MicrostockGroup

I have been reading about some of the other companies in our industry giving refunds from fraudulent credit card transactions and removing money from accounts when they incur chargebacks. doesn't seem like they can offer a lot of protection to their contributors or fight with the credit card companies to recoup any losses. 

how many of you have been affected by this and how much do you think it costs you?  i'm interested in learning how big of a problem this is and how much it could be costing photographers, agencies and how this could be affecting the price the buyer is paying (if it does)?

It only happens occasionally to me so far, not a big problem at all.  I know some sites absorb the costs, so we might not know all the times it happens.

I just looked back over my last 1000 sales on Fot and it happened 4 times. The largest amount was  3.8$ and one was as low as 38c.

For me ~13,5 Credits the last 1000 sales at Ft. I guess thats around 1%.

I've had about 3% refunds from bigstock.

On FT I've had 2 in the last couple of months out of 1400 sales. Monetarily it was less than 0.4% of earnings.

I get a few duplicated DL refunds on IS & DT too, usually when they've bought a small sized image and then later bought a larger size. I can't remember the last fraud refund on DT as they are very rare.

For the irritation factor (to the contributor), the administration costs and the miniscule amount of money involved I think the agency should just absorb the cost __ a price increase of 0.5% would probably cover it anyway.

I have just 1 till now...

But one of my clipfolders on Cutcaster is featured right now, "HDR photos"...

Thank you John!

I am curious, for those of you who got refunds from FT and DT, were they for vector images or photos?

only photos

interesting.  i wonder how many of those transactions were caught before they ended up as a chargeback?  that would start to add up for an agency as paypal for example adds 10 bucks onto every chargeback to the merchant. 

what are some of the excuses/reasons that agencies give you when there is a reason.  is it a boilerplate answer everytime or do they explain what happened?

I did not request further information from FT, but I think others did in the past.  I simply got a site mail "Buyer's credit card declined" with the value debited and the image ID.

I had them only at FT, and typically on days with high value.
They're less than 1% per month...but depending on my value...it 's at the moment 2 packages of cigarrets, or 1 meal, or 2 beers a month.
I'm angry about this, especcialy because it happens always on my best selling days, when i look every minute at my sales. What - i think - is the opposite of the intent.

But in any way, it's dull, because any agency should handle this problem and factor in this...because, if i gave away my pictures for such a low price....i wouln't  like to see or have to be involved in any kind of business-action like this.

If i'm just constributor, just a slave for value, if any agency earn a lot more than me on every sale...the smallest i had to expect is, they support me, and never ever tell my about risc and problems in accounting a client.

If not, and there's a problem at Ft and SS at the moment, agencies haven't understand why they earn that much. If Agencies have a problem with customers or financiel agnecies- that's their problem. Their job and the reason for their profit....
If they didn't had understood this little...well, far away and good luck.