MicrostockGroup
Microstock Footage Forum => General - Stock Video => Topic started by: thirdbornentertainment on October 10, 2017, 18:39
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I just had two 4k sales on videoblocks/storyblocks and the clips were refunded immediately. How is this possible? I'm assuming the person is just buying the clips and getting their money back while keeping the digital downloads. Why are they allowing this crap to happen? So basically we can download content, any content we want and then ask for a refund. Great stuff Video Blocks!
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happened to me
they claim the transaction was from stolen credit card
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Had the same thing happen several times. Seems to me they need a better system for authorising accounts if they've just signed up. Pretty obvious that its deliberate fraud to access our content.
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same here - one after another.
i guess, it's going to be available at pirate sites later this evening, if not already :) :)
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Not much they can do about it a charge-back is initiated. And any kind of verification would just go on whether the card is valid and active... which it would need to be for them to make the purchase in the first place.
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Yes, this happens, and it's one of the main reasons they delay the sales reports 3 days at Pond5.
This can be done in any online store. Well, actually, in any store. Just like shoplifting and pickpocketing it happens all the time, but of course it sucks when it happens to you...
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It happened to me for the first time today.
I don't think it can be a problem of stolen credit cards.
Who is going to be interested in downloading with a stolen credit card some clips or photos?
If we were speaking of goods like telephones or something precious I can understand it but with clips I cannot.
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It happened to me for the first time today.
I don't think it can be a problem of stolen credit cards.
Who is going to be interested in downloading with a stolen credit card some clips or photos?
If we were speaking of goods like telephones or something precious I can understand it but with clips I cannot.
Well, there are many kinds of thieves. Since you can find stolen images, clips, music, software in the millions it isn't very hard to believe that they would use stolen credit cards (numbers, not the actual cards) to download clips for either pirate sites, or to sell themselves.
The risk is near 0 to get caught for this crime, and we've all seen that nothing really happens when thieves sell our assets. The account gets shut down. They start a new one. That's it.
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One after another so far this month!
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It can be also bought using card which is absolutelly o.k., than, ask for refund, saying "i'm good kid, i deleted the file from hard drive, and deleted from deleted files, and i'm not going to recover these deleted-deleted files from my hard drive using some file-saving software" - and they got their refound.
and after that, put all the content online at pirate sites.
*i have books at amazon kindle store. i remember when i published one - when it went online, i had one (and only one) purchase instantly, and refund after that. i had no purchases for that specific book for another two weeks i guess, but second (actually less than one) day after publishing - when i typed "myname/mybookname/torrent" - i had it listed at few pirate sites.
**i even wrote comment where it was possible - steal this book, it's great one - i know it's great -because i'm an author :) :) :)
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**i even wrote comment where it was possible - steal this book, it's great one - i know it's great -because i'm an author :) :) :)
;D Best thing you can do at that point!
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At this point, considering that many of us experienced this occurrence, would be nice to have a public point of view from Videoblocks/Storyblocks.
It seems like other sites don't experience the same situation as frequently as VB/SB
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Ok so it was a stolen card and by the looks of it hundreds? (5 of mine) were downloaded. SB doing their best to stop this happening.
Anyway; why would someone do this? Must be to re-sell based on the subject matter and variety of mine.
I think we should all try and find the stolen videos. You can reverse search a video using a thumbnail and google or the other methods.
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this happened to me with 1 4k video ($200) about a week ago.
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Ok so it was a stolen card and by the looks of it hundreds? (5 of mine) were downloaded. SB doing their best to stop this happening.
Anyway; why would someone do this? Must be to re-sell based on the subject matter and variety of mine.
I think we should all try and find the stolen videos. You can reverse search a video using a thumbnail and google or the other methods.
What are the other methods?
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I’ve had a sale and refund today..
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Me too. 199 dollar sale, that got a refund a few hours later.
Why don´t they have a system that checks their sales first before issuing the sales notice?
i don´t mind waiting 24 hours, instead of getting excited and spending the money...
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I had 4 x 4K refunds lately. That was... well, a little disappointing :) Unfortunately this is not the fist time.
I guess there is still something to do about the hardest big refunds for stock sites.
There are number of indicators showing that the sale is most likely fraudulent, you can continue if you like:
- there are several sales in a row of a relatively new buyer on the same day, often within a few minutes;
- this buyer had zero to few purchases before (most likely);
- the sales are the highest resolution files available;
- the files have nothing in common (although the latest refund files did) and scarcely made for the same project.
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I had 4 x 4K refunds lately. That was... well, a little disappointing :) Unfortunately this is not the fist time.
I guess there is still something to do about the hardest big refunds for stock sites.
There are number of indicators showing that the sale is most likely fraudulent, you can continue if you like:
- there are several sales in a row of a relatively new buyer on the same day, often within a few minutes;
- this buyer had zero to few purchases before (most likely);
- the sales are the highest resolution files available;
- the files have nothing in common (although the latest refund files did) and scarcely made for the same project.
I also just had another batch of 4x4k files. At the moment the indication of fraud is they're buying 4k files at all - the only "sales" are fraudulent ones.
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Just had two 4K sales on Storyblocks yesterday, both got refunded in three minutes. Never had a 4k sale on there that did not get refunded.
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Well I had a weird one which is kind of the opposite of the current problem. Sold 2 clips a while ago then a few hours later the same two clips sell again. Of course I was expecting a refund pretty quick but so far nothing - clearly something weird going on.
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2x 4K sell. And after few hours refund. WHAT THA F.... Videoblocks? Maybe its time to better verify the buyers?
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I really think they should step in the forum and give some sort of explanation.
This situation can cause them a lot of harm
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I agree with Brightontl I just had another refund, this time an HD sale. This is my 3rd refund since yesterday. 4 sales, 3 refunds. These last 2 days have become a roller coaster ride on Storyblocks.
I also emailed Storyblocks regarding previous two 4K sales and their reply was a typical copy pasted answer saying that the sale was fraudulent etc. Very disappointing.
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This is an insane number of refunds. I wonder what's going on over there?
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2x 4K sell. And after few hours refund. WHAT THA F.... Videoblocks? Maybe its time to better verify the buyers?
They do verify the buyers... by checking that their payment source is active and has available funds at the time of purchase. They could do some additional verification steps, like depositing two random amounts and getting the buyer to check their statement etc... but although this would probably reduce fraudulent purchases, it would also reduce normal purchases. Especially if the buyer is on a deadline.
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But why do there seem to be so many more refunds than on other sites? I don't think the others do any more vetting of buyers, or do they use better systems for checking payments? Something seems to be amiss anyway.
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There have been warnings about VB since they started. Their model is not in the contributors best interest.
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Maybe indirectly... like their model is not in the best interests of VideoBlocks, so that could result in them getting rid of it, lowering commissions, not marketing it as much as they could etc... which would then result in it not being in the best interests of contributors. But currently... easy enough upload, regular sales, not the worst prices, and the best commission rate going? Seems to be in my best interests to upload there.
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I don't agree that the model is necessarily any worse than the standard subs model, where the agency and contributor are in competition. The agency only makes a profit if the buyer doesn't use his allocated sub downloads, the buyer only makes a profit if he does.
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I don't agree that the model is necessarily any worse than the standard subs model, where the agency and contributor are in competition. The agency only makes a profit if the buyer doesn't use his allocated sub downloads, the buyer only makes a profit if he does.
Doesn't videoblocks own much of the content and not pay royalties on that?
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There's the subscription and the marketplace. You have to have a subscription to buy stuff from the marketplace... currently $149 a year as far as I know, but they do $99 offers about 360 days a year.
The subscription means you can download anything from the subscription content, but not the marketplace. For that, they have to pay $49 for HD or $199 for 4K.
Obvioulsy the marketplace couldn't run if there was no subscription, as they wouldn't be making any money... but as they have the subscription, they can use the marketplace as kind of a value add. Yes, they own all the subscription content... they commission work, used to make their own as far as I;m aware, and they buy out portfolios... although not at the best rates from what I hear.
The marketplace content is all owned by the contributors though, and is not available as part of the subscription.
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I would actually be a bit happier if they also took a small percentage (like 5%) to keep them motivated to up-sell subscribers on our content and dissuade them from reproducing premium content in their sub offering.
Businesses will always act in their best interest and they could be tempted to try and duplicate decent content from our portfolios in their collection under the current model.
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I would actually be a bit happier if they also took a small percentage (like 5%) to keep them motivated to up-sell subscribers on our content and dissuade them from reproducing premium content in their sub offering.
Businesses will always act in their best interest and they could be tempted to try and duplicate decent content from our portfolios in their collection under the current model.
It's always a win-win for Videoblocks.
1. If a non-subscriber buys your marketplace clip, it costs $79, and Videoblocks take $30. That's 38%. Or $130 for 4k clips (39.5%).
2. If that non-subscriber wants that clip for $49, they have to buy a subscription. Videoblocks earn $99-149.
3. The marketplace clips help market the site. The $30-130 discount per clip is something people want, and are willing to pay for a subscription to get it, along with thousands of unlimited downloads.
4. The "100%" payout is great marketing and means every contributor in the world is willing to spend time uploading their portfolios.
Their business model is nothing like the Shutterstock subs, and I think most people don't know that VB take $30 (or $130 for 4k) from each non-subscriber sale. It's well-thought-out and business seems to be good.
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Forgot that non subscribers can also but items at a higher price. Good point.
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happened to me
they claim the transaction was from stolen credit card
couple days ago. I had 4k sales on videoblocks 3 clips. all refund
I e-mail them. they claim "the transaction was from stolen credit card"
and yesterday 3 clips sold then all refund again
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I don't agree that the model is necessarily any worse than the standard subs model, where the agency and contributor are in competition. The agency only makes a profit if the buyer doesn't use his allocated sub downloads, the buyer only makes a profit if he does.
Doesn't videoblocks own much of the content and not pay royalties on that?
Yes. They have a wholly owned section whereby paid subscribers can download clips at no extra cost. If they don't find what they want, they can go into the contributor clip pool and purchase from there, but at $49 for HD (as opposed to $79). Contributors keep most of that $49 (taxes, etc.).
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I've had several 4K sales refunded this month.
I'd like to know if the 4K video files were downloaded prior to the refund.
Can Storyblocks be trusted?
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I've unfortunately had some this month too. All 4K. I've asked videoblocks how they can verify that my files won't be mistreated as there email suggests the person has destroyed the file. My argument is how can they say this when the file was bought fraudulently? Obviously they will end up on file sharing websites for free. Videoblocks need to do something ASAP as this is a serious violation on our behalf.
This got me wondering too.....
Wouldn't it be amazing if someone could produce a unique code for each sale of the file, kind of hidden in the .mov container (or such like) each sale had a unique code that if was bought fraudulently or misused - we as the copyright holders could type in that unique code and make that file self destruct. Surly in this day and age a good coder could create such a thing? Or am I wishful thinking?
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So far this month I have had more refunds than sales.
How can they take the word of someone using a stolen credit card that they will delete the file? Why are they even talking to the person?
This is messed up.
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I just got email with refund information. I think this might be a scam. It's happening more often lately. There shouldn't be such thing as a full refund - customers see what they buy, they can download free preview. Is Storyblocks the only website where they give full refund after somebody downloading full quality clip? Shouldn't there be a rule that after downloading HQ *.mov there are no refunds or that customer can download compressed mp4 file before getting hq mov file?
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So far this month I have had more refunds than sales.
How can they take the word of someone using a stolen credit card that they will delete the file? Why are they even talking to the person?
This is messed up.
Who said they're talking to the credit card thieves? There's no word of anything.
The bank, or VISA/Mastercard etc. just tells VB - sorry, stolen card. Money goes back.
It's not a refund if it's credit card fraud. Two completely different things!
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So far this month I have had more refunds than sales.
How can they take the word of someone using a stolen credit card that they will delete the file? Why are they even talking to the person?
This is messed up.
Who said they're talking to the credit card thieves? There's no word of anything.
The bank, or VISA/Mastercard etc. just tells VB - sorry, stolen card. Money goes back.
It's not a refund if it's credit card fraud. Two completely different things!
They mentioned that the customer had 'deleted' the file.
It does not matter what you call it. It is still a refund and when you get more 'refunds' than sales in a month there is something wrong somewhere.
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They mentioned that the customer had 'deleted' the file.
It does not matter what you call it. It is still a refund and when you get more 'refunds' than sales in a month there is something wrong somewhere.
Of course it matters what you call it. They are two VERY different things.
A refund is a customer ASKING for their money back, because they're not satisfied with the clip. Or they lie, and want to get it for free.
Credit card fraud is stolen numbers and the money is taken back by the bank.
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Anyway, yes, the result for you might be the same, but they are two very different things. A refund can be perfectly legitimate. Maybe your clip didn't look good enough at full resolution, or maybe they just bought too many.
You DON'T see exactly what you get before you buy when it comes to footage. I'm sure that all of know that almost any clip looks good in small resolution, but fullscreen is another story.
You don't see the noise for example.
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They mentioned that the customer had 'deleted' the file.
It does not matter what you call it. It is still a refund and when you get more 'refunds' than sales in a month there is something wrong somewhere.
Of course it matters what you call it. They are two VERY different things.
A refund is a customer ASKING for their money back, because they're not satisfied with the clip. Or they lie, and want to get it for free.
Credit card fraud is stolen numbers and the money is taken back by the bank.
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Anyway, yes, the result for you might be the same, but they are two very different things. A refund can be perfectly legitimate. Maybe your clip didn't look good enough at full resolution, or maybe they just bought too many.
You DON'T see exactly what you get before you buy when it comes to footage. I'm sure that all of know that almost any clip looks good in small resolution, but fullscreen is another story.
You don't see the noise for example.
You are assuming that the 'customer' is telling the truth.
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Or they lie, and want to get it for free.
No, I am not.
But a refund is not the same as credit card fraud.
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The message (I got it 5 min ago) says nothing about the customer deleting the file:
"The customer no longer has access to the file and this sale has been removed from your sales history. "
For me it looks suspicious.
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Yesterday: 3 HD sales, all refunded after few hours
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It would seem that soon there will be collections of all of our stolen content from Videoblocks out there. Videoblocks needs to get out in front of this, publicly announce exactly what happened and what they plan to do about it. They know the countries of origins of these criminals, they have their Ip's, they alone would be able to compile a concise list of all the stolen content to compare to when matching collections become available on any pirate site. They have more financial resources than any of us individually could possibly have, more access to lawyers and investigators, plus it's ultimately their fault. Videoblocks needs to start working with the authorities in any and all locations, stop downplaying and lying to their contributors, and maybe even turn this in to a positive by heading a proactive effort to find and prosecute those that steal and redistribute product they are responsible for protecting and failed so miserably at doing so. That, or keep doing nothing and watch as those of us with any sense put them in the "never again" category with iStock and Envato.
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Very odd all those 4k clips being refunded!
Videoblocks is the only agence that has never sold a single 4K clip for me in 2 years. That is already strange by itself...
And now Pond5 is getting money back too... :( Hard times!!!
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It does not matter if it is credit card fraud or just the customer lying, we still lose the sale and have to return the money.
As yet, we do not know if the 'customer' can download the file prior to the refund.
As the refund happens very quickly after the purchase we can only hope that the customer does not have access to the file. It would be great if Storyblocks would clarify this.
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the refund wasn't that immediately.
my it's take about a few hours.
I think it's got downloaded. shame that Storyblock won't let us know.
p.s. sorry for my English
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As yet, we do not know if the 'customer' can download the file prior to the refund.
Of course they can. A purchase that results in a refund or a reversal, is exactly the same as a purchase which doesn't result in a refund of a reversal... prior to the refund/reversal being made. So there's no reason why they wouldn't be able to download it. The only thing that would stop somebody having the ability to download your file, would be if payment wasn't taken successfully... in which case you wouldn't be aware of the sale in the first place, as it wouldn't register.
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It's really disgusting they do it all the time.
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Hi all,
As many of you are aware, we've experienced unusual levels of fraudulent activity on the Videoblocks Marketplace over the past three weeks which has caused a lot of sales to be refunded. We absolutely hear and understand your concerns.
We know that seeing refunds isn’t comforting by any means. Our team works hard to protect your content by mitigating any instances of fraud on the Marketplace. The refunds that you have been seeing are related to a string of fraudulent attacks that our team is actively working to block. Here's what we're doing:
-We have been improving our fraud detection and prevention over the years - automating risk alert systems and blocking accounts up front so this doesn’t occur.
-In response to the most recent incidents, we have made several enhancements to our fraud filter. In addition to automation, we will also be manually reviewing more transactions and delaying access to final files until those accounts are verified.
-On new subscription signups, we are delaying the access to the Marketplace content itself for riskier members.
In the instance that you discover your content being used in an illegal manner online, we’re here to help. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to our team directly and we can assist you in issuing a takedown notice where possible.
Fraud is not something we take lightly. It violates the rights of our creators and everything you work for. We're with you and promise to continue pouring efforts into improving security and preventing these occurrences going forward.
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Thanks Mike, you get points for posting anything here. And your claims of past and current efforts to stop this crap is nice, but you didn't really tell us what we wanted to know and need to hear.
1. You did not confirm whether or not these acts of fraud resulted in the criminals downloading our content before the "refunds" occurred, leading us only to speculate that our content was indeed stolen and now in the possession of these criminals for their illegal distribution, at their will.
2. You say we need to contact your team directly in case any of us happens to discover what will soon be multiple pirate sites that will be inevitably profiting off our content due to your security lapse (which also hints you know the content was downloaded). Mike, you got this very wrong, Videoblocks needs to proactively seek out where this content shows up and take action with or without us initiating anything directly with you. It was YOUR responsibility to protect our content and your team failed. The correct course of action in this situation is for Videoblocks to take the information it has, including IP's & lists of the stolen content & anything else, and to put serious effort into dealing with it, now. Lawyer up, hire investigators, contact authorities from the relevant countries, GET IN FRONT OF THIS.
Your claims of improving "fraud detection and prevention over the years" and what you're doing to prevent this in the future does nothing to address the damage already done.
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1. You did not confirm whether or not these acts of fraud resulted in the criminals downloading our content before the "refunds" occurred, leading us only to speculate that our content was indeed stolen and now in the possession of these criminals for their illegal distribution, at their will.
I think it goes without saying. Why wouldn't they have access to content that they have made a successful payment for?
Videoblocks needs to proactively seek out where this content shows up and take action with or without us initiating anything directly with you.
They're not the copyright holder so they can't take action. The best they can do is provide help for anybody looking to take action, which is what they have offered to do.
Don't get me wrong, I hate reversals, charge-backs and refunds as much as the next guy... but their options are limited with regards to stopping this, and also rectifying instances where it does happen.
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The letter from Storyblocks:
As you may be aware, we've experienced unusual levels of fraudulent activity on the Videoblocks Marketplace over the past three weeks which has caused a number of sales to be refunded. We absolutely hear and understand your concerns.
We know that seeing refunds isn't comforting by any means. Our team works hard to protect your content by mitigating any instances of fraud on the Marketplace. The refunds that you have been seeing are related to a string of fraudulent attacks that our team is actively working to block.
Here's what we're doing:
Continuing to improve our fraud detection and prevention over the years by automating risk alert systems and blocking accounts up front so this doesn't occur.
In response to the most recent incidents, we have made several enhancements to our fraud filter. In addition to automation, we will also be manually reviewing more transactions and delaying access to final files until those accounts are verified.
On new subscription signups, we are delaying the access to the Marketplace content itself for riskier members.
In the instance that you discover your content being used in an illegal manner online, we're here to help. Please don't hesitate to reach out to our team directly and we can assist you in issuing a takedown notice where possible.
Fraud is not something we take lightly. It violates the rights of our creators and everything you work for. We're with you and promise to continue pouring efforts into improving security and preventing these occurrences going forward. If you have specific questions, please contact the team at +1-888-802-7316 or send an email to [email protected]
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The letter from Storyblocks:
As you may be aware, we've experienced unusual levels of fraudulent activity on the Videoblocks Marketplace over the past three weeks which has caused a number of sales to be refunded. We absolutely hear and understand your concerns.
We know that seeing refunds isn't comforting by any means. Our team works hard to protect your content by mitigating any instances of fraud on the Marketplace. The refunds that you have been seeing are related to a string of fraudulent attacks that our team is actively working to block.
Here's what we're doing:
Continuing to improve our fraud detection and prevention over the years by automating risk alert systems and blocking accounts up front so this doesn't occur.
In response to the most recent incidents, we have made several enhancements to our fraud filter. In addition to automation, we will also be manually reviewing more transactions and delaying access to final files until those accounts are verified.
On new subscription signups, we are delaying the access to the Marketplace content itself for riskier members.
In the instance that you discover your content being used in an illegal manner online, we're here to help. Please don't hesitate to reach out to our team directly and we can assist you in issuing a takedown notice where possible.
Fraud is not something we take lightly. It violates the rights of our creators and everything you work for. We're with you and promise to continue pouring efforts into improving security and preventing these occurrences going forward. If you have specific questions, please contact the team at +1-888-802-7316 or send an email to [email protected]
Same Here.