I got this email a week or so ago (I know there's another thread with a similar email):

Hello,

Between January 1-4 a bug occurred which incorrectly dropped your royalty rate by one level, meaning you were paid 5% less on downloads during that period. We have run a script to identify downloads that should have been paid at the higher rate between Jan 1 and Jan 4, 2012. Your account has now been credited with the outstanding amounts. Below is a summary of affected downloads.

    FileID         Amount Paid     Correct Amount   Difference         Date
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0003980625          $00.72               $00.78             $00.06        1/2/2012
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0013498542          $01.44               $01.56             $00.12        1/4/2012
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0017195985          $00.84               $00.90             $00.06        1/4/2012
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Amount Paid: $0.24


Then today, I got this email:

Hello,

   We have run a script that should have paid out your 2012 Redeemed Credit royalty rate from Jan 1 to Jan 4, 2012 to rectify the royalty change that occurred at that time. Unfortunately this script was processed incorrectly, inaccurate payment and information were sent via e-mail to those affected. We will be removing the incorrect payments made (today - June 22, 2012) and will insure the correct amounts are sent out as soon as possible.

   Total Amount Removed: $0.24.

   We apologize profusely for this inconvenience. If you have any further questions please contact Contributor Relations.

   Best Regards,
   iStockphoto



hahahahaha I can't stop laughing.  What a joke!

just got one too

they truly are a joke

I had big plans for that 5c 

Same here. The money they gave me last Friday, taken away today.

They sure know how to give you a good weekend feeling but crush you the first day of the following week.

Not amused.

Same here. Got a $0.02 correction-correction....ya gotta love it!

can they get anything right?

20.00$ removed today, not impressed.

Same email and 0,03$ gone away... Probably will ask for a bailout from IMF...

Quote from: click_click on June 25, 2012, 18:29
Same here. The money they gave me last Friday, taken away today.

They sure know how to give you a good weekend feeling but crush you the first day of the following week.

Not amused.

that means you must have had more riding on this than my measly $0.24... yea, that does suck.

Quote from: mtilghma on June 25, 2012, 19:12

Quote from: click_click on June 25, 2012, 18:29
Same here. The money they gave me last Friday, taken away today.

They sure know how to give you a good weekend feeling but crush you the first day of the following week.

Not amused.

that means you must have had more riding on this than my measly $0.24... yea, that does suck.

Well I didn't buy a car or anything from the royalties correction they sent me last Friday but I could almost afford a beer, so I got excited whenever I drove into a parking lot because you often find loose change there and I hoped to get the rest for a little buzz. Fat chance.

Since the email this morning I sobered up perfectly well in a matter of seconds 

Errors can occur, in this case twice. What I like about this is that despite the amounts being inconsequential, they go through with telling the contributors about it and then correcting it, and then correcting it again when they realise there was nothing to correct

I can't be sure if the agencies I use are telling me about errors which affect me negatively, unless one day I receive a deposit and an explanation saying that it was because of an error.

Goodbye $122.. You were never mine but I enjoyed having you around 

Quote from: ThomasAmby on June 25, 2012, 22:03
Goodbye $122.. You were never mine but I enjoyed having you around 

That sux.

Managing a huge agency like this is a complex task, and then you have banks, credit cards, and many more variables. It's not a joke, I actually think that in this respect Istockphoto does its best. One can argue about their royalty rates, but they are very honest about it. That's my experience at least.

47.00 here

What a mess 

I can't help believing that this sort of thing happens on all the micros and we never know about it.  iStock's big bungle is a little off-putting but at least it seems like they're being honest about it. 

Quote from: princigalli on June 25, 2012, 22:18
Managing a huge agency like this is a complex task, and then you have banks, credit cards, and many more variables. It's not a joke, I actually think that in this respect Istockphoto does its best. One can argue about their royalty rates, but they are very honest about it. That's my experience at least.

Yeah, even tyrants have bad days. I feel very little sympathy for them. They are arrogant, out of date and their luck is running out. They better change their ways before it's too late.

Quote from: mtilghma on June 25, 2012, 17:51
I got this email a week or so ago (I know there's another thread with a similar email):

Hello,

Between January 1-4 a bug occurred which incorrectly dropped your royalty rate by one level, meaning you were paid 5% less on downloads during that period. We have run a script to identify downloads that should have been paid at the higher rate between Jan 1 and Jan 4, 2012. Your account has now been credited with the outstanding amounts. Below is a summary of affected downloads.

    FileID         Amount Paid     Correct Amount   Difference         Date
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0003980625          $00.72               $00.78             $00.06        1/2/2012
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0013498542          $01.44               $01.56             $00.12        1/4/2012
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0017195985          $00.84               $00.90             $00.06        1/4/2012
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Amount Paid: $0.24


Then today, I got this email:

Hello,

   We have run a script that should have paid out your 2012 Redeemed Credit royalty rate from Jan 1 to Jan 4, 2012 to rectify the royalty change that occurred at that time. Unfortunately this script was processed incorrectly, inaccurate payment and information were sent via e-mail to those affected. We will be removing the incorrect payments made (today - June 22, 2012) and will insure the correct amounts are sent out as soon as possible.

   Total Amount Removed: $0.24.

   We apologize profusely for this inconvenience. If you have any further questions please contact Contributor Relations.

   Best Regards,
   iStockphoto



hahahahaha I can't stop laughing.  What a joke!

I got one of those royalty messages too. But no follow up oops message like yours. I think I got to keep mine. Today is Forgiveness Day (June 26). So I forgive them for not taking mine away. 

Quote from: princigalli on June 25, 2012, 22:18
Managing a huge agency like this is a complex task, and then you have banks, credit cards, and many more variables. It's not a joke, I actually think that in this respect Istockphoto does its best. One can argue about their royalty rates, but they are very honest about it. That's my experience at least.

Hmmmm
On the other similar issue (different dates), I got an email listing two sales, but I had several more in the appropriate timeframe.
I contacted support, and the support person clicked the box informing me that small sales could be due to very old credits, discount offers, huge buyers getting unadvertised discounts etc.
I wrote back to say that this could not possibly be an answer to my question, which was about the number of dls I had in the affected timeframe, not the amount that was paid for each sale.
I haven't had a reply to that email either. It seems that they don't reply to queries about their original answer.
(Since I wrote, I read that not all sales in the announced timeframe were affected by the bug, so that may be the answer; but that was not the answer I got.)

Quote from: princigalli on June 25, 2012, 22:18
Managing a huge agency like this is a complex task, and then you have banks, credit cards, and many more variables. It's not a joke, I actually think that in this respect Istockphoto does its best. One can argue about their royalty rates, but they are very honest about it. That's my experience at least.

I understand Your point of view, but making two mistakes followed, by the values ​​that we saw, do not give us a lot of trust. Excluding some exceptions, for that cents, I would prefer live without knowing about it. There a plenty of "bugs" that would help a bit more contributors, if already solved, than a tiny royaltie % adjusment.. that never happen.

And isn't IS exclusive... Something similar happen to me on SS ( downloads not reported correctly ), and they  "effectively" solve the problem.


 

Have you noticed that they don't exclude bad keywords any more from files, after resubmitting...?

Quote from: princigalli on June 25, 2012, 22:18
One can argue about their royalty rates, but they are very honest about it.

The redeemed credits system is anything but honest.

So whats the big news about this?  if they didnt inform people they go frantic and when they inform people they still go frantic nah, sorry but theyre running a business and its their duty to inform any differances.

come on fellas, stop nitpicking.

Quote from: Lagereek on July 11, 2012, 11:37
So whats the big news about this?  if they didnt inform people they go frantic and when they inform people they still go frantic nah, sorry but theyre running a business and its their duty to inform any differances.

come on fellas, stop nitpicking.

I don't think it's about the information, I think it's about the joke of the system and the way they can't keep track of money.

I would never use honest and istock in the same sentence. << Except for that one right there.

I may have seen some adjustments being made at the other 4 agencies, but honestly, I can't remember them. That means they aren't happening all that often. With istock, it happens on a weekly and monthly basis. There is something really wrong with their accounting system.

Quote from: Lagereek on July 11, 2012, 11:37
...
come on fellas, stop nitpicking.

It's not news that iStock's accounting is flawed - and I think it's incompetence and terrible IT, not intentional - but with accounts being off, there's no such thing as nitpicking. The money's right or it's not. If it's not, it's typically not as straightforward as you'd think to know if it's off by a lot or a little. Given that they frequently don't appear to know - or at least can't make payments or back payments correctly - we can't rely on it being just a little.

I don't think there's anything specific we can do until/unless we get some solid data to work with. But I don't think it's a nitpick.