Beware! Do Not Buy From Adobe Education Store Tonight!

This is a warning of how I almost got scammed tonight by a company I have long respected. I don't know what the cause it, a minor glitch, a malicious bait & switch sceme, or a outside scam like phishing or hacking but the Adobe Education Store is experiencing some extreme sketchiness tonight!

Since upgrading to Snow Leopard on my Mac I have been in the market for Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended and since I am still a college student, I qualify for an education discount. But I am up in the air about biting the bullet and purchasing the full Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium since it's an excellent deal. Well tonight I decided to see if Adobe had any special black friday deals on any one of these softwares. And I found something that seemed like a miracle...

The Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Standard for $199 shipped in the box, the same price as Photoshop alone. Of course I instantly clicked purchase and was about to complete the checkout process when I noticed a startling fact. Instead of nearly buying the Standard Design Suite, Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended was in my shopping cart for $199. But the really odd thing is that there was also a message saying I in fact added the Suite to my cart. What in the world!?


I decided to repeat this process, and it wouldn't repeat on every try but periodically it would and I took screen shots of the whole thing. I discovered that this changed price on a product page and switched product in the cart was happening with several different items.


I of course immediately wanted to call Adobe and see what gives but basically no one is available right now...

Adobe Education Store

1-800-585-0774

6am-8pm PT Daily

Product help for Acrobat and Acrobat.com

877-782-3623
Monday–Friday, 5am–7pm PST

All other product help

800-833-6687
Monday–Friday, 5am–7pm PST

Software activation

866-772-3623
Available 24/7

Installation

800-833-6687
Monday–Friday, 5am–7pm PST

Licensing, registration, web subscription services

800-833-6687
7 days a week, 5am–7pm PST

Omniture support

Omniture customers: Log into your Omniture product or visit the Omniture ClientCare portal.

Scene7 support

Scene7 customers: Visit the Client Resource Center.

TTY (Telephone Typewriter)

800-685-3573
Monday–Friday, 5am–2pm PST
Messages accepted after hours

But believe me I will be contacting them ASAP somehow. Until then try to make sense of what I documented in photo and make note of the product titles, url addresses, and time stamps. And steer clear of purchasing from the Adobe Education Store for the time being!

Is it just me or does this fall under that whole false advertising issue?