MicrostockGroup

How did you reach that conclusion, without knowing anything about our business or products?  The software actually includes contributions from many employees, contractors and a other vendors and suppliers.  Graphics designers, FTP hosts, developers, consultants.  All expect to be paid even if we lose a CC transaction. In some cases our products are resold in bundles by other software companies. We give them serialized copies and expect to be paid even for ones that are lost to scammers.  The bundling resellers think of us as a partner, and feel they need our product, and they know that a scam sale cheats us out of a real sale, so they aren't going to try and stiff us.   How quickly these traditional business ethics are discarded in the wonderful new world of "crowdsourcing".

  

I am also interested to hear what Fotolia has to say about these two issues.

My understanding is that almost all credit card fraud is absorbed by the credit card companies (hence the high rates that are charged for borrowing money).

And if an image was approved by inspectors, sold multiple times, and later removed, I would think that it would be Fotolia that had made the mistake in the first place and should absorb any losses that might have occurred (although I highly doubt that they are going to contact a buyer months or years later and give them a refund anyway).

Since we don't know FT's side of the story, I will take your story at face value.
And yes, I think stock site should make it a practice to verify with credit cards before dealing with a buyer. After all, if they have been stung once before, should not they try to be more vigilant?  And yes also, that once the card is verified (it's only a local call or toll free to the card company, no matter where you are), the responsibility is on the card company if it turns out to be fraud.To leave it so , without calling in to verified the cardholder's status, is to encourage fraud.
This much , the only thing left is to hear Fotolia's side of the story.

Not even a phone call; it's done automatically over the internet, by our web site talking to their web site. 

Presumably if credit card fraud involves the purchase of actual physical goods, and those are delivered the loss would be borne by the credit card company because the transaction couldn't be reversed without loss to the merchant - in respect of transactions for licenses to intellectual property - while the seller loses the value of the sale, the transaction can still be voided - ie. although the "product" has been sent, the sale is actually for the license to use it - so in a way the fraudulent buyer would be in no different position to someone downloading images illegally.

I can understand the loss of credits due to fraud - however what I'm more concerned about is whether there is truth to the deductions for sales on refused images that have been previously sold. If that's true it sounds more like a breach of contract by fotolia to me....   

But even if the card holder had not reported it stolen, that's between the card holder and the card issuer, not the retailer.

As for the thing about the police - well, that's true really, there is no reason why the police should be concerned with your brother, he has lost nothing and it's the bank that has suffered the loss, and presumably has all the details.  Unless the card was actually stolen from him perhaps.

You'd think so __ but apparently it doesn't work like that.

I'm struggling to get my head around the police's attitude though. A crime has been committed and there's plenty of information with which to persue it. I think one of the main problems is that there are 43 individual police forces in the UK and their efficiency is assessed by government statistics on things like 'clear-up rates', etc. Unfortunately a consequence of that is that they can be unwilling to record minor crime when they have little chance of solving it and they sometimes see other police forces as their competitors and so are unwilling to pass on information that will help them. That's government stat's for you __ they always seem to have unintended effects.

I think someone said it is always the final user's responsability to see if he is infringing something.  I would like to know if there is any legal basis for this statement or if this is only an assumption.

In almost all cases of online transactions where no tangible goods are shipped (i.e. digital) chargebacks, especially with credit card-funded transactions,  are almost always a lost cause to the online retailers. You can mitigate risks in a variety of ways, but in the end even the most upstanding upper-middle class joe consumer can have his credit card info ripped off and used for fraud - it's no use just to filter based on fraud cliches, you can only do so much to head off these types of situations.  It only makes business sense for the banks and credit card companies to just put their foot down and lean heavily towards the consumer than to launch a detailed investigation requiring several man hours for a fraudulent $8 transaction.

Think of the plastic in your own wallet: if you checked your statements one month and found some funds spent on a website you'd never visited, you would surely expect a quick resolution in your favour by the credit card company - even if you knew that you really shouldn't have entered your CC info on dodgywebsite.com a few months ago or as someone stated, unknowingly had your card scanned at a retail outlet.   

I don't know why anyone would expect that a business would not do the best job possible to mitigate these cases - it's not a very good business model to annoy your suppliers while at the same time losing money - not to mention reputation with your merchant service provider and also the unmeasurable loss of digital 'inventory' to the wilds of the internet (see: heroturko).

And in short, Paypal is the major player in online transactions, and I love 'em (anyone else notice they upgraded the UI today?), but their policy towards digital transactions is pretty strict: the customer is always right.   

Off topic, why hasn't the US invented an online currency yet? They did the internet, why not a way to pay for it.. credit cards are so 80s..

I'm not talking about Alamy only.  What was said is that, regardless whether it's clearly stated (like at Alamy) or not, it's always the final user's responsability.  But, as I said, I don't know if this statement is true.  By writing it, Alamy is cleared of any responsability, which is smart.  But is the photographer clear, too?  What if we check the button that says no property release is required when it actually is?

Alamy failed to give me a straight answer about this issue.  For instance, if I have a photo of the Big Ben, like thousands of others (including in micros), can I say a property release is not required?  Should I limit it to editorial only - and reduce my chances of selling it by adding a restriction that others didn't?  This goes for many city landmarks - churches, public buildings, museums, monuments.  I saw images of the London Eye as RF in Alamy, without property release and apparently not set as editorial only, and pointed this out, but they didn't seem concerned.  In a way I think Alamy washes its hands with that observation to the buyers, but I wonder if we photographers are really as safe.

Just to pour some oil into the fire...:

Does anyone really know HOW the micros (or any of them) are processing credit cards?

I was also under the impression that when a buyer pays with credit card the information is being verified with the credit card company BEFORE the credits are transferred to the buyer's account.

Why on earth would someone transfer credits to an account without checking if the card is valid or not

A friend of mine mentioned that there is software available that just verifies possible combinations of credit card type, account numbers and expiration dates. So is it that those agencies that hand down refunds to the photographers ONLY check the given credit card information with such software BUT process the cards later during the month?

Reason for that: MONEY.

Supposedly an instant verification for a valid credit card means having a merchant account or something like that where the agency would have to pay processing fees etc. to the credit card companies. By just using the software they accept credit cards on a trust basis until they finally bill them and find out that they are non-existing cards or stolen.

Is this possible?

Also like mentioned before. If a credit card is stolen, all involved parties (except of the thief) are (usually) not liable. The credit card company takes the hit. If anyone had his/her credit card ever stolen knows that the cc company protects you from theft.