Quote from: Ron on October 15, 2013, 09:57

I had to wait for a payment from June to be cleared in October  and thats quick.

I am done with them anyway. I will be closing my account. Had enough with them.

You seem to change your mind on that one every week 

Well, not really, I was contemplating closing my account and because of the lack of sales I had no incentive to keep uploading. Then James from Alamy and a few people here convinced me to stay. I submitted and completed 70 images on Alamy after that as I was going full in. And then they * me over for another 3.4% so now James and Alamy can eat my shorts.

It makes me sick that they now use the argument that we asked for it. There are some people on the Alamy forum now attacking people who dont agree with another pay cut. Do they even realise that if they make 2000 dollar on Alamy they also are going to pay 68 dollar to get that money.

Now that the threshold is lower and they will be sending out more payments, Almay needs to sign up for Mass Pay.  If an agency is not signed up to Mass Pay (Featurepics/Zymmetrical) yes, there is a fee (in Canada, I don't believe in U.S. though).  There is a cap on Mass Pay of $1 that most agencies absorb.

Mass Payment allows you to send money to one or more recipients. With Mass Payment transactions, the sender pays the transaction fee, not the receiver. The current transaction fee for Mass Payment is 2% per payment, with a maximum of $1.00 per payment. International Mass Payment sent from China and Hong Kong incur a maximum of $50 per payment.

It costs them a lot more to write a cheque, do they charge a fee for direct deposit or cheques?

It speaks to sales volume dropping

It could be down to lower prices and sales being spread amongst many more contributors - so everyone gets less.

There are definitely many many more contributors. And there is definitely downward pressure on the prices which are actually negotiated.

Quote from: sharpshot on October 15, 2013, 10:57

Quote from: Ron on October 15, 2013, 09:57

I had to wait for a payment from June to be cleared in October  and thats quick.

I am done with them anyway. I will be closing my account. Had enough with them.

You seem to change your mind on that one every week 

Well, not really, I was contemplating closing my account and because of the lack of sales I had no incentive to keep uploading. Then James from Alamy and a few people here convinced me to stay. I submitted and completed 70 images on Alamy after that as I was going full in. And then they * me over for another 3.4% so now James and Alamy can eat my shorts.

It makes me sick that they now use the argument that we asked for it. There are some people on the Alamy forum now attacking people who dont agree with another pay cut. Do they even realise that if they make 2000 dollar on Alamy they also are going to pay 68 dollar to get that money.

This is incorrect. Paypal typically charge a 2% fee but depending on where you are and the currency you deal in fees are capped. Alamy do not dictate these fees.

Here is a copy of an email we sent out earlier regarding the change:

We know our payment threshold has been a frustrating subject for you guys so we�ve decided to lower this from $175 to $100.

If you�re based in the UK or US and get paid by bank transfer, or get paid via Skrill we�ll continue to absorb all the transaction fees that go with paying thousands of photographers.

If not, unfortunately there�ll be a small charge - we thought the benefit of getting paid quicker outweighs this and there�s an option to avoid paying these regardless of where you live - see the image below;


   
We�ve added this to your Contributor Contract. The key changes are listed here: http://www.alamy.com/contributor/contract/amendments/151013.asp.

You can read the full contract here: http://www.alamy.com/contributor/contract/default.asp

We�ll also be sending you a formal notification by email, mainly because our legal people say we have to and we don�t want to upset them.

The changes come in on 30th November 2013 so if you have $100 or over cleared in your account by December 1st you�ll get paid in the December pay run.

As always, email us if you have any questions.


Thanks,

Fees will also be charged in bank transfers. Not only for paypal payments if I understood the graph correctly.

Currently I'm receiving through bank transfer, I receive payments every month and don't pay any fee. I guess that's about to change...

As it's mentioned in the alamy forum I just can't understand why there cannot be two levels of payment: the standard one without any fees, and a lower one for lower fees.

I don't understand why contributors that went through all their changing requirements along all these years, especially the very laborious keywording system and nevertheless uploaded tenths of thousands of images and as a result get sales every month must now pay because many people uploaded a hundred images, got an odd sale and (rightfully) want their money.

Just create two payment tiers!

James, I pay 3.4% and paypal doesnt typically charge 2%, its rubbish.

Why is getting paid 175 dollar free, and 100 dollar comes at a cost?

You are saying we asked for this, what a cheap shot.

None of the agencies I am with does this, only you.

 And I will not be forced into opening a skrill account. They charge a 2.49% currency exchange and a 1.80 dollar bank transfer fee. PayPal doesnt charge me anything when I withdraw money.

So you and sharpshot are wrong, on both accounts.

Quote from: sharpshot on October 15, 2013, 11:24

Quote from: Ron on October 15, 2013, 11:13

Quote from: sharpshot on October 15, 2013, 11:07

I have zero sympathy when you could save money using Skrill.  It does suck for countries that can only use PayPal but that's not something alamy need to take the blame for.

What a rubbish answer. Thanks for the support. Next time you get hit with something I will make sure to stick that in your face too.

Sorry for trying to be helpful and save you money.  Skrill would save you money but you're obviously happier just complaining about alamy passing on a PayPal fee.  I give up, carry on getting ripped off by PayPal every time you exchange currency.

Skrill isnt free at all  man, did you even check the fees at skrill?

I didn't say it was free.  In my experience, if you do a currency exchange for $500 with PayPal and with Skrill at roughly the same time, you get more money with Skrill.  This more than compensates for the small Skrill bank withdrawal fee.  I'm not wasting any more time on this thread.

I'm not wasting any more time on this thread.

You have not demonstrated that Paypal is more expensive than either banks or Skrill when the exchange rate and all charges are taken into account.

nowadays every agency is sshitin on their contributors....

Alamy is listed in the UK, an EU country. My understanding of the legal situation is that they are not allowed to charge more for bank transfers to the EU than for transfers within the UK. By not charging UK-UK transfers but charging UK-EU transfers they might violate this rule.
I am not completely sure about this, though. But Alamy might want to double check this, in order to avoid a formal complaint 

Where did you get this idea from ?

It's not just something that you think should or might be true is it ? Why should they not charge a different rate given that their bank will bill them a different rate ?

Quote from: Maui on October 15, 2013, 12:30

Alamy is listed in the UK, an EU country. My understanding of the legal situation is that they are not allowed to charge more for bank transfers to the EU than for transfers within the UK. By not charging UK-UK transfers but charging UK-EU transfers they might violate this rule.
I am not completely sure about this, though. But Alamy might want to double check this, in order to avoid a formal complaint 

Where did you get this idea from ?

It's not just something that you think should or might be true is it ? Why should they not charge a different rate given that their bank will bill them a different rate ?

The idea came from here, for example:
http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/shopping/banking/faq/index_en.htm

I read the mail and thought, boy, people must be having a hard time getting to the payout amount!  It speaks to sales volume dropping, more than kindness.

Yes, this is definitely the case.  Not only have sales volumes diminished, but the sale amounts are usually 1/5 or less of what they used to be a couple of years ago. 

Guess I had better head over there and change to skrill.