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Author Topic: stockphotospot affairs  (Read 7813 times)

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« on: February 14, 2008, 09:43 »
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Stockphotospot is a bad business and I am working on collecting enough info to report them with the Better Business Bureau.

They claim to pay $1-$2, they pay 10c per upload, they claim to provide customer support and guarantee a contact within 24 hours, I have been trying to reach them by email for the past year. Completely ignorant.

I uploaded my photos six month ago, but did not get paid yet. Yet?

Their website will list the same photos under "new arrivals" and "most popular".

By mistake I uploaded my family photos and they should not have posted them without me submitting the model release form, but they did and, of course, since I cannot reach anyone - I cannot terminate, or make any motion whatsoever.



the list is endless. Call me naive - I have a hard time believing that such business is in operation and nothing can be done in this country in dealing with a poor and dirt cheap performance such Stock Photo Spot.

Spread the world and do not deal with a crappy business.

I do my job 100% and expect same from others, drives me up to the wall when it is not the case.


For any info e-mail me to newbielink:mailto:[email protected] [nonactive] ,

including the personnel of the aforementioned company :):):)


fotoKmyst

« Reply #1 on: March 26, 2008, 14:59 »
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i read your submission and others here about this SPS.
so i went to ask questions to verify.
the autoreply say i will get a reply within one business day.
i got no reply.

so i got a colleague to do the same, same thing. almost a month has past.

i check regularly to see what others mentioned about the featured photos and best photos or whatnot.
they are right, they never change.

and finally, my only guess (this is a guess) is that they never really have anyone running the support line.
it's probably some guy putting up his site, and then using all the submitted photos to sell as a royalty free on one of those monthly special you see... like what? 50 buck a shot?

as for the 2 dollar deal. i think it says up to 2 dollars / upload
but if you check another form, it can be another thing...
it listed any thing from a few pennies to 2 dollars.

oh another thing.
to get them to pay you have to accumulated 100 bucks.
you'll never get paid.  just calculate how many photos you have to upload . they might even do it like you've earned 98 bucks.
still you don't get anything.
they didn't break the law. you just didn't reach 100 bucks.

meanwhile all your photos are being sold .

did you try deleting your photos?

they never said anything in FAQ of how to do that
or what happens if you canceled your account.
do they pay you what they owe you?
most reputable site will pay you if you decided to resign. even if the money owe if not up to that 100 pay out.

as for the new photos, i get the feeling it's not new, it's just reshuffling of what they have.

doesn't look very promising. how can you say it's pro when the top photos are like 10 pictures of the same cigarettes or headphones.
Hmmm!!!!

good post, i am glad you and the others submitted this.
you saved me the hassle of joining SPS. i owe you all one.


 8)

« Reply #2 on: March 26, 2008, 15:13 »
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That site was my first contact with microstock world.
Novice error  :-[
Very bad experience to start with.
I uploaded 5 "serious" photos to see what happen but something smelled bad (most popular photos, support...)
Then I started to upload horrible snapshots to see if they say something. Nothing, all approved.
I gave up with 58 usd.

The worst thing is that you cant delete the images.

You have my support.

« Reply #3 on: March 26, 2008, 15:42 »
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I dont know why are you all trying at those crappy sites at the first place?  Stick to top 5 sites, and everything will be ok....

« Reply #4 on: March 26, 2008, 15:52 »
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I like to think that thanks to that nasty site I found the good ones.
It served me as a lesson for joining in risky adventures.
Fortunatelly, almost all my uploaded photos were old nasty snapshots  ;D

« Reply #5 on: March 26, 2008, 15:55 »
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Not allowing deletion or at least disabling of images is simply bad business. If exclisive rights are sold elsewhere, you are screwed. Yeah, gey the word out on these guys.

Can post some of your text to my blog? will help get the word out a bit.

In the meantime, I am going to tale a look at their terms etc. Won't even do a trial "joke join" hough because god only knows where my personal info will wind up. Will post anything interesting that I find.

Good note on trying the risky ones when you are new. To be successful in the long run, you need to do a lot of industry analysis and ask a lot of questions. Unfortunately, those feeling the sting of 5 tome shutterstock rejections may go this route.
« Last Edit: March 26, 2008, 15:59 by snurder »

« Reply #6 on: March 26, 2008, 16:07 »
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My 2 minute opinion - they offer a $59.95/year unlimited download plan. This is bad right off the start. With numerous subscriptions, the math is fuzzy. How would they ever pay you?

My advice - stay far away.

« Reply #7 on: March 26, 2008, 16:09 »
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Can post some of your text to my blog? will help get the word out a bit.


Mine? Of course you can

« Reply #8 on: March 26, 2008, 16:13 »
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Thx Tre - I will take some snippets and will write a little article in the next few days. My blog is still under development, but it does get some good casual traffic.

fotoKmyst

« Reply #9 on: March 26, 2008, 17:41 »
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My 2 minute opinion - they offer a $59.95/year unlimited download plan. This is bad right off the start. With numerous subscriptions, the math is fuzzy. How would they ever pay you?

i have to agree. you won't make any money but they do.
imagine if a thousand ppl paid this, and being worldwide on the net,
a thousand ppl is not impossible for even a month. we'll say one person per country or one person per city around the world. how many ppl would you get to enrol. like 59 bucks is not expensive for unlimited.

the guy who runs this "company" will get 59,000
he does not respond to anyone.
by the time all of the photographers discover this is fishy,
he already has lots of photos to used for free.
no one will get to 100 US to be paid.
 he still walks away with 59,000 dollars.

he opens another stock photo , or how many others we don't know.
he does the same thing.
auto response to say we got your mail. we usually reply to you within 24 hours or xxx days.
 no reply.

he's probably gone to start yet another stock photo site or other businesses .
do your maths, that's quite a lot of money in his pocket doing nothing.

he didn't cheat anyone. no one get to 100 bucks.

scary, but it's a reality.
 
« Last Edit: March 26, 2008, 17:43 by fotoKmyst »

« Reply #10 on: March 26, 2008, 18:12 »
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Something definiely not right with this whole thing. I did a lookup on the domain owner

http://whois.domaintools.com/stockphotospot.com

Web master in Los Angeles?

The Contact Us on the site lists the following

StockphotoSPOT - US
MUSPB #2882
445 Park Avenue, 9th Floor
New York, N.Y., 10022
United States

I am guessing this is a mail drop because of the MUSPB code. Smart to at least get a drop with a Park Ave address.

There is also an AU contact with only a PO Box.

I am also guessing that if my mail drop guess is correct with no official office (premises), they are probably not offically doing business in NY State (no DBA or permits obtained). My recommendation woukd be to pursue through the New York State Attorney General's office because it is commerce related and they allude to a NYC location in their contact info.   

If they were selling tangible goods (like instruction books or photo CDs, it would also be easy to pursue thru NYS Sales Tax dept, who are like a bunch of angry pit bulls at times (not a bad thing when it comes to things like this).

And here's a bonus too - although I don't get a hit on the exact contact phone of 2063503884, I did a lookup on the area code and exchange, and that is in Seattle WA USA.

Hope this helps you guys out.

Additinal edit - did some fishing on 445 Park Ave address - this is near Central Park - some high priced real estate - to rent offices here would most likely cost several thousand per month.

Also note all of this info was easily obtained via the web and there is no intent to defame or slander, just posting what I found and making some educated guesses.

And more - Have found other business using this location, and none that I found use a mail code like the MUSPB, so I am still gessing mail service. And the topper - Just did a little more sleuthing and the leasing agent for this address offers a "mailbox plus" service where you can in effect have a virtual office with a Park Ave address. Otherwise rents at this address are $2000-$9000/month. 
« Last Edit: March 26, 2008, 19:09 by snurder »

« Reply #11 on: March 26, 2008, 19:45 »
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Sorry but this just got me going. In addition to various previous posts on this forum, also see this link

http://www.northeastfoto.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6538

Here's an excerpt:

They also have a "Special Offer Expires: June 21, 2007 @ 11 PM CST. Normally $159.95/yr." but the expiry date is always changing - so I'm afraid they are trying to rip buyers as well as photographers.

I had made a mental note to ceck and see if it was a changing date - apparently my suspicions were correct.

And here's the best link from their own board

http://www.stockphotospot.com/do-not-purchasescam--stock-photo-a37297-54.html

« Reply #12 on: March 27, 2008, 02:11 »
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there have been a couple discussions about them before here-  all with the same conclusion. I have posted the threads below

http://www.microstockgroup.com/index.php/topic,2327.0.html
http://www.microstockgroup.com/index.php/topic,2208.0.html
http://www.microstockgroup.com/index.php/topic,1084.0.html

« Reply #13 on: March 27, 2008, 02:16 »
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And here is one just for good measure, right from their photo inventory. Unfortunately it is not likely that the interested newbie will stumble on this and they'll just start uploading photos.

http://www.stockphotospot.com/stockphotospot-never-paid-me-for-this-photo-dont-buy-sedona-arizona-red-rock-county-red-rock-scam-sexy-stock-photo-a56042-41.html

Ok done with my rant. I have contacted the OP via email asking him to check this thread.

As far as pursuit of the situation, the only thing that "may" work here is the internet white collar crime division of the FBI. And that is really may work only if the USA buyers gets ripped.  Because the screwed photogs are global, it gets harder to pursue.

I don't know if this is big enough for the FTC to get involved, and then again, it would really have to involve money transactions, not just data transfers.
 

« Reply #14 on: March 27, 2008, 02:18 »
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Thx for the links Leaf. At least if the discussion gets big enough, it will pick up more steam in the search engines if some one tries to look up info on this place.

« Reply #15 on: March 27, 2008, 03:25 »
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I was caught out by stockphotospot too when I first began my road on stock photography. I was lured in by the payment on upload, although it was a small amount they pay per image I thought at least it was more than I was getting for my images sitting on my hard disk. I should have known better!

fotoKmyst

« Reply #16 on: March 27, 2008, 13:03 »
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And here is one just for good measure, right from their photo inventory. Unfortunately it is not likely that the interested newbie will stumble on this and they'll just start uploading photos.

http://www.stockphotospot.com/stockphotospot-never-paid-me-for-this-photo-dont-buy-sedona-arizona-red-rock-county-red-rock-scam-sexy-stock-photo-a56042-41.html

Ok done with my rant. I have contacted the OP via email asking him to check this thread.

As far as pursuit of the situation, the only thing that "may" work here is the internet white collar crime division of the FBI. And that is really may work only if the USA buyers gets ripped.  Because the screwed photogs are global, it gets harder to pursue.

I don't know if this is big enough for the FTC to get involved, and then again, it would really have to involve money transactions, not just data transfers.
 


wow, good detective work.
no one would have found that.
if only more of the photographers with them do that. it would sure help newbies not to join to upload their own photos.

i also saw something in another forum about them.
you can find it by googling the company's name.
in that forum he/she also said he/she wasn't paid, but also  emailed them and did not get a response other than the auto-response.
and of course,  cannot delete the photos.

this is getting incredible, and quite discouraging for newbies or established photographers looking to join.


« Reply #17 on: March 27, 2008, 18:17 »
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I posted some commentary to my blog and put out a Twitter alert which brought some traffic in. Seeing this (especially the initial post) just annoyed . out of me last nite, and I just couldn't let it go.

As far as pursuit and trying to get compensation, every photog who got sucked into this is unfortunately sort of between a rock and a hard place. On the part of the photogs, well you weren't asked for any cash. If it was the case of "photogs, pay $.25 each image for guaranteed approval" well then there might be a case if sales were logged against a photo. But it is more of a case of breach of contract with international implications and hard to prosecute, because contract laws will vary fro country to country, and here even from state to state. It would be interesting for me to see their Terms of Service - if anyone would like to post feel free. Because this place is scum, I will not even open a dummy account to get them. I think the contributor terms are buried past the signup.

As far as copyrighted images being held hostage, well probably a lot who posted there do not have images registered with appropriate gov't entitities, so no real recourse there. The claims of infringement or misuse would be nebulous at best, because the photog did in fact agree to Terms, and buried in some of the language I saw, the submittor did in fact agree to a quasi redistribution scheme of sorts.

I found more dirt on this whole thing last nite. One of the things I found was the suspicious link offs from some of those scam "Work At Home" sites, so there might be something there.


The real unfortunate thing here is that this place has successfully preyed on the meek. People who posted there in hope of a few bucks were those who stumbled upon this by chance, looked at those "work at home" sites, or got shellshocked from 5 time shutterstock and istock rejections. Also unfortunate is that there could be a "ringer" in some of those submitted photos, meaning one that could really sell. The internet promises of the make money is just plain cruel - it's like kicking puppies and laughing.

It is really buyers who got sucked into the "download package" who would be most effective in triggering some kind of action, escpecially if fraudalent charges start appearing on credit cards. See related post

http://www.microstockgroup.com/index.php/topic,4045.msg39424

Even though this stockphotospot is from all facets scam, when you look at the nitty gritty legal as it applies to the stock industry, you would not be able to offer exclusive rights on the major services because they cannot be deleted from the stockphotospot service. Because the images submitted are tied up in this scam operation, who knows where they will wind up. The good ones could wind up on a photo CD on EBay - worse yet, family pics could wind up where you really don't want them to. This might be an unfortunate live and learn lesson for those who got lured into stockphotospot, while the owner is laughing all the way to the bank and has since probably suckered more people into more scams.

Anyway, I am going to keep this alive on my blog, and will be doing some more research to see where this can go, if anywhere. Right now in my thinking of which routes can be taken, legally almost everything with regards to pursuit is a dead end, mainly because this is crossing international boundaries, and the offended parties are in various jurisdictions, plus the fact that the only vocal complaints I can find are the photogs, and there is no cash loss by them. A "promise of payment" cannot be construed as a cash loss - it is just breach of contract.. The principal has cloaked him or herself in enough anonymity to make this hard for the average person to persue, yet not meaty enough for any law or government agency to take it on. One hope is that maybe I can get the attention of a good reporter who is interested enough in the story as it relates to the work at home scams, part of the angle being of course how easily the meek get sucked in.

I also have a few more internet searches up my sleeve. Will keep you posted on anything new that I find.
« Last Edit: March 27, 2008, 18:19 by snurder »

« Reply #18 on: March 27, 2008, 18:26 »
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And just one more - here is an istock forum post who, even though being from another country, has realized the legal ramifications as they apply to him. So very sad.

http://jezykpolski.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=57721&page=1

Here is a snip from the post:

"I now definitely wanted out, even before I found my home in iStock.
I deleated all pending files, but there is no way to deleate approved onces (understandably as they pay uploads, but as yet no money has been payed out to me). I tried removing title, description and keyword on a few files to see if that would give a response but of no awail.

I dont know what more I can do. Am I in villenage for ever and for ever unable to become Exclusive (yes I have a long way to go anyhow with 18 downloads)."

fotoKmyst

« Reply #19 on: March 27, 2008, 18:30 »
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 ( :o
"you would not be able to offer exclusive rights on the major services because they cannot be deleted from the stockphotospot service."

snurder, this part that i quoted from you  should be one for all who are planning to join a stock service , like myself, to remember.
it's so true.
like for that unfortunate photographer who submitted his rant in the other forum on another site, he/she now is unable to go exclusive with those photos he /she submitted to this service.

i think he/she mentioned submitting quite a lot, which is why it got him/her quite angry because he was expecting like 2 dollars per submission, and got nothing .

just reading his/her story was enough for me to feel sorry for that person, or all the others who are in there.
i hate to have submitted say even 20 good photos and then get nowhere else to go if they require exclusive.

and the followup you added , the extract from this particular photographer,
that is so horrible. that photographer is toast as far as his submissions.
at least if he had said they were terrible shots , it would not be so bad,but i am sure this person, like most, did not all submit terrible shots.
who would?

wow
thanks again. i am going to keep watching this thread to see what else is coming... 8)
« Last Edit: March 27, 2008, 18:39 by fotoKmyst »

fotoKmyst

« Reply #20 on: March 28, 2008, 06:58 »
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GOOD NEWS... :D

here's something i found out from my chat buddies.

he said he had an experience like that, and got this secret way from his photo club president who was a retired lawyer or judge or whatever.
 this is what he did...
 he went in to just fill every single box of each of his photos with information that from this day on you have no authorization to use my photos, so there is no sale allowed or anything...
or something like that.  i can't remember exactly the words, but it was very legalise, so obviously well-written as taught by the photo club president.
he did this to every box, he said.
he also did this in his profile.

the next time he checked his name, there was a note saying there are no photos available from this photographer.

hope this helps.
« Last Edit: March 28, 2008, 07:05 by fotoKmyst »

fotoKmyst

« Reply #21 on: March 28, 2008, 07:15 »
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 here, i just visited it...
 this is what it now says when i clicked on his name in the photographers list from xxxxx website 8)


Biography:
as of this date, no permission is given to xxxxx  to use any or all of my photos in whatever form whatsoever.

Website:


Thumbnail(s) per page:
There are no photos in this category

PaulieWalnuts

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« Reply #22 on: March 28, 2008, 07:26 »
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Another good example of why not to jump aboard every new stock site that pops up.

« Reply #23 on: March 28, 2008, 07:48 »
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As far as copyrighted images being held hostage, well probably a lot who posted there do not have images registered with appropriate gov't entitities, so no real recourse there.

Just wanted to quickly point something out.  Most of the world doesn't have to register their copyright with the government, they just automatically have it.  And I doubt that US "registered" copyright would actually mean anything more than "normal" copyright in the rest of the world either.  You make something, it's yours.  It's up to the other party to prove that it isn't yours.

« Reply #24 on: March 28, 2008, 18:27 »
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I can't believe so many are wasting so much time trying to dig information about a crook.
If it looks like a snake and rattles like a snake, that's all you need to know to walk away.


 

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