This is a message I sent to SourceForge.net concerning one of their advertisements from Acrobat. A bait and switch ad.

I was trying to get the acrobat reader, which i have used many times before, but got suckered with this ad. looks free, but isn't. i don't mind paying if i get something, but with this, the download will not open. "SHAME ON ME".
anyone know how to pen a .zip file in Ubuntu, or Linux? Thanks, len tyree.


The advertisement for 'free Acrobat download' (2 of them) is a lie. It
is not free! Once a person starts to fill out the info to get the
product, they will start asking which price, plan, you wish to purchase.
If you continue on, as I did, they will take your credit card, charge
you for the product, add on 2 more items that you may not want or need,
then you can download.
Also, I am a Linux user, and the items I received to download will not
open in my system. There is nothing saying which system the download is
for, or you are not given a choice to choose from.

This ad should be removed or the advertisers made to provide truthful
details. I have been arguing for 2 days with their collection/support??
site software@technicalcontact.com.

I am now going to inform the people associated with the 'Linux and
Ubuntu' forums.

Thank you, Len Tyree, ltyree@tttmaxnet.com
http://http.cdnlayer.com/lq/images/q...s_lq/icon8.gif

(o_O)

Contents of zip can be extracted with program named "zip" or "unzip", from command line. Your file manager probably can open zips as well (for example, "midnight commander" allows to view contents of *.zip files if unzip or zip is installed). On my system this is a part of "infozip" package. Have you tried to google for something like zip linux?

You should have used firefox with adblocker so you wouldn't see that AD in first place. And why you entered your credit card info is beyound me. As for acrobat reader for linux, there are alternatives, like "kpdf" (works very well). "Acrobat Reader" is ported and available at here, which can be easily found by google using "Acrobat Reader" Linux request. Personally, I think kpdf is much better than Adobe Acrobat, which has huge size, and sometimes produces 100% CPU load for no reason.

Personally, I'd try to contact Adobe, because in situation like this you are now their customer.

Why did you go to Sourceforge to get Acrobat Reader? Why didn't you go directly to Adobe? And why did you enter your credit card when Acrobat Reader is a free (as in no cost) product?

I have moved this to General as it's a non-technical question.

I'd ask "why didn't you google?" instead.

I keep forgetting, that's the step people miss out every time. I must stop making assumptions!

I don't believe on your story. If that is really, really true, I just wanted to let you know it is all your fault. How could you possibly give your credit card number away just like that. Do you open attached e-mails with .exe files and click on banners blinking "You just won 1.000.000 USD. Click here!" too?

It is just like finding loaded gun on the streets, pulling the trigger hurting yourself and warning people that guns can kill. And you also blame the guy who loaded the gun.

Either way, I doubt sourceforge is in control of the ads. You will see Microsoft ads on Linux forums like this all the time.

If the story is true, I feel sorry for you. Still, it will teach you a good lesson. Learn from it instead.

If you willingly gave them your credit card information for a free product what are you complaining about? Did someone hold a gun to your head and make you enter the information and choose a payment option?

If people like you would stop doing things like this the scammers would starve and go away forever. You keep them fed.

What were you thinking?????????

I've just noticed one thing:
This is not from adobe. Googling this address, returns few hits, and one of them is a "home complaint". The other hit is transaction-id.com, googling which gives link to ripoffreport.com.
I'm not in the mood to check if those are true reports, or simply they are written by "misunderstanding customers", but OP clearly made mistakes by clicking on ad and giving his credit card info to suspicious third party, and bought freeware from some company as result. Well, "shit happens" and it could be worse

You appear to have Ubuntu installed too, why did you not go via your package manager to get this?

You might want to Inform Adobe http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/antipiracy/ about this advert, which is not SourceForge's fault. Blame Google for being greedy and not checking adverts on their advertising network. Adobe tend to get very heavy with scum who pirate and sell their software, free or otherwise, without permission.

There is only one place you can legally download Adobe software (according to Adobe), and that is from Adobe themself http://www.adobe.com/ .

I agree with 98% of the comments here---If you pay money for something like this, it is--in the end--no-one's fault but yours.

But: I do agree that anyone publishing a misleading or fraudulent ad bears some responsibility. Especially if informed after the fact, I would think they would be obligated to take it down. The issue in today's environment is who to inform.....

PS
Mistake #2: Posting you e-mail address in the open. Now you are inviting a bunch of SPAM---including some more misleading or fraudulent ads!!!!

This is why I feel people should have to take a test in order to own a computer and another test to get connected to the world with this thing called the internet.

but first, a few words...

i was not in source forge to get adobe, i was there for something else. i saw the ad and it also said there was the adobe writer with it, so i bit, thinking the writer was what was being charged for. (and i will need the writer in a few months). i went from page 1 to page 3, bypassing page 2 which asks for the credit card, but could get no further. so i backtracked to page 2, filled out the card info, and thought, as is usually the case, since i have not submitted anything, i could back out with no problem. i just wanted to see more of what was offred, the writer.

anyway, on the last page, there was a statement with a tic box that was the agreement to accept or not-accept the product. i did not tic the tic box, i backed out. but they had already accepted the credit card, against their own statement, the 'agreement'.

GOT burned for $68.07, my fault!!!

also about throwing my e-mail address out into space, i have no problems with this. i had my web site (lentyree.com) up for over 4 years showing my e-mail addr as a contact point, and never got any bad action. but thanks for the warning.

case closed, thanks, len tyree.http://http.cdnlayer.com/lq/images/q...s_lq/icon7.gif

You don't need Adobe Writer to create PDFs. OpenOffice and AbiWord (amongst others) can create PDFs themselves, and if you need to use Microsoft Office there's a few free plugins you can get (including one from Microsoft, if you're using 2007).