I had a 100 credit extended license sale today. Checked my stats page and saw that I was credited 37 credits. Went back to the stats page about an hour later and the credits were gone    I emailed support and they said it takes a couple of days? I have never noticed this before when selling an extended license on fotolia, usually the credits show right away and stay there. Anyone have any ideas or similar experiences?

I was thinking maybe the buyer changed their mind but I am still showing the sale.
I this some new policy that I am not aware of?

I had an EL earlier this month, and didn't see this problem.  I hope this is not a buyer gviing up a purchase - good luck!

Regards,
Adelaide

I've never had the experience you just did with an extended license, but yesterday I checked stats during the afternoon and as I'd just requested a payout, my balance was small and I made a note of it. A couple of hours later my balance dropped down by a few dollars (I think it was one $2.22 sale). I didn't bother to contact support, but did look to see if I had any site mail about a refund or something of that sort.

Except that you reported something similar I wouldn't have thought anything more about it. It does make you wonder if there's a site glitch of some sort. I have found support to be largely useless in my recent exchanges with them...

I will keep a closer eye on the numbers now though

my credit balance also dropped by about $1 while 'sold files' stayed the  same

There are reports of disappearing credits on both US and French Fotolia forums.

Right, something going on there. I would not have noticed except it was a big sale. Support gave me a canned response and closed the session     The rest of sales from today are there, just the one missing.

Hi,

Been happening before, actually several times to me... admins are deniying there is a problem.

http://www.microstockgroup.com/index.php?topic=5076.msg52800;topicseen#new
http://us.fotolia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=12307

Very frustrating.
How much money goes into fotolia pockets this way..?..

Patrick H.

Great thread.

Now I know I need to watch them like a hawk.

Although I've already gotten the impression that Fotolia shouldn't be trusted any further than I could throw one of thier managers (which, incidentally, I would love to do).

Perhaps the buyer purchased your image, and didnt like it. So he requested money return. It is possible.

Quote from: Peter on June 20, 2008, 08:26
Perhaps the buyer purchased your image, and didnt like it. So he requested money return. It is possible.

Didn't get a message from refund... and .. wouldn't be quit logical, purchasing a L standard ... then requesting for a 3 credit refund because he only needed an XS license....

Patrick h.

First I doubt about the problem, I'm sending the message on 05-31-2008:

Dear,

On May 30, I got sold image with ID 7352674 in XS size, my credit increase from 46.98 to 47.33, but after few hour when I refresh my page and found that my credit go back to 46.98.

Please investigate the problem.

best regards,



And I got replay:

We are not sure we understand your request. Our records show the following information for the transaction you made reference:
05-29-2008 12:00:15 pm Photo Sale credit +0.35
Everything seems to be fine.


It happen twice, I forgot the first one.

Quote from: patrick1958 on June 20, 2008, 07:45
Hi,

Been happening before, actually several times to me... admins are deniying there is a problem.

http://www.microstockgroup.com/index.php?topic=5076.msg52800;topicseen#new
http://us.fotolia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=12307

Very frustrating.
How much money goes into fotolia pockets this way..?..

Patrick H.

I'm going to watch it too.

Well say they scrub $1 from each of their 50,000 photographers every months, that's an extra $50,000/month 

It happened again - my sales count just rolled back by one file and my $$ balance by 37 cents (what I get for one XS sale). I have a screen capture of the before and after, and the sold files list for today is unchanged (i.e. no removed entry in that list).

I guess I'll write to support, just so I can say I have, even though it appears that no one else has gotten anywhere with these complaints.

They've got a bug in there somewhere...

Quote from: cphoto on June 21, 2008, 06:35

Quote from: patrick1958 on June 20, 2008, 07:45
Hi,

Been happening before, actually several times to me... admins are deniying there is a problem.

http://www.microstockgroup.com/index.php?topic=5076.msg52800;topicseen#new
http://us.fotolia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=12307

Very frustrating.
How much money goes into fotolia pockets this way..?..

Patrick H.

I'm going to watch it too.

Well say they scrub $1 from each of their 50,000 photographers every months, that's an extra $50,000/month 

Well... it was $37.00 in my case, kinda obvious. I put in a second email to support and am waiting for a reply. I seriously don't think it is intentional. It has to be a glitch. Maybe they can't figure it out? That would be like committing suicide.

Quote from: jsnover on June 21, 2008, 08:11
It happened again - my sales count just rolled back by one file and my $$ balance by 37 cents (what I get for one XS sale). I have a screen capture of the before and after, and the sold files list for today is unchanged (i.e. no removed entry in that list).

I guess I'll write to support, just so I can say I have, even though it appears that no one else has gotten anywhere with these complaints.

They've got a bug in there somewhere...

Good job on the screen capture 

gee,  where have I heard all this before?    to this day ( couple years later) I have not been given an explanation. 

In order to get the bug fixed (or at least generate some healthy interest on the part of the admin to investigate) do not send a report saying that YOUR money disappeared. Instead, tell them that you have been credited with unearned credits (out of Fotolia pocket). I bet this will create a flurry of activity

OTOH, funny how the bugs (if there are really ones present) seem to always hit the photographer...

OTOH   


Clue me in.... haven't heard this one yet. 

On The Other Hand

http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com

It's been a rather quiet week for sales, so I went through the entire lot 6-15 through 6-22 and compared the sales reported item by item (the page with the tiny thumbnails) with the statistics, and I have the money for 2 sales (total of $1.85) missing from my total. One is the .37 cents I caught via screen capture and the other $1.48 was the money I thought I saw disappear earlier but wasn't sure.

I don't know if it's related to subscription sales as I had one of those on June 17th and one on June 14th, but the money was subtracted from my account on the 21st and 19th.

One interesting, but probably unrelated note: One day I had a sale right before midnight server time - 11:55:56pm. In the satistics report, the sale showed up by count on the correct day, but the money got added to the following day's total. That isn't the issue with the missing sales however, as the week overall is $1.85 short.

If anyone else has anything specific they can point support to, perhaps we can get this fixed and get our money back...

I had the same problem at Fotolia. I have the lowest sales there but when I logged in I found my earnings down to almost zero. I emailed & was told basically all's well, session closed. I opened a new "session" and responded to which I was then told an image was essentially returned, "end of session". It took several tries & new "sessions before they credited most of my missing earnings back.
What is this "image return" policy there??

Thanks!
Kellie

Chad has replied in another forum and on FT's own forum to say that these disappearing $$ are credits when a fraudulent purchase has been discovered.

http://us.fotolia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=12307

I guess I don't know what to think or do. I've been contributing to microstock sites for over 3 years and only one other time have I had a purchase reversed because of fraud on the part of a buyer (on SS). I've had two in one week at FT, apparently.

There's no way for me to track or identify these credits, although Chad suggests something might be coming.

Quote from: jsnover on June 23, 2008, 19:42
I guess I don't know what to think or do. I've been contributing to microstock sites for over 3 years and only one other time have I had a purchase reversed because of fraud on the part of a buyer (on SS). I've had two in one week at FT, apparently.

There's no way for me to track or identify these credits, although Chad suggests something might be coming.

if they can subtract our $, then FT has the info required to be able to notify us of that fact.  i can understand fraud & chargebacks, but they need to let us know what's happenng [and NOT in a forum few are likely to visit]

I think Chad is not telling the truth. Too many credits disapear, even EL credits. Why someone with stolen credit card bought EL ?
Even if it happend I don't understand why we should give FT money back for stolen images from their site. If like owner of photo store asks Canon refund for a camera stolen from his shop.

In my case it was not fraude...
A XL sale, 1.48 credits only gave me 0,37 credits...
The previous times just the same... not the correct amount added to my credits amount.

Chad's answer doesn't explain the problem i'm seeing too often.

Patrick H.