MicrostockGroup

That seems highly unlikely to me. When you say "people complaining" - I did read one thread here about a check problem. Other than that, nada. So are these complaints on the SS forums and do we know whether this relates to a particular country (with Moneybookers) or some PayPal related problem with particular accounts - none of which have squat to do with financial viability.

I think you'll need to get more specifics given that most of the people I know who've been doing this a while have nothing but a record of on-time or early payments from SS.

Well, personally, I never had a Problem with their payments....but you may look again on their Forums regardings non-payments and bounced checks....some examples:
http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/abt110992.html
http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/abt108253.html
http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/abt108082.html
http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/abt109063.html
http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/abt110434.html

In this thread there are various bounced checks mentioned:
http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/abt108082.html

Beyond that, the removal of a contact phone number for Contributors is not a good sign/move...

I agree lisa, it is "unimaginable". And again, personally I never had a problem with payouts from them. However, I am wondering whats happening over there....and there is "something" happening. Beyond that, the amount of traffic and the financial status of a company are two totally different worlds (although I agree with what you want to say)...

Okay, I just finished reading up.  It is distressing that there was such a problem with payouts and no response from Support to people's inquiries.  

Looks like toward the end of August people were reporting finally receiving their delayed payouts.  

Interesting that there were paypal and moneybookers payees complaining, in addition to the check people.   Just a guess, but I suspect there was more likely to be a problem in their payout department than that they are in financial trouble.  

Whatever it is, hopefully it is completely ironed out.  I am just very grateful that my payouts have come on time every month.  

BMEs for many contributors in their business model don't have to mean high profits for the agency. Theoretically it might mean that more subscribers are using up their download quota. On the other hand, they must be the best EL seller on this planet (at least for me), OD sales have also been pretty strong.

I never had an issue with the payment from SS, same procedure every month, no surprises.  

Skimming those threads it looks like a combination of problems with a third party company who was processing payments and really crappy customer service. I'd have thought they could have headed most of that off at the pass just by getting someone into the forums to make it clear they were working on the problem.

Doesn't sound like financial issues to me, and SS support has never been all that responsive (which isn't to excuse them, but just to say that it isn't anything new).

I was checking from where my payments come and noticed it comes now from an C.V. instead of an LLC. I did some research on the net and found an email (which was not sent to me):

Dear Shutterstock Contributor,  Thank you for your contributions to Shutterstock. We are writing to let you know of a minor name change to your Shutterstock electronic payments beginning in 2011.  Your payments will soon be labeled as coming from Shutterstock Images C.V. instead of Shutterstock Images LLC. This is the result of an internal change to help us more efficiently process payments. Nothing else has changed and no action is required on your part.

Maybe this has something to do with the trouble...

I will never understand why people try to take position for or against a company based on their personal emotions.
It is about business. Not friendship. There are numerous threads on the shutterstock forum as well as at least one thread on this forum. Personally I am not affected as you aren`t neither. Nevertheless I am interested in the cause of the trouble since I have no doubt in the liability of some of the affected People.
It is in all our interest to monitor our companies, even more if we like them, and take some action of whatever form if it is necessary. This is why "Free press" and "freedom of speech" is so important to - at least the more educated - People. At least some people on this Forum seem to feel offended as soon as any form of critics occurs on a company which may bring them money, or more money than others, which seems to be cause enough for infinite trust. Just because you never had an accident with your new car that doesn`t mean that it is impossible.

Wake up!

Quite simple....just watch the Forums and observe if this problem is getting solved or not. Further actions off course depend on how it developes. If they start to not pay YOU e.g. you are at least not caught out of zero and know better how to treat the problem (e.g. if people who had the same problem found a solution). Or, in  the worst case, you had time to prepare tos ay goodbye to that company....I don`t wanna speculate ehre, it all depends, but you are NEVER without options.

Before I retired I worked for some of the worlds largest property companies and they had serious troubles paying thier bills on time, it doid not mean that they were in financial trouble...  It meant that their payment systems (generally at the people end) were not fit for purpose nothing more nothing less, all of those organisations are still plodding on and I doubt none of the poor folk sitting at the none payment end were speculating about the financial difficulties of the organisation that owed them!

From what I have seen and read shutterstock have a fairly bad rep for communication (I have only had to contact them once and they were ok for me) across the board, but to take just the complaints ref payment issues and extrapolate them to mean SS are having financial difficultie verges on the parsimonic. 

If you want to know if SS are struggling financially you will need to get hold of their financial data, if you want to know whether SS have communication difficulties just read pretty much every forum and there is a common theme!

Thanks for the insight llareggub.....the scenario of inefficiency seems to be very probable from my pov...