Me too.

I wonder why a crook would "waste" being nailed for credit card fraud over a bunch of images. How does one profit from such crime? Are there image fences out there? If so, perhaps it would be more lucrative dealing with them directly than taking the photographs myself. Have to look into that.

Quote from: louoates on January 01, 2011, 22:21
I wonder why a crook would "waste" being nailed for credit card fraud over a bunch of images. How does one profit from such crime?

Image CD sales on Ebay or in stores in the less developed parts of the world perhaps? Prints too maybe in countries where they've got no chance of being caught.

Got two of these reversed sales, lost US$2+3.

I wished BigStock also would show this differently in the summary page, because these in fact are not sales and that "adjustments" line is just a nuisance, and I did not earn those U$5 in December. I prefer to see the real figures.

Hi all,

The ability to withdraw commissions in a single sum is now fixed.  As was the case earlier, the commissions in your account are correct (minus any adjusted transactions due to the aforementioned issues).  Please contact us if there are any additional issues with that process.

As always, our technical and customer service teams will look at any reports of discrepancies and can answer questions.  I apologize if there has been a temporary delay in any response.  The Bigstock team is working through the weekend and the holidays, but most of our efforts in the past few days have focused on marketplace safety and deploying increasingly aggressive fraud prevention measures.   

Best,

Scott

Quote from: scottbraut on January 02, 2011, 03:15
Hi all,

The ability to withdraw commissions in a single sum is now fixed.  As was the case earlier, the commissions in your account are correct (minus any adjusted transactions due to the aforementioned issues).  Please contact us if there are any additional issues with that process.

As always, our technical and customer service teams will look at any reports of discrepancies and can answer questions.  I apologize if there has been a temporary delay in any response.  The Bigstock team is working through the weekend and the holidays, but most of our efforts in the past few days have focused on marketplace safety and deploying increasingly aggressive fraud prevention measures.   

Best,

Scott

Scott,
thanks for the information.

Is it possible to have you or Bigstockphoto release some sort of official statement about what exactly happened?

This has obviously affected quite a number of contributors and your company. I think we would all feel better knowing how somebody is able to commit such fraudulent actions.

Was this "attack" just some sort of new scam that couldn't be anticipated?

How come that such more aggressive fraud prevention measures haven't been implemented in the past?

I'm not just asking out of pure curiosity but also because it appears that my best sellers have been illegally downloaded (amongst many other images from Bigstock) and I feel very uneasy about how such criminals could ever be brought to justice.

I don't know if I'm alone with this feeling that such events affect me, as an individual contributor, more than the agency as the stream of new content keeps coming regardless, but my old and established best sellers suddenly become "worthless" and my income goes downhill.

Hello,

I'm talking with the team, but in all likelihood, we won't be able to give specific details of how fraudsters try to attack us and how we prevent those attacks. We realize that can be unsatisfying as a response, but for obvious reasons, it's very challenging (if not impossible) to release any level of security information on a public forum.  We made a general announcement via the Bigstock interface.

On the buyer side, most attempts start with a credit card number that's legitimate and able to be processed, but stolen. Many fraudsters try to appear as legitimate buyers (or mimic legitimate buying behavior) and modify their behavior once they get caught.  For that reason, fraud prevention isn't a one-time-only event...it's an ongoing process of adding and adjusting many different types of controls.

Best,

Scott

Thanks Scott. Appreciate the rapid efforts of the team over the holiday period and also the timely information. Take a heart for your trouble!

Quote from: gostwyck on January 02, 2011, 14:13
Thanks Scott. Appreciate the rapid efforts of the team over the holiday period and also the timely information. Take a heart for your trouble!

+1.  

BigStock's timely and aggressive response to this threat is very much appreciated.  And so is your taking the time to keep us updated and respond to our concerns, Scott.  Thanks very much!  

FWIW, I haven't had any fraudulent sales today, so hopefully the problem is under control...

Quote from: WarrenPrice on December 31, 2010, 15:59
Nothing for me.  You know your portfolio is really bad when even fraudulent buyers don't want your stuff.   

I was in the same position too Warren but just had an adjustment of minus $1, which I assume was my image of Margaret Thatcher downloaded at 4.59am on December 31. It's not a big financial "loss" but it is sickening to think someone is making use (and money) out of my image. And will that affect legitimate future sales of the image? Possibly not I suppose as people buying dodgy CDs of stolen images probaly wouldn't have ever been legit buyers anyway.
I'll add my appreciation to Scott for coming on here and updating us (a good example to other agencies). I certainly wouldn't expect you to give details of your anti fraud measures or any new ones being implemented! I don't know if this is just in the UK but when I purchase online using my debit or credit card I get re-directed to the card issuer (e.g. my bank) and have to enter a password before the transaction completes. Seems pretty foolproof to me -short of someone hacking my password. No one wants to make it difficult for genuine buyers to download images but maybe a simple system like that would help (or is that already in place internationally?). Regards, David.

Big thanks to Scott and the BigStock team for working so hard to clear this mess up. I'm not so happy that someone managed to walk away with a lot of my images, but hey - that's the risk we take by putting stuff online I suppose.

Props to BigStock!