I logged in this morning to find that I now have to wait 7 days for payments to clear (versus 3 before). They stated that it was increased instances of fraud.

I'm not saying I doubt their word, but it does seem odd that we have such different procedures and wait periods across the various sites. I'd have expected that they'd all be hit about equally (or not) with fraud problems. Why can't they place a hold on the results of purchases from first time buyers - which is I assume where the fraud comes from, not established accounts? Even though it'd be a nuisance to have some payments take longer to clear, it'd avoid this creep in the amount of time the sites hold our money.

The other possibility is for BigStock to up its payout threshhold to $50 from $30 (which is unmatched AFAIK) which would effectively make a bit more of a wait anyway.

They have always paid me quickly, so I don't mind waiting 7 days.  I have been waiting a couple of months for a payment to clear with alamy, so this is still a relatively short time.

What kind of fraud are they talking about anyway?  It would have been nice if they were more specific.

I saw that yesterday and it's indeed odd.  Maybe as they are a smaller business, they can't afford the risk.  But in a way this is better than what people reported here from FT (cancelled sales).

It annoys me more to think that apparently people can download images before their payment is authorized, so in the end they get the images (even if the license becomes void) but we get no pay.  I wonder why sales are only after its authorized by the credit cards.  If I purchase something online, it's not delivered to me until payment is clear.

Regards,
Adelaide

I think it's interesting that people are complaining about reversals of commissions on one site, where the agency has been defrauded and then complaining because there's a protective seven day wait at others. 

Due to fraud incidents, a grace period of 7 days is required on image sales and 45 days on affiliate commissions (due to higher fraud risk) before a payment request can be made on the earned commission amount. Bigstock on the commissions page.

I'm still in the middle on this, because I don't mind waiting for seven days for payment confirmation, it's not that big of a deal. I also don't think I should get paid, when the agency didn't get paid.

If the agency gets nothing for the photos, I can't expect them to lose hundreds of dollars in sales and then pay me too? If we want them to pay commissions on stolen goods and soon be out of business, I  think it's short sighted.

Here's the problem and question?

As for sites that reverse payments and commissions, that are previously listed, don't they have the same CC protection as the corner gas station? These are electronic transactions, with what we can guess is stolen credit cards. If someone goes to the store and fills up their tank, buys beer and snacks, on my stolen CC, the company reverses the charges to me, the store gets their money for the goods and the CC company chases down the people who committed the fraud.

Why then, isn't it the same if someone buys photos with a stolen card, the Agency gets nothing and therefore the Photographer/Designer gets nothing, but the thief has the goods? Why doesn't the CC company cover this type of loss? If the CC company does cover these losses, then we should get paid. I suspect that somehow downloaded electronic goods are not covered the same way as a bag of groceries, tank of gas, or something that's physically delivered.

I need some help from someone who knows the answer on this. Why aren't fraudulent charges for photos the same as someone going to the corner store and using a stolen card?

If these charges are protected, we should get paid!