the adjusted targets might have only had to do with contributors meeting or not meeting targets, as Andrew stated they would revisit at year end. seems more plausible than your suggestion. but you don't know either, nor do I.

Do you have to have reality spoon-fed to you? Of course the contributors didn't meet their 'targets' __ precisely because the overall f**king sales were lower than projected. Otherwise they would have. They are directly connected. That's the whole point.

Quote from: SNP on February 08, 2011, 19:46

the adjusted targets might have only had to do with contributors meeting or not meeting targets, as Andrew stated they would revisit at year end. seems more plausible than your suggestion. but you don't know either, nor do I.

Do you have to have reality spoon-fed to you? Of course the contributors didn't meet their 'targets' __ precisely because the overall f**king sales were lower than projected. Otherwise they would have. They are directly connected. That's the whole point.

you're right. my mistake. they ARE obviously sabotaging their own sales/business/salaries/interests/friends and colleagues. I should have recognized it sooner. maybe I do need it spoon fed to me. you're drinking the koolaid too there dude. you're just drinking it on the other side of the fence.

I'm barely posting in the iStock forums anymore, just reading. to be frank, I got tired of listening to the same people (me included) in the forum. it was like crying wolf, it was boring, and on many levels it got absolutely ridiculous and unprofessional. we don't need to go into their forum to gripe. those of us who have bothered to connect more than superficially can chat as much as we wish via email, phone, or anything else. If iStock was my business, I wouldn't let anyone publicly dump on it either to the extent that it was happening by the same people over and over.

And yet, here you are, LOL, griping to and about the same people that you find so boring ridiculous and unprofessional. What is it about you that you just can't stay away. It's all that same condescending cr*p that everyone keeps reminding you is so irritating, yet, you keep doing it!

^ with respect, I think 'legitimate' is being used fairly subjectively. as is 'so many'. and if, for the sake of argument, there are 'so many' grievances from buyers, I think those grievances will be addressed positively.

ROFL. iStock hasn't cared about the buyers' grievances FOR YEARS. The only thing iStock cares about in regards to the buyers is how much money they can squeeze from them.

Quote from: caspixel on February 09, 2011, 02:23

Yeah, they are getting spoken to privately, alright. With a nice message telling them they are banned. LOL

I doubt that many buyers have ever been banned from buying. Obviously presumably excluding fraudsters

AFAIK people are sometimes given a cooling off period if they seem to be getting over-heated at the forums. But that is surely just good housekeeping. That happens at most forums. Any forum ultimately needs to be a useful resource not a total free for all.

From what I've seen these "cooling off periods" include a ban from both sitemail and the forums and usually last several months, if they are ever reinstated at all.

Quote from: gostwyck on February 08, 2011, 19:55

Quote from: SNP on February 08, 2011, 19:46

the adjusted targets might have only had to do with contributors meeting or not meeting targets, as Andrew stated they would revisit at year end. seems more plausible than your suggestion. but you don't know either, nor do I.

Do you have to have reality spoon-fed to you? Of course the contributors didn't meet their 'targets' __ precisely because the overall f**king sales were lower than projected. Otherwise they would have. They are directly connected. That's the whole point.

you're right. my mistake. they ARE obviously sabotaging their own sales/business/salaries/interests/friends and colleagues. I should have recognized it sooner. maybe I do need it spoon fed to me. you're drinking the koolaid too there dude. you're just drinking it on the other side of the fence.

for the record, my comment was somewhat tongue in cheek, that one absurdly stubborn position deserves another. given that they pushed a hobbled website live, a broken search live, adjusted prices (albeit slightly) and introduced two new collections all in the last six months, I'm pleasantly surprised sales are as good as they are. if I'm going to attribute any alleged drop in sales to something (and I have no way of knowing my own sales might have been a lot higher without these issues), I would attribute the drop to the search/website issues etc., which theoretically should be temporary. though istock seems to be proving me wrong on that with each day that passes. I sure hope they bolster their tech crew. at this point I imagine a bunch of overworked techs in the istock backroom being blamed for what should have been prevented with better planning and management.

I doubt Istock is happy with this situation... but yes, the need to hire whoever needs to be hired to get the site working 100%. Istock has, by far, the best search system/engine in town, but if it doesn't work as it should, having it is useless.

agree

I have thousands of images at IS, tens of thousands dl's... never had a single mail from a  customer wanting to buy directly, except if they want somenthing special (i.e. Image exclusivity, same model doing another thing in a custom made shot etc). Never for license concerns or not wanting to buy small credit packages. So, a very different experiencie from what you happen to say.

And yes, tehy have a way to verify MRs, model's phones are in the MR.

I'm just saying what the Getty reps told everyone.

Also, I would say at least once every other month I get a "Can we buy from you outside of istock" email from buyers.

I haven't said a word about what Getty reps are saying. I can't talk about that, because I don't know. Reading my post is easy to see that what I've said is that  I don't get customer's mails asking for what, it seems, they are asking Superufus. That's all, and is true.

More customer feedback:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=301712&page=1
At least there's a pleasant reply from RM.
No doubt someone else is ferreting madly away to try to find out if the OP is also a contributor, as if it matters.

I'm actually one of the buyers mentioned in this thread. (Also a contributor) We have had Getty reps come to our company and tell us not to use istock. "They have no way of verifying if images have releases, and its just safer not to use them." Said the reps.  

Just to clarify, these reps have said this recently?  Since Getty owned Istock?  If so, how utterly ridiculous!!  Are they trying to pretend Istock isn't part of the Getty Family?!  If Istock images didn't have the proper releases, surely this would reflect poorly on Getty - its owner?  

This is not the first report that Getty sales people are trying to chase buyers away from Istock.  I am wondering just how widespread it is.  It's one thing for a rogue salesperson to be spreading such lies.  Quite another issue if it is company policy.   If Getty's policy WAS to drive traffic away from Istock (and I am not saying it is) they certainly couldn't be doing a more effective job of it.

I guess the reps are desperate to earn commission, and it wouldn't be the only industry in which commission-based reps lie to boost their own income.

I totally understand why a rep would lie to get a commission (not that I agree with it).  That's salesmanship 101.  What is surprising to me is that they would tell lies that trash part of their own company.