Author Topic: Fotolia no longer pays referral income for referred photographers! (Read 24484 times)

graficallyminded · « **on:** September 26, 2008, 14:56 »

All of the affilliates I have are less than 2 years old. As far as I know, they expired after 5 years...

Why are they all red now? I just saw them the other day, and they were all green. Can you guys check your accounts?

I just contacted support. I'll let you know what I find out. I really hope they didn't decide to take back what they said they'd give us.

graficallyminded · « **Reply #1 on:** September 26, 2008, 14:59 »

http://www.fotolia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=14300

Peter · « **Reply #2 on:** September 26, 2008, 16:05 »

affiliation is only 1 year. my affiliation partners expired after 1 year also. I thought it is 5 years, but aparently, it is 1 year

graficallyminded · « **Reply #3 on:** September 26, 2008, 16:38 »

Even some of my affiliates that are over 1 year old that I have signed up say they expire in 2013...so the one year thing isn't necessarily true depending on when you signed up with Fotolia. But 3/4 of the rest of them are now deactivated - RED.

For example - this one is in the green on my account:

Sign up date:
06-26-2007 12:43:58 am (This is more than 1 year ago)

Expiration:
06-24-2012 12:43:58 am (This date is exactly 5 years later)

Peter · « **Reply #4 on:** September 27, 2008, 00:47 »

maybe it depends when your affiliates signed up on FT.

graficallyminded · « **Reply #5 on:** September 27, 2008, 09:30 »

You would think so, but even my most recent signups don't say they expire for 5 years.

So far I know 3 people that this "glitch" has happened to. Anyone else experiencing this?

Karimala · « **Reply #6 on:** September 27, 2008, 12:44 »

All of my affiliates are fine, including three that originated in early 2007.

No Longer Cares · « **Reply #7 on:** September 28, 2008, 08:43 »

I have this problem as well. I contacted support to find out what's going on.

graficallyminded · « **Reply #8 on:** September 28, 2008, 09:39 »

I have received a response to my support ticket, that they will answer me soon - but to please wait. Ok, I'll wait.

No Longer Cares · « **Reply #9 on:** September 30, 2008, 16:01 »

I received this from Fotolia support:

My question:

Why have these affiliates expired on my account? I have read posts that I am not the only person dealing with this? What happened? These are suppose to be for 5 years.

I had about 100 removed, many of them making money.

Their response: (totally false cause a lot of mine I personally refered! the rest are from my website)

Hello Brandon,

We recently discovered a bug in our system that linked affiliates to your account that do not belong. These affiliates have been paying you incorrectly as a result we have removed these affiliates. We will however allow you to keep the past money you accidentally were paid. This decision came directly from the President and CEO of Fotolia and will not be reconsidered.

No Longer Cares · « **Reply #10 on:** September 30, 2008, 16:05 »

I sent another email. If this does not get worked out soon, I will be pulling all links I have to Fotolia. No more refs from me.

No Longer Cares · « **Reply #11 on:** October 01, 2008, 18:06 »

Looks like most, not all, but most have been set back to normal. Anyone else?

graficallyminded · « **Reply #12 on:** October 02, 2008, 10:15 »

Yes, me too. Thankfully I at least have some of mine left. The best affiliate is gone though

I guess they got there by mistake due to a major error. I got this directly from Chad, the director of US operations.

There's no way to dispute this, even if I wanted to. I trust that they are telling the truth, though. It's a shame we didn't have an advanced warning that this was going to happen to our accounts, instead of us having to suddenly find out for ourselves. That would have cleared up a lot of the stress and confusion.

No Longer Cares · « **Reply #13 on:** October 02, 2008, 14:01 »

Personally, I would like more details about this "bug" and how they figure we were affected. This "blanket" disable of affiliates makes me wonder about the actions being taken and their true motive. If the ones I still have disabled are truly "bug" related, why did the others get disabled before someone really looked into it? Sounds kinda fishy to me. This is one of the major problems of microstock. I feel we are more like cattle in the field.

Lee Torrens · « **Reply #14 on:** October 03, 2008, 10:55 »

I've experienced the same thing. I read this post, but didn't think to check. Only when I noticed my referral income was down about 50% did the penny drop! I've emailed support and hopefully they can restore mine as well.

The ones that have been erroneously expired are also all my earliest ones which only started appearing after I started my blog. So I won't be believing the they-were-assigned-to-you-by-mistake excuse.

I'll await their official response, but from the experiences reported here by AreaPhotography, it looks awfully suspicious.

melking · « **Reply #15 on:** October 03, 2008, 12:55 »

I just got this from fotolia:

"We apologize for the inconvenience. Unfortunately we no longer pay affiliation revenue for new photographers. How ever we do pay out affiliation for new buyers that are recruited."

how come they are not going to fix mine?

Melissa

Lee Torrens · « **Reply #16 on:** October 03, 2008, 13:01 »

Quote from: melking on October 03, 2008, 12:55

"We apologize for the inconvenience. Unfortunately we no longer pay affiliation revenue for new photographers. How ever we do pay out affiliation for new buyers that are recruited."

They can't be serious! If this is a change in policy how can they let it first hit the streets via a support response? If this is an error, how can they let a representative say something so monumentally erroneous?

melking · « **Reply #17 on:** October 03, 2008, 13:06 »

Man this sucks...I am so mad!

melking · « **Reply #18 on:** October 03, 2008, 13:06 »

why are some people getting there accounts fixed and not me?

Lee Torrens · « **Reply #19 on:** October 03, 2008, 14:26 »

Me too Mel, no resolution yet, but I only submitted my support ticket a few hours ago. Still, my referral earnings are down about 50%. I'm quite upset too. Why do Fotolia's "bugs" always seem to cost us money?

melking · « **Reply #20 on:** October 03, 2008, 15:12 »

Ya...All I am getting is it is a bug!

No Longer Cares · « **Reply #21 on:** October 03, 2008, 18:15 »

I emailed Chad. The next day it was sort of back to normal. If that is the case, that they no longer pay for photographers, don't they still have to honor your existing affiliates? They can't just cut you out, can they? That is a 5 yr contract.

If that is true, I am pulling my links. This is not being handled well. It makes me think differently of Fotolia. I feel left standing with no cloths on. Its not cool. This kind of change needs to be announced well before.

Pixart · « **Reply #22 on:** October 03, 2008, 18:17 »

Have'nt they stopped giving bonus for referred photographers? Someone told me they signed up under me a couple weeks back and he's had sales already, but I have no new affilates. From what I can tell they are only giving bonus on sales now. Am I wrong?

Area posted as I was writing this. Hm... pull my links?

leaf · « **Reply #23 on:** October 03, 2008, 18:42 »

same problem here, many photographers were deactived prematurely on 10-01-2008 12:00:00 am

I have send a message to fotolia support

Lee Torrens · « **Reply #24 on:** October 03, 2008, 19:29 »

I just got the same response to my support requests as Melking:

Quote

We apologize for the inconvenience. Unfortunately we no longer pay affiliation revenue for new photographers. How ever we do pay out affiliation for new buyers that are recruited.

If that is true, Fotolia are not honoring their own contract for anyone who signs up now and refers photographers as they haven't updated the agreement their website - it still reads that they *do* pay for referred photographers.
On the assumption that the contract we've all signed says something to the effect that they can 'change the contract at any time without notice', then they've screwed us big time.
If it's in fact not true and what support have told me and Melking is erroneous, then Fotolia have support people giving out false information to their customers.

I'm looking forward to finding out which one it is. Breach of contract, screwing customers, or giving out False information.

Maybe it's a combination.

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Author Topic: Fotolia no longer pays referral income for referred photographers! (Read 24484 times)

graficallyminded

graficallyminded

Peter

graficallyminded

Peter

graficallyminded

Karimala

No Longer Cares

graficallyminded

No Longer Cares

No Longer Cares

No Longer Cares

graficallyminded

No Longer Cares

Lee Torrens

melking

Lee Torrens

melking

melking

Lee Torrens

melking

No Longer Cares

Pixart

leaf

Lee Torrens

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