Quote from: sharpshot on February 03, 2011, 00:08
I lost $9, that was annoying until I looked at the thread in the istock forum and see some have lots hundreds and even thousands of dollars.  I wonder how the thief is going to use all these images?  They must of spent thousands, so I presume it was lots of stolen credit cards?  Was it a gang doing this?  Seems like a lot of work for one person downloading so many images.

Cathy posted this link in December:
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-403-265-3062/4

I really do not get it. They are supposed to sell images for us and collect the money. They sold the image but did not collect the money. They in effect gave the image away. Get the image back and then take back our money. Of course they can not get the image back and of course they should not take our money back. Their incompetence means they are giving images away for free. If the customer did not pay then they should. We trust them to manage not be incompetent and give away images.

oh sorry I was forgetting. I would only lose 16% of the sale price. They lost 84%. No wonder they are upset. Maybe they should take back more than the royalty they paid us. Things are tough for them financially.

Quote from: palaver on February 03, 2011, 00:03
Anyway it's an interesting idea to take back the money from the constributors. They take 84% of the salesincome for taking care of the whole businessexecution....if someone robs my bank, the bank wouldn't come to the idea to cut my money from the savings.

Now there's an interesting idea. Shouldn't they have insurance to protect them from theft/fraud like a bank would so that we don't have to pay?

Quote from: markrhiggins on February 03, 2011, 00:13
Their incompetence means they are giving images away for free. If the customer did not pay then they should. We trust them to manage not be incompetent and give away images.

Oh, and just imagine what they'd do to exclusives if we gave away an image, which is totally forbidden, even it it's a snapshot that would never meet iS standards.
But it's Big Business and all the cards are stacked in their favour.

I was having a crapy day,  and got that...

Okay, 2 credits or whatever they call it is no problem..but I must say when I eyeballed some
email from nowhwere addresssing me by my nickname not real name and with that message...

There is so much phishing scams on the internet, you never know when you get some weird emails.

I think they're going to have to re-start the "How was your January thread" now.

Quote from: nruboc on February 03, 2011, 00:44
I think they're going to have to re-start the "How was your January thread" now.

Images were stolen on December.

Quote from: LSD72 on February 03, 2011, 00:05
For people still submitting to IS.. how much further do they have to bend you over till you touch your toes?

On their end (IS) what are they losing money wise? You as the contributor lost not only the money you saw in your account but also the images that were dl'ed. Do you now  lose any respect left for IS?


and before a conspiracy theorist comes out with it...hehehe.. Maybe Getty needed money and is shrugging off blame to CC Fraud.

Well, I do think it's pretty funny on the exact same day they announce the hiring of a new vice president (and I'm pretty sure he's going to be making a pretty penny) they send out notices of the taking back of money. They probably deducted from contributors today the guy's first year's salary. Coincidence...or stupidity?

If J-Lo can insure her Butt Cheeks against damage.. then IS sure as heck can have some type of insurance in place for this....but...why do that if they have all these people who they can just take the money back from the next month.

Quote from: LSD72 on February 03, 2011, 01:03
If J-Lo can insure her Butt Cheeks against damage.. then IS sure as heck can have some type of insurance in place for this....but...why do that if they have all these people who they can just take the money back from the next month.

I'll just reiterate my hypothesis that iStock is one big experiment to see how much people can be shafted but still come back for more.
Whoops, that'll be me: who, having uploaded almost nothing for weeks, suddenly took a notion today.

I didn't suffer a massive loss but I'm hopping mad about the new windfall iStock gets month on month on top of the royalty cuts. Fecking crazy.

One last thing then I will stop. I read so far the 20 pages on IS Forums... 2 things I noticed.

1. Istock has shown no proof of CC fraud... report.. anything.

2. I did not see anyone ask for proof of it (I could be wrong and someone asked but I missed it.)

If I had over $500 taken from me... I would be calling up for some type of proof. Even at the least to let then know I was checking... just in case they might get the itch to say in the future.. "They dont check on us.. we can just call it CC Fraud"

Quote from: LSD72 on February 03, 2011, 01:16
One last thing then I will stop. I read so far the 20 pages on IS Forums... 2 things I noticed.

1. Istock has shown no proof of CC fraud... report.. anything.

2. I did not see anyone ask for proof of it (I could be wrong and someone asked but I missed it.)

If I had over $500 taken from me... I would be calling up for some type of proof. Even at the least to let then know I was checking... just in case they might get the itch to say in the future.. "They dont check on us.. we can just call it CC Fraud"

The email they sent us said, inter alia:
"Please know that we take these issues very seriously and we have been working hard to identify and stop these fraudulent downloads. We have involved the appropriate authorities, whose investigations are ongoing and we are not able to provide further details at this time."

 $171 removed,if that can make anyone feel better....

Wow!  This totally sucks.  I'm sorry for all the people who've taken a big hit.  Wonder how much Yuri lost

These are the types of things that lead to class action lawsuits.  

I would also say that regardless of how other micro's dealt with this in the past, this establishes a new benchmark for the industry... :-(

PS is it possible to lock a couple of these threads?  I think there are 3 discussing it now.

and got that too

I am still trying to get my head around this whole thing. Forgetting about the money that was taken back from my account isn't:

1 iStock liable for the security for any intellectual property we place with them?

2 this like saying it is risky to sell your images on iStock and it is dangerous to put your images on their server because they can't be trusted to keep them safe?

3 there a risk now that some of my top images will no longer be sellable in the future, either on iStock or anywhere else if they are eventually offered free somewhere on the Internet, which never would have happened if iStock had better security defenses in place?

4 there a way iStock can be held legally liable for any future misuse of my photos, considering the images would never have gotten in the hands of thieves if I never entrusted them to iStock in the first place?

5 iStock thinking, since they get up to 85% of the income on an image sale, that they should take more responsibility for other people's property entrusted to them to be kept safely?

If I ask to borrow something from a friend and I lose it, I break it, or it gets stolen from me, then I owe my friend the full value of that item.

Instead I think I should be sending iStock a bill for how much future revenue I might lose over the life of those pictures stolen from my portfolio for illegal future use of those images.

They way I see it, istock owes me many times more than what they deducted from my account for their negligence, no?

Also, does it say upload at your own risk on the iStock site and that there is a risk your images could be stolen, misused, or possibly even distributed for free?

I believe the biggest number was sjlocke who had $3,400 removed

The thread on iStock has ballooned as contributors are furious that there's a spread of several weeks over which the chargebacks have happened - only for December. There were some worries about January sales so it's not clear it's over yet.

Given that the fraudulent purchaser was permitted to download the content by iStock - through their incompetence - it seems to me that they should bear the burden of the fraud unless they can get the files back (which I doubt they ever will). They did belatedly offer a payment plan for anyone who wanted to contact contributor relations.

The money went from accounts before the e-mail showed up - really a low blow not to do the e-mail first.

Not to mention some contributors are reporting that the file numbers listed weren't downloaded on the days the IS e-mail said. Given how badly they handled the backpayments on the missing 10% EL bonus (they calculated the amounts incorrectly) and how subscription payments are being delayed, and subscription download amounts are being rounded incorrectly for certain royalty levels, I don't know why anyone would trust that their accounting of this mess is even correct.

So they're taking legitimate money from the current week out of accounts to repay money they claim (no documentation of any sort other than the e-mail) was incorrectly credited back in December. They're also saying they jumped on it, but (a) it was a contributor in the forum who first brought it up - Kelly said on December 28th ". iStock's fraud detection systems (and client relations--thanks Joy!) picked it up when it started happening last week, and we jumped on it."  and (b) it kept on going after that because whatever they were doing wasn't working to prevent the problem.

I just got the word also - 17.2 royalties. I assume that's dollars.
Wasn't December over a month ago?
I am flattered that someone would commit a crime for my images. But I am surprised that IStock is taking back their royalty payments. If I sold an item to Walmart and that item was shoplifted would Walmart demand back the money they paid me? Just curious.

You are missing the big point. All you exclusives aren't so exclusive now are you? We got shafted too. Total equality at last!

Quote from: louoates on February 03, 2011, 01:58
You are missing the big point. All you exclusives aren't so exclusive now are you? We got shafted too. Total equality at last!

------------------
Are you referring to me?  If so, I'm not an exclusive.

I am referring to everybody now that we're all so equally screwed now.

What brings us back to the question: why Istock and others abuse the horse they're riding on?

any lawyers out there?  class action lawsuit?