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.


 

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....

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.

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

Mine? Of course you can

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.
 

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

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.
 

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!

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.

 (
"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...

 here, i just visited it...
 this is what it now says when i clicked on his name in the photographers list from xxxxx website


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

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.