My Experience With Adobe Systems Inc.

I purchased Adobe Creative Suite 2 Design Premium after the announcement of CS3. The software was purchased by an authorized dealer and is a LEGAL copy. I was promised an upgrade as soon as CS3 was put on shelves. The day after I bought the software, I called Adobe and emailed them my receipt for them to ship me the upgrade. No problem.

I got an email back saying the receipt wasn't attached to the email. Woops, I thought, my fault. So I sent it again. Same response from Adobe (receipt wasn't attached). This went on for over a month. I sent them the receipt from 4 different email addresses in JPG, PDF, embedded in a word document, GIF, PNG, etc. They still said it never arrived. I asked for a different email address for me to send it to and they said there wasn't another one and left me with no alternative to sending the document. Just to prove that it was a legal copy, I've included a photo of my receipt (I blurred some parts so that nobody else will try to steal it from me).

I had shelled out TONS of money for this *very expensive* program, and they wouldn't give me the product that I paid for. I was shocked and didn't know what to do.

I called into customer support at least 20 times (I'm not one to exaggerate. This is a minimum.) Same thing.

Six months of this continued and I was ticked off. I got a C- in a college course on Dreamweaver because I didn't have the program to use on my computer. That was hugely detrimental to my GPA as I have an A average in college. I started a web design business expecting that Adobe would eventually send me what they promised--nope. I had to stop the business and lost contracts.

I was so angry and busy with school that I dropped the issue for several months. Now I'm in another college class on Photoshop and I need the program I paid for. I called again--same response. This time I was lied to and hung up on. They said they already have CS4 now, so I should just buy the new version. Why would I buy the new version if they never gave me the last version I paid for?

That same day, I marched myself down to the courthouse and filed in small claims court against Adobe. I simply won't allow them to steal my money. I paid money for a LEGAL copy of CS3 and never received it to this day.