Adobe's unreasonable policy on providing serial numbers

Two years ago I purchased the Adobe CS4 suite at an educational discount (I work at Columbia Univ.) that came to over four hundred dollars. After going through what seemed like an overwrought and needlessly complicated procedure to get a serial number, I installed the software. Recently I upgraded to a new computer and discovered that the email that contained the serial number had been inadvertently deleted. So I called Adobe to get it again. Even though I had registered the product and even though the person on the other end of the phone had all my information in his database, he refused to give me a serial number unless I could "prove" that I purchased it. This means tracking down the purchase on a two year old American Express statement, but even then I was led to believe by the Adobe employee that this might not be good enough. God knows what they are looking for.
In all my years of purchasing software *legally*, I have never run into such a brick wall. I am thoroughly disgusted and will urge all my colleagues not to deal with Adobe.
Louis Proyect
Columbia University Information Technology

As this particular forum is for discussing, well the Adobe forums, Adobe will never see your complaint here.
I would contact Customer Service directly, and share your feelings. This is C/S and not Technical Service. That should get their attention, and perhaps at least getting them to think about doing things differently.
I have never had any educational versions, and my one and only S/N issue was years ago, but then C/S was very quick and helpful sorting my issue out. I could not have asked for better support - but that was then, and this is now, and my issue was also not with an educational version of a program, so that could well be another layer.
Good luck,
Hunt

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