I’m hate to publicly gripe about anything, but after my experience with the Adobe store I’m so upset that I have to say something. So to preface this, I already own licenses to Adobe software, create very high profile projects with it, but I wanted to buy another full license for CS3 web premium (on Mac). Yesterday, I went online to purchase it, made my order and then get a response that the order is pending. No where before this last state do I recall being informed my purchase was going to take time to process. So problem here is that I’m onsite with someone and I want to run the software now on a specific OS installed on my box. I figured it wasn’t so bad, since I can do builds of the code with Ant etc. and don’t need the Flash IDE immediately or can run a different OS. Time passes, then I get an email saying that my purchase has been declined. Since I’m using a business credit card with a very high limit, this made no sense. Therefore I tried to make the purchase again. Same thing, pending. At this point, I’m wondering what is going on. Adobe has online live chat, so I opened a conversation only to find that the person is a sales person, not a customer rep. Great. At the same time I had made a call to customer service, which finally got answered 2o minutes later by someone in India. I gave him all my info and had him check the order. He mentions that orders above a 1000 dollars have to be completely approved before processing them. Ok, I can understand that, but a little forewarning goes a long way to my reaction. Then he goes on to say that I should get a response in the form of an email about my purchase. Super, this is what the other email had told me. I mentioned the previous purchase I had attempted and the outcome. I asked him to check that order#. He said I had no other orders, but I insisted and gave him the # which I had saved. So he checked it and after 5 minutes responds that my bank turned it down. To that I told him it’s a credit card company not a bank and asked him if we could just process the order over the phone, since a card can be simply called in. His response was you will get an email. Finally, I was getting frustrated and asked for a supervisor. So I waited on the phone for 15 minutes, and then they hung up on me.
So yes, I hate to say it, but Adobe’s Store sucks. I say it in hopes that maybe the comment will improve it. I love Adobe, but you can’t put your customers through that kind of ringer. My outcome, I’m don’t have the software running on the OS I want it to be on, so I’m not going to be as efficient. I’m also still waiting on the “email approval”, but I’ll probably end up going to a physical store like Apple and buying it.
[UPDATE] – My order magically went through finally as it says I can go download it, but it I go into my account and it still says pending. It’s leaving a bad taste in my mouth 
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[UPDATE AGAIN] – So I never followed up on what happened, but I finally got my software. A representative from Adobe personally followed up with me and promised to address some of the issues I pointed out. I totally appreciated that, and hope that my gripe will save some others pain in the future.
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#1 by Jeremy Sewell - May 20th, 2008 at 19:52
I just now had a similar experience called my credit card company and then tried to purchase again to no avail just another “pending” not. happy. adobe store still sucks!
#2 by Alex H - July 7th, 2009 at 07:05
It’s just unbelievable that a company like Adobe would have such an incompetent customer support. My ordeal started very innocently: in October/2008 I got an offer to buy CS4 and Lightroom 2.0 at a discount directly from Adobe. I went online and ordered both, but made a mistake and left the default “download” instead of “ship DVDs” button enable. But company policy requires me to get the original media with all software purchases.
Thus I called customer service, and after a few phone keypad dance around I got someone on the phone.
I requested that the DVDs be shipped to me, and I would use the key-code to enable the software. He said it could not be done like that. I had to fax a “letter of software destruction”, and they would cancel the licenses and refund my money, and I could re-order the same stuff but this time on DVDs.
I faxed the letter, and my credit card got refunded.
The same person offered to enter the new PO, I agreed. But he made a mistake, and entered the order at full price, without the discounts I was entitled to (as I did on the first order).
When I got the DVDs and the invoice I noticed the mistake he made. I called again, danced on the phone keys agia, and then go a cust. service rep.
online. I requested that he credit the price difference to my credit card. He said this would be impossible, that I have to fax a letter of software destruction (again???), and place another order, this time with the correct price (and DVDs).
I had enough. I told him that I would fax the letter, but I would not place a new order until I was sure my refund was posted, thus avoiding another order and another problem.
Lo and behold, the second order was placed in December 2008, and I still don’t have the refund from Adobe (we are in July/09).
I tried to reverse the credit card charge, but Citibank says that I did not return the product, thus no refund is in order. I tried to explain to Citibank that Adobe does not take DVDs back, they just require you to send a letter of software destruction. They didn’t buy that.
I have been calling Adobes customer support since January, and the last time was two weeks ago. I was shocked that the rep. was angry at me “why do you keep returning software to us? he asked”. Then he said that my money had been returned, which was not true. After about 15 minutes or arguing, he checked the database to see credits and debits to my Citibank card, and when I thought that finally my issue would be solved … click … the call dropped (or he did hang up on purpose).
In summary: Adobe does not want to solve the problem. Their customer support center (I believe it is in Mumbai, India) are incompetent, and the supervisor that took my case last time was rude and sarcastic.
I will give it a final try this week, but for now adobe has $1000 that belongs to me and refuses to give it back. Shame on Adobe.