I understand that mistakes happen...I've actually had to request refunds at DT because I forgot to change where the default bullet for size is, and bought the wrong size. But I knew it immediately, asked for the refund, and in these cases, purchased a larger size. I'm not opposed to refunds, I just think a month is way too long. And I like stockastic's idea of charging 10% (or more) for the use, whatever it is. Kind of like a re-stocking fee, that some stores nail you with. That way, like he said, at least the contributor gets paid something, just in case it does get used somehow.

The one Shady brings up is another problem where one client pays for an image and supplies it for distribution and some other site picks up the same story, we don't get paid for that use. Should we? It's the web and there are channels. As an odd similarity, if an AP newspaper buys a photo from me and puts it into their distribution chain (on the web), I don't get paid a cent if 2000 other newspapers run that same photo. I sure don't like that either but that's the way the system works right now.

Most definitely. I'm pretty sure the license is for a single use. Period. Again, this is microstock, for gosh sakes!

so the norm is okay to go out to 30 days or even a few months as I have found out the hard way with Veer. Yet on almost 1,100 downloads on SS I have 0 returns. This tells me that the companies can prevent returns - better credit checks, harsher return policies and other things. I will no longer consider a sale on alamy or Veer until six months have passed by- what if I get a payout and then they come back and say I now owe them? Do I give them my bank account so they can do an EFT? Maybe I can pay them when a so called sale my pic occur - margin call. Heck $.05 on a pic looks fairly good now if I know that no return will happen- yes, I am venting since I had returns today

Good point- but at least the little sub is money in the bank that you can plan to spend where the others you just sit around and pray they don't return it. Maybe they shouldn't state sale until it completely clears all barriers...

I had a new one this month. First a refund then a re-sale on the same image for MORE money.

...
Maybe it landed some designer a contract, or even a job offer.

Maybe it was used in a one-time presentation that closed a big deal.  

Maybe they had their own photographer look at it and do something similar, but more specific.

Maybe none of those at all...

I'd say that it would be fair to charge the buyer 10% of the full price for a "return".   We should get something for 30 days use of a full size, unwatermarked image. 

I agree.

Same thing: I wouldn't want to wear used socks returned by someone else. Gross.

The more I think about this, the less I understand it.  Apparently any 'sales' that Alamy shows you are really just vapor, until the payment shows up in "cleared balance".  There doesn't seem to be any real statement of how long that can take, except that it's "not sooner than 45 days from the date of the licence sale".  Until then, the customer can apparently decide he doesn't want the image after all, and not pay for it.

I don't know of any other agency, or any other business, really, that takes such a relaxed attitude towards collecting payment; but in this business, there is of course no real inventory that has to be replenished and no shipping costs. 

Alamy can run their business however they want, despite how screwy it might appear from the outside.  My original question still stands, though - why expose all this to the contributor, by posting vapor sales into our accounts only to pull them back later? Why not just tell me when I actually made some money?

I realize that none of you know the answer to this either and I guess it's just another weird and irritating feature of the image business..   Or maybe (and possibly more likely) it's just an anomaly of how they wrote their web site software, an unintentional thing that they've never bothered to correct it.

^^^ Have you posted on the Alamy forum?
They don't seem to be as gung-ho 'Alamy is infallible' as they were a year or six months back.

Oh, I suppose I could do that.  They'd just tell me the policy was for the convenience of their customers and that most contributors liked seeing all that information [yawn].

Quote from: RacePhoto on June 27, 2012, 11:19

Cancellation policy

Provided you have not used any images, you may cancel the Licence within 30 days from the date of the invoice. Please notify us of the cancellation by emailing our customer service team: [email protected].

    You may cancel the Licence within ten (10) days from the date of the Invoice without charge.
    If you cancel less than thirty (30) days after the Invoice date, a cancellation fee of fifty (50%) percent of the Invoice will be charged.
    After thirty (30) days, no cancellations will be accepted and the full amount of the invoice must be paid.

Cancelling the Licence revokes an right to publish, reproduce or use the Image(s) in any manner whatsoever.

I don't know anything more, but that's the policy.

Only one I had, someone bought and image, cancelled then bought the same image, for less, the next day.

-----------------------

So what happens to the 50% that Alamy collects for cancelation between day 11 and day 29?  They get to keep it all and the refund more or less comes out of the photographer�s end?  Or am I missing something?

No wonder they allow cancellations - they make more on a cancellation than on a completed sale.  

So what's with the "cleared balance" part?  Do they really have that many customers bouncing checks on them?  Or is this just another 'cash float', a way to draw interest on other people's money by delaying a transaction, like what PayPal/Ebay does to sellers?