by email address or phone number. Since this was a corporate purchase, there’s no way they can find it. Seriously? Adobe has a CRM database that can only query two fields? The *only* option is for us to purchase a brand new copy of Adobe CS3 Suite.
- Phone support transfers me to India where they promptly hang up on me.
- Email support ‘apologizes for the inconvenience’ and then states since they don’t support Studio MX, they can’t give a serial number, and the *only* option is for us to purchase a brand new copy of Adobe CS3 Suite.
Yep. It’s my fault I lost that little slip of paper with a number on it. Still, I think I’ll be avoiding all Adobe products as much as I can from now on…
4 Comments
Email the consumerist.com folks. I think they’ve had some luck pressuring Adobe on issues like this.
That is ridiculous i have run into similar issues with the activation on 2 computers, had my computer fry had to get a new one and because i had activated it on the other computer and my laptop they said i could not activate on new computer.
Had two options buy a new full version license or deactivate the original one which of course made no sense cause the computer was fried, I just kept calling back until they deactivated one for me
If it wasn’t a corporate situation, I’d tell you to do what I did and Hit craigslist for an old copy that you can use the serial number from.
Well, if this wasn’t a corporate issue, I’d have this installed already by ‘freeing’ it from the registration process. ;o)
I’ve learned to accept that monopolies will do what they do and to get upset about it is a waste of sanity. The best I can do is a quick vent on a blog post. ;o)