MicrostockGroup

Agency Based Discussion => Alamy.com => Topic started by: Kone on July 01, 2014, 21:19

Title: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: Kone on July 01, 2014, 21:19
Alamy has refunded a sale a few times in the past for me. It's almost always the big purchase that gets refunded. I had one refund last month for about $250 from a sale from more than a year ago. They just took money from my account without any explanation!
This is ridiculous!
I always thought that Alamy was more professional than other agencies, but it looks like all agencies are exactly the same.

Kone
Title: Re: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: Goofy on July 01, 2014, 22:11
Alamy has refunded a sale a few times in the past for me. It's almost always the big purchase that gets refunded. I had one refund last month for about $250 from a sale from more than a year ago. They just took money from my account without any explanation!
This is ridiculous!
I always thought that Alamy was more professional than other agencies, but it looks like all agencies are exactly the same.

Kone

I know the feeling. Stings like a bee!  :-[

Title: Re: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: PeterChigmaroff on July 01, 2014, 22:24
Alamy has refunded a sale a few times in the past for me. It's almost always the big purchase that gets refunded. I had one refund last month for about $250 from a sale from more than a year ago. They just took money from my account without any explanation!
This is ridiculous!
I always thought that Alamy was more professional than other agencies, but it looks like all agencies are exactly the same.

Kone
How is this unprofessional?
Title: Re: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: Ariene on July 02, 2014, 01:01
Ex., client didn't use the image so he don't have to pay (it's normal). Get used to or leave. No more options.
And yes, Alamy is professional more than all micros together!
Title: Re: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: PeterChigmaroff on July 02, 2014, 09:26
Alamy has refunded a sale a few times in the past for me. It's almost always the big purchase that gets refunded. I had one refund last month for about $250 from a sale from more than a year ago. They just took money from my account without any explanation!
This is ridiculous!
I always thought that Alamy was more professional than other agencies, but it looks like all agencies are exactly the same.

Kone
How is this unprofessional?
So someone challenges you and give them a negative tick?
Title: Re: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: KB on July 02, 2014, 11:59
Alamy has refunded a sale a few times in the past for me. It's almost always the big purchase that gets refunded. I had one refund last month for about $250 from  a sale from more than a year ago. They just took money from my account without any explanation!
This is ridiculous!
I always thought that Alamy was more professional than other agencies, but it looks like all agencies are exactly the same.

Kone
How is this unprofessional?
See my highlighting above.
Title: Re: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: stockastic on July 02, 2014, 12:01
A clawback of $250 after a year is totally ridiculous.  Only in microstock would anyone claim this is a normal and justified business procedure.  We've just gotten used to being treated like we're standing in line at a soup kitchen.
Title: Re: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: PeterChigmaroff on July 02, 2014, 23:33
A clawback of $250 after a year is totally ridiculous.  Only in microstock would anyone claim this is a normal and justified business procedure.  We've just gotten used to being treated like we're standing in line at a soup kitchen.
My comments were never in the context of micro stock. It's normal, never anything anyone likes, but normal.
Title: Re: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: leaf on July 03, 2014, 00:46
Alamy has refunded a sale a few times in the past for me. It's almost always the big purchase that gets refunded. I had one refund last month for about $250 from a sale from more than a year ago. They just took money from my account without any explanation!
This is ridiculous!
I always thought that Alamy was more professional than other agencies, but it looks like all agencies are exactly the same.

Kone
How is this unprofessional?
So someone challenges you and give them a negative tick?

There were actually 5 votes.  3 down, 2 up and kone wasn't one of them.
Title: Re: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: Kone on July 03, 2014, 20:05
Hi all, thanks for posting,
Looks like Ariene was right about refund.
For those who are curious what happened, after few emails I got an answer from Member Service:

Hi Kone
We’ve got an update from our billing team and it seems your image ‘XXXXXX’  was purchased in error by the customer and  it was never been used by them.
And so the amount of ‘$250.00 was refunded from your account.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help
Thanks

Xxxxxxx,
Member Services

This is ridiculous, after one year they are giving a refund to the customer!
Title: Re: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: stockastic on July 03, 2014, 20:51
Like any retailer, Alamy can accommodate customers, and give refunds, however they please UNTIL the supplier has been paid - after that, it's too late.  If they want to give a customer a year to decide whether he really wants to buy an image, they can do it AS LONG AS they don't report it as a 'sale' and pay the photographer.

That's just common sense and standard business practice.  You don't go back to a supplier after a year and ask for a refund of payment because you have a deadbeat buyer.

Alamy does this simply because they can, by taking advantage of the fact that our earnings stay on deposit with them until a payout threshold is reached.   They're just grabbing cash that is no longer theirs.

I wouldn't be surprised if they knew for some time that the buyer didn't want to pay for that image; they just waited until you had $250 in your account from other sales, then grabbed it.
Title: Re: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: Alamy on July 04, 2014, 03:25
Hi,

I've been following this thread but am unable to check the details personally because I'm not sure of your name or the image it affects (maybe pm me?)

It is extremely, extremely rare that we would refund funds that have been paid to you - but sales that have been listed but have not yet been cleared (ie paid for) can be cancelled if the customer made a mistake and ordered the wrong image. When we cancel a sale like this it's still called a 'refund' even though nothing is refunded as it has not been used or paid for.

Stockastic said:

"I wouldn't be surprised if they knew for some time that the buyer didn't want to pay for that image; they just waited until you had $250 in your account from other sales, then grabbed it."

I can 100% cast-iron guarantee you that we would never do something like that.

James Allsworth
Content Executive
Alamy
Title: Re: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: Alamy on July 04, 2014, 03:41
Actually - I've just been able to find the details and can confirm you were never paid this amount - it was a bill raised in error by the client and they did not use the image.

The 'refund' came off your running uncleared total, nothing was taken away from cleared funds and we (or you) were never paid for this.

It's simply a cancellation of an old invoice for an image that wasn't used.

This issue does happen from time to time - with other agencies it's less obvious because they tend to only report sales when they have the funds, we report sales when the bill is generated.

Hope this clears things up.

James A

Alamy
Title: Re: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: Mantis on July 04, 2014, 08:33
Actually - I've just been able to find the details and can confirm you were never paid this amount - it was a bill raised in error by the client and they did not use the image.

The 'refund' came off your running uncleared total, nothing was taken away from cleared funds and we (or you) were never paid for this.

It's simply a cancellation of an old invoice for an image that wasn't used.

This issue does happen from time to time - with other agencies it's less obvious because they tend to only report sales when they have the funds, we report sales when the bill is generated.

Hope this clears things up.

James A

Alamy

Thanks for clarifying, James.
Title: Re: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: stockastic on July 04, 2014, 08:56
Ok if it came from uncleared funds it's not as bad.  But a year?

Anyway, why subject us, and Alamy, to all this weird stuff? Why not just report a sale when it's final, i.e. cleared?  Then you wouldn't have to deal with all the bad feelings and dark suspicions.

Title: Re: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: KB on July 04, 2014, 10:32
Ok if it came from uncleared funds it's not as bad.  But a year?

Anyway, why subject us, and Alamy, to all this weird stuff? Why not just report a sale when it's final, i.e. cleared?  Then you wouldn't have to deal with all the bad feelings and dark suspicions.
Often images are used (and can be found in-use) before the funds are cleared. I don't think reporting sales until funds are cleared would be an improvement.
Title: Re: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: stockastic on July 04, 2014, 10:40
Ok if it came from uncleared funds it's not as bad.  But a year?

Anyway, why subject us, and Alamy, to all this weird stuff? Why not just report a sale when it's final, i.e. cleared?  Then you wouldn't have to deal with all the bad feelings and dark suspicions.
Often images are used (and can be found in-use) before the funds are cleared. I don't think reporting sales until funds are cleared would be an improvement.

Ok then, if it's in use somewhere, it's sold as far as I'm concerned and I should be paid for it. Right?
Title: Re: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: ShadySue on July 04, 2014, 10:44
A strange thing is that a legitimate sale (and illegal copies of same) can be found in-use before it's even been reported, so you have to contact them to find out if it has been sold, and which aren't legal. Must take up a lot of their support time answering, "is this use legal?" queries, even though they don't help you chase up illegal uses.
Title: Re: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: bunhill on July 04, 2014, 14:10
A strange thing is that a legitimate sale ... can be found in-use before it's even been reported

That's typical in the world of stock photography given how billing cycles work. It's microstock and the PAYG model which is unusual.

I do a weekly search for our taglines (indexed in the last month) and screen print any uses which I find. Also specific searches for editorial themes which are likely to be current and which I know I have. So far I have not found any uses which were not ultimately reported. I missed one once which was reported on the last day of a month.
Title: Re: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: bunhill on July 04, 2014, 14:21
Ok then, if it's in use somewhere, it's sold as far as I'm concerned and I should be paid for it. Right?

My garage often bills me months after they service my car. Many things we buy the invoice is not sent until much later and then you often have a month or six weeks to pay depending on the conditions. It's the same.
Title: Re: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: stockastic on July 04, 2014, 14:35
Ok then, if it's in use somewhere, it's sold as far as I'm concerned and I should be paid for it. Right?

My garage often bills me months after they service my car. Many things we buy the invoice is not sent until much later and then you often have a month or six weeks to pay depending on the conditions. It's the same.

Sure.  But if you decide not to pay, they take the loss on the parts they used for the repair.  They don't try to pass that loss on to their suppliers. 

I understand that from Alamy's point of view, nothing wrong is happening and they never touch "cleared" payments.  It just seems weird to me, to let someone look at a $250 "sale" for a year, then issue a "never mind".
Title: Re: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: Kone on July 04, 2014, 22:44
Thanks to James for responding on the forum about my concern.
 
It is hard for me say if the image was cleared or not, to be honest, I didn't pay attention to that details.
If the image is not cleared for a certain time, then Alamy should go after the customer or simply cancel the order. A refund that occurs after one year of the purchase is ridiculous. Maybe Alamy should be similar to other agencies and report the sale when they get the funds and not when the bill is generated.

Kone
Title: Re: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: Alamy on July 07, 2014, 03:00
Thanks to James for responding on the forum about my concern.
 
It is hard for me say if the image was cleared or not, to be honest, I didn't pay attention to that details.
If the image is not cleared for a certain time, then Alamy should go after the customer or simply cancel the order.


That's the thing, we did do that - we were going after the customer for the whole time, as we do with ALL uncleared sales. We have a credit control team who have set procedures in place in order to obtain funds. A year is a long time in this case but rarely it can take that long. It was just a cancellation, not a refund as the customer never used it or paid for it. I appreciate our communication could be better though as it is listed as a 'refund' in your account.

I can also confirm that it had not cleared. You can see this indicated by a 'x' next to the sale in your 'balance of account' page.

We took the decision when we first started to report in real time so you are more aware of what is happening with your images in real time. Also, if we were to only show the sale when the funds have cleared then we would be inundated with inquiries about images being used that had not been paid for yet. As Bunhill rightly says, billing cycles like this are the norm for many publishers.

Cheers

James
Title: Re: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: Alamy on July 07, 2014, 09:07
*double post
Title: Re: Alamy Sale Refund
Post by: Batman on July 07, 2014, 20:20
Alamy has refunded a sale a few times in the past for me. It's almost always the big purchase that gets refunded. I had one refund last month for about $250 from  a sale from more than a year ago. They just took money from my account without any explanation!
This is ridiculous!
I always thought that Alamy was more professional than other agencies, but it looks like all agencies are exactly the same.

Kone
How is this unprofessional?
See my highlighting above.


But Alamy didn't take money back which was never thjere and wasn't ever paid. It wasn't a clawback as called. Not a refund. Most of this thread is mistaken and false. Alamy fixed that and now people find other things to complain.