In the age of instant order transactions and online payments, it still surprises me how quickly companies can accept money, but how difficult it remains to get it back.

Recently a friend of mine told me about the troubles he's been having ordering (or rather not ordering), a copy of the latest Adobe Premiere CS3. I realize delayed shipping dates have always been a pain in the ass — for both customers and corporations — but the fact that he's gotten two different explanations of 'policy' when it comes to canceling orders just kinda rubs me wrong. And as someone who has also had problems with pre-ordered software in the past, I figured I'd share his grief here:

Ok, so I made a little mistake on April 3rd of this year and I ordered the boxed preorder version of Premiere CS3.
A situation came up that required my $850 to go elsewhere, and I realized I was going to be screwed when they charged me for the product.

I called Adobe and was told by a representative that they had just received a memo that they could not cancel orders anymore because they were already going to ship and that I would have to just return the product when I got it. So I ask the guy when it is supposed to ship, and he told me on April 19th.

So now it is April 24 and I see on the Adobe site that the estimated ship date is now June 29! … So naturally I called to see if I can cancel it again and was told "Sorry, Adobe policy is that we do not allow you to cancel orders."

What kind of insane nonsense is this that I cannot cancel a freaking pre-order that isn't even due to ship for over a month?! My first call to cancel was on April 14th. Just please help me understand these huge technological barriers that are preventing a company like Adobe from removing me from the preorder list — Are you guys using bike messengers or something to communicate with warehouses?

Canceling an online order shouldn't really be so hard, should it?

I mean hell, I can even return a Big Mac right up until the last bite.