Here's what Getty/IStock support has to say about the many refunds... if you ask me, not really an explanation, except for their own mistakes in communication.
My support case was also closed immediately after this reply without a chance to respond.

-----------------
Thank you for contacting Getty Images | iStock.

Some contributors have noticed an increase in cancellations on their royalty statement this month.

A large corporate customer who licenses a high volume of content mistakenly selected these uses as royalty-bearing when, in fact, they were for comp / low-resolution image use. It is standard industry practice that comp uses, for client pitches, mock-ups, etc., are not a royalty generating license.

We subsequently met with the customer to reiterate the correct licensing requirements and reversed these transactions. Due to the customer's sizable team, some assets were selected for intended comp use multiple times, necessitating multiple cancellations.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience or confusion caused during this process.
-----------------

In summary, for me that means as much as:
"We don't care what you think, the main thing is that the cash register is right and our major customer is satisfied even if he screwed it up himself" ;-)

Quote from: synthetick on March 22, 2024, 11:31
We have an official response from kelvinjay on the iStock/Getty forum:
" UPDATE: Refunds / cancellations

Some contributors have noticed an increase in cancellations on their royalty statement this month.

A large corporate customer who licenses a high volume of content mistakenly selected these uses as royalty-bearing when, in fact, they were for comp / low-resolution image use. It is standard industry practice that comp uses, for client pitches, mock-ups, etc., are not a royalty generating license.

We subsequently met with the customer to reiterate the correct licensing requirements and reversed these transactions. Due to the customer's sizable team, some assets were selected for intended comp use multiple times, necessitating multiple cancellations

In future, if the customer licenses and downloads some of the affected assets for actual, published projects, these will appear on Connect statements. Please note there is no need to open tickets regarding this issue.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience or confusion caused during this process."

Team comp use means all of these are reversed.

Brutal, does it mean that someone with a Super Duper Business Premium account has downloaded the entire database?

Who can actually guarantee that it wasn't misuse and that the images are now being used illegally for training AI models or offered elsewhere?

I mean, you can see from the account downloads that something is wrong. Why not prevent this in advance and block the account in advance?

I have 30 Dollars negative income in february 

How was my February?  Worst month in 15 years. I've gone from making a couple of thousand a month on the late 2010s, to a few hundred a month in the early 2020s, to $90 in February 2024!!  I just don't get it. I haven't been below $250 since like 2012 (and that was back when I got paid weekly!!) and January this year was close to $500. I seem to have fallen off the cliff and won't even get paid this month. Pretty discouraging. Maybe time to throw in the towel. That averages less than 1 cent per file uploaded!!

I was also in the red this month.

Let me ask you a stupid question.

Why do we actually have to pay if a customer buys pictures here illegally and against the rules?
In my world, the customer has to pay for the damage.

I am also down with negative earning.. This is really crushed my plans.

Long time contributor.

The explanation Getty gave is fishy to say the least.

I just don't buy it because on the strong discrepancies of the amounts paid in every transactions.

I think it is long due a deep auditory of their accounts.
Personally I don't trust their accuracy, transparency  and honesty of their statements.

Quote from: FHphotography on March 22, 2024, 12:23
I feel there is STILL something wrong( despite negative earnings). I am missing ALL the sales from US on my iS earnings graph in February ( I see them in pdf ). How about you?

I just tried out the stats features in DeepMeta4 (it's in beta but that part is working). It needs the text file version of your stats (not the PDF) and then produces much better graphs than anything on the Getty ESP site. It also handles refunds correctly - i.e. shows that they are refunds rather than just muddling them with new sales.

https://deepmeta.creativ.zone/

Surprise - big customers get to use our files for free for some uses (planning, mock ups, etc. ) with no watermarks so if they accidentally just go live with it nobody really notices.

The question I have for the people that got heaps of refunds, were your earnings for November oddly high (by about the same amount as the refunds)?

Pretty shoddy on the part of Getty all around.

An image of mine has been published numerous times, always credited to Getty, the last payment I received for it , for pennies, was in May 2023.  I have emailed and requested an explanation. no reply unfortunately. i do wonder about the credibility of this company.

apparently I had no sales in Feb from the US, nor have I had any US 'interactions' in the rolling month 24 Feb - 24 March.
Weird, it's usually my #2 country, if not, it's #1.
LIke everyone else, Feb sales spoiled by a slew of refunds.

Quote from: pancaketom on March 25, 2024, 16:21


The question I have for the people that got heaps of refunds, were your earnings for November oddly high (by about the same amount as the refunds)?

Pretty shoddy on the part of Getty all around.

That's really good question.   Went and checked: Nov '23 was my 3rd best month last year on iStock, but nothing out of proportion.

Accounting certainly appears shady, but I don't think it's deliberate - whole system is set up in such a bad way it is easy for all kinds of mistakes to creep in.  Biggest thorn to me is 15% royalty which is downright disrespectful. 

Quote from: zeljkok on March 25, 2024, 19:58

Quote from: pancaketom on March 25, 2024, 16:21


The question I have for the people that got heaps of refunds, were your earnings for November oddly high (by about the same amount as the refunds)?

Pretty shoddy on the part of Getty all around.

That's really good question.   Went and checked: Nov '23 was my 3rd best month last year on iStock, but nothing out of proportion.

Accounting certainly appears shady, but I don't think it's deliberate - whole system is set up in such a bad way it is easy for all kinds of mistakes to creep in.  Biggest thorn to me is 15% royalty which is downright disrespectful.

Agreed

Pretty funny or odd, or I ask, how do people reason out the glaring contradiction, when SS pays us more and a higher percentage, with a higher minimum, but they can't stop shouting how bad SS is or what crooks they are? "I'd never upload anything to SS, paying 10 cents is an insult."

I won't dwell on Connect which is, fractions of cents, because no one really knows what or how those images are used. Maybe for mock-ups, or maybe not. Maybe on a website, or chat, or somewhere in Asia for some mystery use, and maybe not. We don't get anything detailed or specific. Oh but we do get hundredths of a cent royalty.

BUT... for iStock when we do get the details. How do we get downloads like this? 4 cents? 3 cents?

Type Regular
Month 2024-02
Sales date 2/5/2024
Uploaded 5/30/2013
Gross royalty $0.04762
License Fee $0.31745
Rate 15%

File Type Editorial Image
Type Regular
Month 2024-02
Sales date 2/6/2024
Uploaded 10/6/2011
Gross royalty $0.03150
License Fee $0.21000
Rate 15%

Please tell me how SS is nothing but despicable crooks, and then someone explain, how iStock isn't worse?  Oh IS is much better, they pay fractions of cents, and then 3 cents or 4 cents. Really? That's better than the terrible, insulting, demoralizing... 10¢ 

My November sales were normal but my December sales were high, I see iStock still not showing number of downloads for February.....

Quote from: Uncle Pete on March 26, 2024, 17:00

Quote from: zeljkok on March 25, 2024, 19:58

Quote from: pancaketom on March 25, 2024, 16:21


The question I have for the people that got heaps of refunds, were your earnings for November oddly high (by about the same amount as the refunds)?

Pretty shoddy on the part of Getty all around.

That's really good question.   Went and checked: Nov '23 was my 3rd best month last year on iStock, but nothing out of proportion.

Accounting certainly appears shady, but I don't think it's deliberate - whole system is set up in such a bad way it is easy for all kinds of mistakes to creep in.  Biggest thorn to me is 15% royalty which is downright disrespectful.

Agreed

Pretty funny or odd, or I ask, how do people reason out the glaring contradiction, when SS pays us more and a higher percentage, with a higher minimum, but they can't stop shouting how bad SS is or what crooks they are? "I'd never upload anything to SS, paying 10 cents is an insult."

I won't dwell on Connect which is, fractions of cents, because no one really knows what or how those images are used. Maybe for mock-ups, or maybe not. Maybe on a website, or chat, or somewhere in Asia for some mystery use, and maybe not. We don't get anything detailed or specific. Oh but we do get hundredths of a cent royalty.

BUT... for iStock when we do get the details. How do we get downloads like this? 4 cents? 3 cents?

Type Regular
Month 2024-02
Sales date 2/5/2024
Uploaded 5/30/2013
Gross royalty $0.04762
License Fee $0.31745
Rate 15%

File Type Editorial Image
Type Regular
Month 2024-02
Sales date 2/6/2024
Uploaded 10/6/2011
Gross royalty $0.03150
License Fee $0.21000
Rate 15%

Please tell me how SS is nothing but despicable crooks, and then someone explain, how iStock isn't worse?  Oh IS is much better, they pay fractions of cents, and then 3 cents or 4 cents. Really? That's better than the terrible, insulting, demoralizing... 10¢ 

Brutal, how is this even possible? 3 to 4 cents comissions?
What the heck?

I wouldn't be surprised if all agencies are ripping off their contributors since they all have become to greedy.

Didn't we also have the thread about Shutterstock, where even sales were not passed on to the contributors?

IStock states that they pay out almost 2 million a week.
Presumably that's a similar number of sales. So mistakes can happen ...
You probably don't even notice smaller ones and they are simply covered up.

Nobody can check the sales system.

Still no payment this month.

Quote from: Andrej.S. on March 26, 2024, 19:24
Nobody can check the sales system.

Yeah that's the thing. How do we know, how can anybody check that without direct involvement?
We don't, and we can't.

Not even speaking of something intentional. But on a technical level. Consider a database with hundreds of millions of records. All the programming and scripts that involve connecting all the commission variants from different kinds of subscriptions, direct sales, credit packs, premium access, Getty library, iStock library, Thinkstock library or any other weird thing they set up in the past.... Consider all those API's from partners or customers with direct access. There's a lot of it than can go technically wrong, from database corruptions over api's not working to misprogramming that nobody ever discovers and when they do can take weeks or months to fix... Consider all the internal teams and divisions having access and manipulation rights on the database intervening to their own needs creating side-effects for others... The way Getty or any other big agencies operates their data must be very complex.

I'm not very technically involved, but from my work experience from more service managing related positions I can assure you that data or transactions in likewise constructions gets lost. And very often, when discovered, the consideration is made: what costs more? Accepting the data-loss, or trying to fix the issue and also restore data loss or perform corrections, wherever possible. There are cases where data loss is accepted as a more cost-efficient way to deal with the issue. There are a lot of cases too where the issue does gets fixed, but it can takes months to do that due to the complexity of the issue, and the complexity of the company itself (often dealing with off-shore programmers who might be competent people on a technical level, but have no clue at all about the system that they are trying to fix, they just write code)

I'm pretty sure that in this whole mess, a unreported sales happen. And they can percentage-wise be considered as the exception, we're still talking about quite the volume.

They did the Blunder and still there is no download report for Feb24.

Have you received your February payment?

Quote from: FHphotography on March 29, 2024, 17:18
Have you received your February payment?

Yes, a week ago.

according to the profile page i made my first 2 video sales on istock this month.  i hope they're not both returns!  fingers crossed.

For the first time for getting on for 20 years, I didn't even make payout this month.
Not even before the refunds.
Pretty sad what this has come down to now.

Quote from: Andrej.S. on March 26, 2024, 19:24

Brutal, how is this even possible? 3 to 4 cents comissions?
What the heck?

I wouldn't be surprised if all agencies are ripping off their contributors since they all have become to greedy.

Didn't we also have the thread about Shutterstock, where even sales were not passed on to the contributors?

IStock states that they pay out almost 2 million a week.
Presumably that's a similar number of sales. So mistakes can happen ...
You probably don't even notice smaller ones and they are simply covered up.

Nobody can check the sales system.

3 or 4 cents has been going on for some time at IS. Check their forum, I think some people have been as low as 2¢ and that's not Connect, that's a iStock or Getty download.

All agencies have their best self interest to pay us what we are due and not cheat. If someone ever found out there were unpaid downloads, that were paid for and licensed, there would be one heck of a lawsuit, which could destroy the business.

QuoteDidn't we also have the thread about Shutterstock, where even sales were not passed on to the contributors?

Alleged, claimed, unsupported, unless you believe everything you read on an Internet Forum, without any proof?

Correct, nobody can check the sales system. We can't anywhere or for many other business in life. There has to be some trust? If anyone works on a commission basis, they have to believe that the company they work for, is going to be honest and report everything. Otherwise, why start?

I noticed that, as usual, the people who claim SS is a bunch of crooks and insulting us with 10¢, don't have an answer to why they are not just as insulted or worse for 3¢ downloads and connect sales, from iStock? But people flocked away from SS in protest, and formed a coalition, tried a boycott, and two years later can't stop writing hate messages... still work for IS? 

As a note: I still work for both. Yes, I'm insulted, but I'll take the money. 

Quote from: Uncle Pete on March 31, 2024, 16:06

Quote from: Andrej.S. on March 26, 2024, 19:24

Brutal, how is this even possible? 3 to 4 cents comissions?
What the heck?

I wouldn't be surprised if all agencies are ripping off their contributors since they all have become to greedy.

Didn't we also have the thread about Shutterstock, where even sales were not passed on to the contributors?

IStock states that they pay out almost 2 million a week.
Presumably that's a similar number of sales. So mistakes can happen ...
You probably don't even notice smaller ones and they are simply covered up.

Nobody can check the sales system.

3 or 4 cents has been going on for some time at IS. Check their forum, I think some people have been as low as 2¢ and that's not Connect, that's a iStock or Getty download.

All agencies have their best self interest to pay us what we are due and not cheat. If someone ever found out there were unpaid downloads, that were paid for and licensed, there would be one heck of a lawsuit, which could destroy the business.

QuoteDidn't we also have the thread about Shutterstock, where even sales were not passed on to the contributors?

Alleged, claimed, unsupported, unless you believe everything you read on an Internet Forum, without any proof?

Correct, nobody can check the sales system. We can't anywhere or for many other business in life. There has to be some trust? If anyone works on a commission basis, they have to believe that the company they work for, is going to be honest and report everything. Otherwise, why start?

I noticed that, as usual, the people who claim SS is a bunch of crooks and insulting us with 10¢, don't have an answer to why they are not just as insulted or worse for 3¢ downloads and connect sales, from iStock? But people flocked away from SS in protest, and formed a coalition, tried a boycott, and two years later can't stop writing hate messages... still work for IS? 

As a note: I still work for both. Yes, I'm insulted, but I'll take the money. 

IS drew first blood - and I removed most of my content there, and if everyone had done that I am pretty sure SS would not have done what they did, but they did.
The SS pulled their money grab. So I turned off my port. If everyone had done that, they would be gone or backtrack, but they didn't and they didn't.

Tragedy of the commons. I am glad I am not relying on this for my food or shelter, although it managed to be over 50% of my income for a brief while.