+1 (the only difference is a smaller number than Lisa!  )

Just noticed that the last fraudulent charge appears to have been made at 5:14 am.  The charges after that are normal size and not reversed.  Hopefully that means that whatever BigStock is doing managed to put a stop to it?

Pixart - I'm not 100% sure what you're seeing, but we can look into it.  Please reach out directly to the support email address and they'll look into anything that you can't explain.
http://www.bigstockphoto.com/contactus.html

That was me overreacting in a way - but now I see now that it's the money put "on hold" for new sales causing confusion (I get pretty uptight when by balance diminishes!).  For illustation - say yesterday I had $50 with nothing on hold and I could cash out.  Today I had $11 in bogus sales, and they are put "on hold" anyway.  Then the $11 is reversed from my account.   That balances out the bogus sales on your side - but the $11 bogus sales are still "on hold" so the account balance is $39 when it should really be $50 and no cash out is possible until the $11 clears. 

Noone will be surprised if you suspend cashouts for the moment anyway so it should all wash out when the "hold" clears the account - what is that - 7 days? 

I hope that makes some kind of sense to you.  Happy New Year everyone.

That was me overreacting in a way - but now I see now that it's the money put "on hold" for new sales causing confusion (I get pretty uptight when by balance diminishes!).  For illustation - say yesterday I had $50 with nothing on hold and I could cash out.  Today I had $11 in bogus sales, and they are put "on hold" anyway.  Then the $11 is reversed from my account.   That balances out the bogus sales on your side - but the $11 bogus sales are still "on hold" so the account balance is $39 when it should really be $50 and no cash out is possible until the $11 clears. 

I see I have a negative $73 balance.  That makes no sense to me.  They have already deducted the $170+ of bad charges, but why is the remaining $73 showing as a negative balance? 

I agree with Pixart - I am willing to wait for a cash out until this is all straightened out - but I am concerned when I see proceeds from legitimate sales showing as a negative balance...

And, to continue with Lisa's question, what happens about images already downloaded?  Are they being used for FREE in violation of author's copyright?

Nothing for me.  You know your portfolio is really bad when even fraudulent buyers don't want your stuff.   

Are we related?

I did have a $2 sale in Oct. It's about time for one more for the year? I'm still on the track to cash out and close my account, sometime in 2012 if I live that long.

Hello All,

In response to some of the earlier inquiries - unfortunately, we can't give specifics or details about security procedures.  We do have a large number of existing security checks in place and (like other e-commerce sites) we aggressively monitor and adjust them on an active basis to prevent fraud.   As you know from recent issues at iStock, fraudsters work hard to mimic legitimate customer behavior and these attempts seem to have spiked this week.    

Many of our existing prevention methods have already been successful, but we are putting increasingly restrictive controls and review procedures in place.  Our staff has been actively working through the holidays (and continues to do so) to ensure a safe selling and buying experience.

In response to negative balances - I'm going to speak with the team and we'll get that straightened out.  As mentioned earlier, please forward any details to the [email protected] e-mail address, since that will create a ticket for the team to track with details.

Best Regards,

Scott

Understand, thanks for responding here!

I had five sales today that are all invalid transactions. I am glad BigStock was there to get a handle on it immediately. I really appreciate that. I am a little concerned, too, about the images being stolen. I hope the thieves can be tracked down and prosecuted.

Just want to add my note of appreciation to the list, Scott.  Thanks so much for the timely and informative posts, and thanks to the team at BigStock for their hard work in addressing this issue.  It's very reassuring.  Much respect, and happy new year to all at BigStock. 

I am a little concerned over the fact that although the credit card fraud has been detected, stopped, and our accounts were adjusted immediately, the person downloading STILL got my images. If this person didn't have any moral issues using the stolen credit card to make the purchases, I don't believe they are going to have any problems giving my images away or even reselling them and grabbing the money.

What I don't want to see is a blanket statement, such as has already been issued, that copyright infringement is taken seriously, but we never hear anything again about what has actually been done to prosecute the person who stole the images.

292,000 images had copyright information removed and replaced from them, via BigStock, Media Bakery, Colossus and Pixmac. The images were pulled down, but AFTER the damage had already been done. I haven't heard a single word about what the agency(ies) have done to prosecute the person responsible for changing our copyright information to that of Colossus. That whole issue just disappeared into thin air. Nobody knows nothing and nobody was at fault.

I expect to be compensated for the fact that a few of my best selling images have now been stolen. Multiply that by how many images overall have gotten stolen this past couple of weeks and we aren't talking chump change anymore.

Back room deals with only the big suppliers isn't good enough. Each and every contributor affected should expect to receive compensation for what has been stolen from them.

What a pisser. Over 60 of my images (many of them my best sellers) have been ripped off in this round of fraud. As it stands right now, I have no idea what my true earnings were for December, and when I try to request a payout, it says that I have an insufficient account balance to do so. I know that's not correct, so I hope this gets resolved soon.