I have 50+ unusual download, was try to contact istock at forum, contributor relationship and FB, they received my message but still allow thief to kept download my artwork, now I getting all "Refund for a Purchase of Your File". This is ridiculous, istock should be the one to bear all this fraud they should be responsible to protect our artwork on their server. This is very obvious our artwork being stole, but istock is ignoring, they took it as "Refund", we contributor have no protection at all have to bear all the lost. I want to know what can we do about it?

I recall seeing your post in the IS forums (someone on Facebook referred to it or I'd not have seen it) and I think the truly outrageous thing is that the moderator didn't offer to get anyone at iStock to do something to halt the problem as it was happening. Just the "I don't give a sh!t" response of "contact contributor relations". You knew you were going to get refunds, but at least they could have stopped the transfer of your files to the thief.

As far as what to do, I think calling the number for customers to call and being persistant that they do something (assuming the fraud is conveniently happening during hours an iStock office is open) is about it. IS couldn't care less about contributor issues these days

Same old story.
They have done it again.

Sometimes i dream that I own a bank and a delegation from that agency walks in and asks for a loan.

Jesus, man, I would give them a bucket of their own medicine.
I would have them wait at the gate, letting the doorman insult them. Tell them to enter the gate walking backwards, and the smallest persons first.
I would ask them to make an appointment, and not reply to their letters, telling them the secretary was busy watering potplants and feeding the stuffed canary.

Finally I would reply to a letter with a complete meaningless response. Like your application as been sent to the bank of Swaziland, an amount has now been withdrawn from your account since it is not our policy to give loans to people from the western hemisphere and also the application is either to high or too low, and that they could always resubmit their application with the suggested improvements.

They might do, and after a � year with this roulette, Ill eventually loan them 16% of what they asked for.

Today again! 

Over the last four working days, I got multiple refunds ever day.

NOT happy.

Sorry for bothering everyone here. I just got two more. So that's 8 today alone...

This is really @#$#%#$ me off.

All the refunds are for the same day (some two weeks ago) and ALL have the same price (regardless of Photo+ or regular collection).

How is that even possible to achieve the exact same $ amount when downloading images from both collections?

Sorry [1] for your hassle with this.
I guess two weeks ago was before the most recent price rise?
Therefore an old L was 15cr and an old Sm+ was 15 cr.
An old XXXL was 28cr and an old M+ was 28cr.
(from Sean's post on this page: http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=343279&page=1)
Other than that I have no idea. You could try CR, but they'll just hit the button to tell  you it's right; and IIRC, when they refund credits, they disappear from your downloads, so you can't check back.

[1] That's a sympathetic 'sorry', not an apology on behalf of iStock.

Thanks for your empathy.

Thank goodness the sales weren't M+ or XXXL (they were smaller) but it's just leaving a bitter taste in my mouth that sales from one single day are getting refunded over the course of four business days now. That's just not making sense.

If a credit card was stolen (regardless if it was used on one or more accounts), it shouldn't require 4 days to pinpoint sales from a single card. Unless there were more cards involved etc. (details we don't know... - lucky IS).

I hope this theater is over now and that they won't send me anymore refunds tomorrow or after that.

I was really under the impression that IS did take more severe security measures after the big f-up in the past but that's just disappointing but hey what should we expect from them...

I've had three Large and on XL file returns in the past two days, hurts.

There's a post from yesterday on 800notes.com where someone got fraudulently charged $850 for iStock on May 8.  That's a website that generally is for unwanted phone calls and telemarketers and phone scams, but people have been posting the iStock frauds there for the last couple of years probably because the phone number shows up for iStock on their credit card bill.  If there's one fraud reported on this website, chances are there are more.  It sounds from the forums like there are quite a few in the last month.

For the long-timers here, the ones that have been active at iStock back in the pre-Getty days -- were there fraud issues then?  I don't recall any until the big one occurred over the Christmas before last, and it seems like every month or two there is another report (or more) in the forums.  I'm trying to figure out if this just didn't happen before, if the security has gotten lax in terms of payment and verification, maybe a different purchasing process;  or if they're just clawing every one of them back now where they didn't before. 

as I have said before...
The contributor would win a case when the agency tries to pull off fraud onto the contributor.
it IS their problem, and they should not pass it on to the contributor.

Someone should challenge their business model.

Someone has.  I think this is the stock photography model of the future, or at least I hope so. 

http://www.picturengine.com#oid=1006_1