Most software manufactures will allow Non-Profits to use the student edition. Adobe will not.
Rating: 1 / 5

Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium Student Edition

This suite is excellent! Complete, inovattive, a lot useful, BUT, the Adobe did not recognize neither my school or the program of media that I’m part of, so, they didn’t allow me to receive the serial number. I am a student, with all the documents to prove it so, but they didn’t accept it. That’s why I had to return the product and find an alternative way to access those softwares: the computer lab of my school got it.
Rating: 1 / 5

My wife needs Design Premium CS4 urgently for hercourse at university here in the UK.

At first, we found a cheap price from an Adobe Reseller online. However, they said we would have to fill out forms for Adobe and we currently have a raft of postal strikes in the UK and time is of the essence. Their price after taxes and shipping was actually higher too. So she decided to order direct from Adobe.

She opened a support case to provide an electronic copy of her student ID with the required information and picture on. She then tried to buy online without success because the website will only take Mastercard, Visa, or Solo cards. The first two are credit card versions and the last one is a type of debit card. She has a Maestro debit card – the most popular version in the UK. It is run by Mastercard, so she did try to use that at checkout but it refuses. So she re-opened her support request to see how she could make a purchase online.

The response tells her to ring a pre-sales number. She calls and gets told to ring a US number as the UK call centre is telling her they only deal with volume licensing. She gets passed between US and UK call centres a couple of times until finally somebody in the UK actually LISTENS and COMPREHENDS. They tell her their IT system can only take the same payments as the website, so she would have to use a Mastercard, Visa or Solo. She, nor I, have any of those, so Adobe lose the direct sale.

She goes to a UK Adobe Reseller. She buys the produt after giving them the same electronic proof of ID she supplied Adobe. They send the product and it arrives quickly. They could take her Maestro card and more payments methods than the giant corporate Adobe who are in the dark ages on payment options – bet its because they get a commission off Visa and/or Mastercard for excluding other payment options.

The box states it cannot be returned it if opened. It also states that the software cannot be installed without getting serial numbers from Adobe first. So she re-opened the case number, telling Adobe the order no from the Adobe Reseller and who/where the Reseller is. (They do volume academic licensing, so Adobe must know them). She provides all the serial numbers and product/lot numbers off the box and awaits some serial numbers.

The “Getting Started” support program for new purchases says the target respone time is 4 hours. She has thus far waited over 60. In total, She is no further to using this product until Adobe provide serial numbers. The customer service is woefully dreadful and tortuous. Phoning them gets people who just pass calls around or who say somebody else needs calling/contacting. She is considering returning the product for a refund and getting other alternatives. If this is how Adobe want to play, they deserve students ditching them and seeking alternatives. My wife is one of the few people on her course trying to buy a legal non-pirate version and Adobe cause all this hassle. The majority on her course downloaded a pirate copy, but at least they are happy using it and getting on with their course successfully.

My advice to people generally is this, write a letter to Adobe (not email) and provide all necessary proof and a cheque stating you want them to ship the product with serial numbers to avoid support calls. Then it should arrive in one go ready to use. If they cannot do even this, then they deserve to hemorrhage customers and their future users (the graduating students who become experts in using their software and will likely become professional users of it).

Rating: 1 / 5