I can trump your Surprised and Disappointment-

Try getting two sales were my net was over $300 and both were returned on day number 28! Since then I don't count my sales on this site- if they sell and CLEAR than it is a bonus...

... I get the princely sum of $2.09.

After weeks of nothing, I just had one that netted me $100.  But I know from experience there's a good chance it will be cancelled after weeks or months, and the $100 will be 'deducted' from my account.   

Why they go through this nonsense - showing photographers sales that aren't really sales - is totally beyond me.  It does nothing but alienate the photographer.  And these deadbeat "buyers" get free use of our photos for all that time.

2 sales reported last week netted me over $120 each. Both are showing as paid but not yet cleared. Different clients and uses. Returns would be quite a let down !

I think it is the best outlet available to me for some sorts of RM editorial pictures which would be lost to the best match at iStock - and I doubt that someone would go to iStock for either of these sorts of editorial subjects. They are pics which I set out to take because I thought they would be useful. They both came from a to-do list of stuff to shoot. So I am feeling quite positive about these sales. Neither picture would get *liked* on FB or at say Flickr or 500px. They are not glamorous or stylish! Really quite mundane.

That said I am an Alamy newbie. I have very few pics there yet and I only made payout twice. So maybe I should wait quite a while longer before drawing too many positive conclusions. My feeling is that if an image is going to only be an occasional seller then it needs to be somewhere where potentially it can be found and sell for a better number.

2 sales reported last week netted me over $120 each. Both are showing as paid but not yet cleared. Different clients and uses. Returns would be quite a let down !

Last month I had a 50% refund on one of my best value sales of last year, almost 11 months after it sold. Queried it and was told the client hadn't used it and they'd allowed the 50% refund after such a very long time as they are 'key clients'.

Out of interest - did the refund take place after the payment had cleared?

Yes. It was recorded as sold last August, was paid last October and partially refunded last month. When I calmed down, it did seem like a reasonable compromise, but at the time it was a bit of a shock as iStock was so bad last month but Alamy was picking up, then suddenly the total dropped. 

Grief, Lisa, are these RF sales? I was led to believe that RF sales sell for more than RM.
lead to repeated use sales, but that won't happen in RF.

Yep, all RF.  Some were Novel Use, which I expect to be low, but more than half were regular sales, the HIGHEST commission of which was $4.02.