Adobe customer service

[alan1572]

So i changed to a mac, all well and good, getting to grips with it and thought i'd get around to swapping over the daughter's cs3 extended edition, just a simple call i'm told, pay the fiver/tenner and they send a mac version. A nice idea untill i tried today, i was on the phone for 69 mins to be told that as she had cs3 they would not swap platforms, they would ony do it if she had cs4 but if she wanted to give them another £170 they would be more than happy to help. Being a work shy tax dodging student she isn't in a position to pay and is now without the software she is used to to carry on doing her uni work....what a fu***ng liberty, more than abit peeved

[Hinfrance]

You did realise before you started that the phrase 'Adobe Customer Service' is an oxymoron?

You'll just have to buy your daughter a new PC 

[picsfor]

and yet when i advised that my media for CS2 was damaged they sent me out another one from stock - and CS3 was the current version at the time.
No requirement to upgrade to CS3 then!

I think you're being given the run around.
Try ringing up and telling them that your media has become damaged and can you get another copy. Then tell them it was for a Mac.
Better still - e-mail them your situation and tell them how you were advised in a phone call that you would be able to do a media swap on CS3. They've recently upgraded their call system and have a hopeless call logging system prior to that.

If they won't play fair, why should you?

[alan1572]

i have tried, they said that the only way i would have been told that i could get an exchange was via email and unless i can forward such an email then there's nothing they will do, i have just had another 62 min call (free phone) and after going thru my tale of woe several times and being put thru to 3 different people (all at my request) the end result was that i was told it would be given a priority state and i would here from them in the next 48 hours, i can't believe that this is the best that they, probably the world leader in photo manipulation can do, a company this size that has already had some money from my daughter is not willing to show some good faith, ahh well, you live and you learn.

[picsfor]

my media exchange was as difficult as hell because the original version upon which everything was based was version 6. Needless to say i no longer had the original licence number - got lost in house moving i think.
I had the media in a CD case but lost the jewel case with number.

But they were determined that i would need the original number. I pointed out that with an upgrade to V.7, CS2 and CS4 registered on their system how was it they didn't have the details for V.6.
Change of customer licensing software - probably got lost in the swap.

So i argued that they were as guilty of losing my details as i was. That i had been able to install all of my upgrades using original media and then register it indicated something adrift in the certification process.
It took me a whole 6 weeks to get my swap sorted and quite a bit of haggling, being passed around from support analyst to customer support technician - but then i was missing an importatn piece of the puzzle.

I did not expect you to have such a problem. Maybe it's a deliberate ploy to wear you down in the hope that you'll hand over some more money!
I was lucky that i had Lightroom to keep me going whilst this all went on.

I certainly wouldn't give in to them. Any way - £170 - surely on a student licence you can get CS4 for considerably less than that?

[happypaddler]

Hears me coming at it from a different perspective... not meaning to make your blood boil any further....

Not that I'm experienced in such things... but I have herd friends who work in so called customer service call centres, who suggest that they would not deal fairly with someone, if they think someone is not playing fair with them... Are the chaps at Adobe thinking there is something a miss because you are phoning on your daughters behalf? We all know that you are not, but they may think that you have got a copy on the sly for your self and having changed to the mac, want what is effectively a free exchange.

I know its not the same at all, but if you phoned me in my work capacity (legal) on behalf of your daughter I would not be able to talk to you until I had a consent form/letter from your daughter to say that I can talk to you.

I assume that your daughter is GCSE or above. Why not try to get her to phone them?

[alan1572]

My daughter is in full time Uni, she still has the proper jewel case and serial number, she even offered to send them the windows version, they said that even if they done the free swap and she only had to pay for for shipping then we could keep and carry on using the windows edition aswell as the mac version.

[picsfor]

no - that's not what i was told.
I had to sign a declaration of destruction to say that i had destroyed the media, jewel case and insert with he licence number on it.
They were move than specific that i could not keep the windows version as the licence only covered one platform - which is odd considering that Lightroom covers both platforms.

So - we clearly have a case of 2 different people being given 2 entirely different stories.

[Malcolm1938]

Would THIS  be any help or do we still need cheaper?

[alan1572]

cheer's, i think that's what she paid for cs3, while it may be a bargain for cs4, we don't want or need it...quite the pain
also, do i detect a hint of sarcasm?

[Al Birmingham]

Nice one CannOffice!
My daughetr is too young to qualify me for cheap Adobe stuff but I just ordered a more up to date version of Office thanks to your link.
I have to say (and I have never praised MS before) that it is nioce to see that primary school kids are being taken seriously by Microsoft and are allowed a discount.

[Malcolm1938]

No - no sarcasm - I have seen CS3 cheaper but cannot find it at the moment - I will however search for it further now I know you dont want CS4.

[alan1572]

that's very kind of you
just had a look on ebay, there a quite a few there but none state windows or mac, i'll send a few emails of while i await word from Adobe.

[spinner]

Don't know enough about their licence scheme, but are they in fact different? If they aren't can't you borrow a Mac version and use the licence you paid for, for an install?

[alan1572]

sounds valid enough to me...i wonder if it will to Adobe, i'll ask.