MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: MarkRyanDesigns on October 30, 2012, 14:09
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Did anyone else just get a bunch of photos/illustrations refunded? I just got a bunch of refunds issued on some illustrations, Illustrations that would have brought in decent coin before the micostocks companies killed the art industry now I am lucky if I make $10-20 off and they refund due to too credit card fraud. This is BS! Being a artist sucks!!!! You get ripped by everyone!!!
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Refunds are a not funny, no.
And why no sites seems to be using Verified by Visa and Mastercard SecureCode to prevent credit card frauds is a mystery.
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Did anyone else just get a bunch of photos/illustrations refunded? I just got a bunch of refunds issued on some illustrations, Illustrations that would have brought in decent coin before the micostocks companies killed the art industry now I am lucky if I make $10-20 off and they refund due to too credit card fraud. This is BS! Being a artist sucks!!!! You get ripped by everyone!!!
How long have you been with IS?
I just had a bunch of files refunded a couple weeks ago.
It happens ALL THE TIME at IS. Get used to it.
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Got a bunch of refunds too. I wonder why they can't just pay these expenses out of their own pockets. It's their responsibility to prevent credit card fraud.
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Got a bunch of refunds too. I wonder why they can't just pay these expenses out of their own pockets. It's their responsibility to prevent credit card fraud.
How? If you knew how the game worked you wouldnt say that. Chargebacks cannot in any way be prevented. Credit card companies only care about their customers, and if the customer files a chargeback it will almost always be granted. Its up to the merchant to dispute the chargebacks though. But for digital goods the merchant will rarely win the case. Trust me.
One trick for chargebacks is claiming friendly fraud. Just say you didnt authorize the charge on the credit card because your kid used the credit card and they will grant it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_fraud (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_fraud)
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Got a bunch of refunds too. I wonder why they can't just pay these expenses out of their own pockets. It's their responsibility to prevent credit card fraud.
I completely agree on this. It is their problem. And they take their commision to have the shop set up.
It makes me mad every time I get a refund, and I mail a protest to them.
Also... It all adds to the annoy factor, it is one of the reasons that I might not continue to do business with them.
I understand the OP.
We are so being taken the piss on.
If someone forms a group that gatheres up refunds, there is a good chance we can win a case, it is not a normal business model.
All it would take is 500 refund emails and the lawyer would be paid.
There are so many arguments for a lawyer:Do the refunds happen because of credid card fraud? Prove it.
Is the refund happening because of the agencys individual deals and return policies with customers? Prove it.
In EUthere are rules for returning goods, and you cannot return things forever. And If the agency makes such a deal, its the agencys responsibility.
I cannot see any resons why there should be refunds at all. They have a review of every file and such they are in control if the files are good enough.
This kind of refund policy, also makes me mad and almost put the agency and their business model in the same category as Nigerian scams.
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IS is just as affected as you. Its money out of their pocket as well. And you cannot prevent chargebacks. Period.
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YES you can prevent fraud. You could for example only sell the file if the customer personally walked into the headquartes with gold coins in his hand.
You could have 30 people weigh and validate the gold.
Point is here, that we contributors have no chance to prevent fraud, and its only because they are working cheaply that there is fraud at all.
It is their shop and its incompetent to not be able to manage it. And if they are incompetent, they deserve a lesser fee.
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Sorry Jens but thats BS and you know it. The fraud rate in the payment industry is about 1%. There is always some risk when selling online. And who says the chargebacks where fraud? What if the image was not used or someone made a mistake and purchased the wrong image? Maybe the image was not up to standards?
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Sorry Jens but thats BS and you know it. The fraud rate in the payment industry is about 1%. There is always some risk when selling online. And who says the chargebacks where fraud? What if the image was not used or someone made a mistake and purchased the wrong image? Maybe the image was not up to standards?
I don't think digital files should be refunded. It's kind of like open software boxes. They don't allow returns on those either. I don't allow refunds at my own site. I would definitely make exceptions for certain circumstances (like double purchases or upgrading to an extended license). But, for the most part, the nature of the format prevents it from being returned.
Credit card fraud is a trickier matter. You can try to put up walls to prevent and flag known suspicious behavior, but some of these crooks can be very determined. I had talked with a site owner about it, and the way they described some of these perpetrators of cc fraud was scary.
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Sorry Jens but thats BS and you know it. The fraud rate in the payment industry is about 1%. There is always some risk when selling online. And who says the chargebacks where fraud? What if the image was not used or someone made a mistake and purchased the wrong image? Maybe the image was not up to standards?
I don't think digital files should be refunded. It's kind of like open software boxes. They don't allow returns on those either. I don't allow refunds at my own site. I would definitely make exceptions for certain circumstances (like double purchases or upgrading to an extended license). But, for the most part, the nature of the format prevents it from being returned.
Credit card fraud is a trickier matter. You can try to put up walls to prevent and flag known suspicious behavior, but some of these crooks can be very determined. I had talked with a site owner about it, and the way they described some of these perpetrators of cc fraud was scary.
Its the credit card company that makes that decision. IS has no control over that. Maybe IS shouldnt put it on the contributor, thats maybe a different discussion, but the chargeback cant be stopped.
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the agency can always stop selling by credit card at all. As I said they could demand gold coins.
That would be bad for the business, obviously, but it would be safe.
See, now they have chosen a somehow risky business model. Their choice, their risk for which they take 84% commision, so spare me of refunds.
As for refunds for other reasons, like files not getting used or not the right ones.
Spare me... its still their warehouse, they can hire 100 piccolos to hand carry and polish the files and deliver them on horseback.
It is not the contributers problem if they cannot sort out the display and make a declaration of the goods in a way so the customer gets what he wants.
They are middlemen, and they are paid to be. They are paid for taking a risk, the contributor is not.
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IS is just as affected as you. Its money out of their pocket as well. And you cannot prevent chargebacks. Period.
While I will not argue with you that chargebacks are a hazard of doing business, it is totally false that it is money out of their pockets. It is the contributors who entirely fund their shoots, and it is the contributors' intellectual property that is being stolen and distributed without any payment. So no, Istock does not take the financial hit on a product they do not have any stake in producing, nor any stake in protecting.
And also, while I agree with you that the occasional chargeback can't be avoided, there was a time a couple of years ago when Istock publicly announced that they were all going on vacation over the holidays and there was nobody minding the store. There were tens of thousands of fraudulent downloads over that time, and when contributors tried to get HQ to do something, they couldn't be bothered to come back to work early to deal with it. Many of us lost hundreds, and even thousands of dollars when they clawed back those royalties.
So YES, Istock should take responsibility for keeping our work safe, to the degree that they can, and they continue to fail miserably. It isn't a priority for them, because contrary to what you believe, they don't lose anything at all when our work is stolen from them.
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the agency can always stop selling by credit card at all. As I said they could demand gold coins.
That would be bad for the business, obviously, but it would be safe.
See, now they have chosen a somehow risky business model. Their choice, their risk for which they take 84% commision, so spare me of refunds.
As for refunds for other reasons, like files not getting used or not the right ones.
Spare me... its still their warehouse, they can hire 100 piccolos to hand carry and polish the files and deliver them on horseback.
It is not the contributers problem if they cannot sort out the display and make a declaration of the goods in a way so the customer gets what he wants.
They are middlemen, and they are paid to be. They are paid for taking a risk, the contributor is not.
Right, so you suggest lowering sales and increasing costs as a solution to prevent fraud. So in effect as contributor losing more money over your solution instead of taking fraud as a calculated business risk. If you remove credit card payments (thus PayPal as well) all there is left to pay with is cash, money order or cheque. Its not 1980.
And mistakes can always be made by a buyer. I get your cynicism, but its not making real sense.
I agree that it shouldnt be put on the contributor.
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IS is just as affected as you. Its money out of their pocket as well. And you cannot prevent chargebacks. Period.
While I will not argue with you that chargebacks are a hazard of doing business, it is totally false that it is money out of their pockets. It is the contributors who entirely fund their shoots, and it is the contributors' intellectual property that is being stolen and distributed without any payment. So no, Istock does not take the financial hit on a product they do not have any stake in producing, nor any stake in protecting.
And also, while I agree with you that the occasional chargeback can't be avoided, there was a time a couple of years ago when Istock publicly announced that they were all going on vacation over the holidays and there was nobody minding the store. There were tens of thousands of fraudulent downloads over that time, and when contributors tried to get HQ to do something, they couldn't be bothered to come back to work early to deal with it. Many of us lost hundreds, and even thousands of dollars when they clawed back those royalties.
So YES, Istock should take responsibility for keeping our work safe, to the degree that they can, and they continue to fail miserably. It isn't a priority for them, because contrary to what you believe, they don't lose anything at all when our work is stolen from them.
It is a financial hit. They have overhead and the sales of images pay for that overhead and gives them a net revenue. With those refunded sales, they have less income to cover their overhead. Maybe they dont take a direct financial hit, but it is a financial hit on the balance sheet as its less money in the bank in the end.
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Poncke..
My arguments are principal, not realistic.
Im stating the reasons why losses should not be put on the contributor.
Reasons that would hold in court.
Reasons meant to show how far away from traditional good business manners they are.
Business should be fair, then it will last and everybody will prosper, as it is now, there is to much wasted talent.
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Jens, Lisa et all, let it be clear that I agree it shouldnt be put on the contributor. I am merely explaining how chargebacks work and that IS has little control over that.
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Let it be clear that we agree on that.
Im just so annoyed, and I have not had many refunds.
Its just the general arrogance and abuse.
If it was the local merchant, I would have had a rampage in the shop.
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Its the credit card company that makes that decision. IS has no control over that. Maybe IS shouldnt put it on the contributor, thats maybe a different discussion, but the chargeback cant be stopped.
Well, that's exactly what I meant; IS shouldn't put it the chargeback on the contributor. They get 85% of our sales, part to provide a (working!) shop where customers can buy our goods, part to -in my opinion- cover any expenses from legal issues/fraud.
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If they didn't charge us for refunds, they'd surely cut our commissions.
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They have already done. 84% is a lot.
If they cannot make a working store on that sort of commision share, they are incompetent, and the business deserves to die.
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IS is just as affected as you. Its money out of their pocket as well. And you cannot prevent chargebacks. Period.
While I will not argue with you that chargebacks are a hazard of doing business, it is totally false that it is money out of their pockets. It is the contributors who entirely fund their shoots, and it is the contributors' intellectual property that is being stolen and distributed without any payment. So no, Istock does not take the financial hit on a product they do not have any stake in producing, nor any stake in protecting.
And also, while I agree with you that the occasional chargeback can't be avoided, there was a time a couple of years ago when Istock publicly announced that they were all going on vacation over the holidays and there was nobody minding the store. There were tens of thousands of fraudulent downloads over that time, and when contributors tried to get HQ to do something, they couldn't be bothered to come back to work early to deal with it. Many of us lost hundreds, and even thousands of dollars when they clawed back those royalties.
So YES, Istock should take responsibility for keeping our work safe, to the degree that they can, and they continue to fail miserably. It isn't a priority for them, because contrary to what you believe, they don't lose anything at all when our work is stolen from them.
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IS is just as affected as you. Its money out of their pocket as well. And you cannot prevent chargebacks. Period.
While I will not argue with you that chargebacks are a hazard of doing business, it is totally false that it is money out of their pockets. It is the contributors who entirely fund their shoots, and it is the contributors' intellectual property that is being stolen and distributed without any payment. So no, Istock does not take the financial hit on a product they do not have any stake in producing, nor any stake in protecting.
And also, while I agree with you that the occasional chargeback can't be avoided, there was a time a couple of years ago when Istock publicly announced that they were all going on vacation over the holidays and there was nobody minding the store. There were tens of thousands of fraudulent downloads over that time, and when contributors tried to get HQ to do something, they couldn't be bothered to come back to work early to deal with it. Many of us lost hundreds, and even thousands of dollars when they clawed back those royalties.
So YES, Istock should take responsibility for keeping our work safe, to the degree that they can, and they continue to fail miserably. It isn't a priority for them, because contrary to what you believe, they don't lose anything at all when our work is stolen from them.
yes the contributors FUNDS IT ALL! the entire industry. Our pics are their life-support and life-blood! without them, no IPOs, no money but the dole-que.
They tend to forget that not sometimes but ALL the time.
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IS is just as affected as you. Its money out of their pocket as well. And you cannot prevent chargebacks. Period.
What a naive comment!
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IS is just as affected as you. Its money out of their pocket as well. And you cannot prevent chargebacks. Period.
What a naive comment!
Care to explain why you think that?
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Let it be clear that we agree on that.
Im just so annoyed, and I have not had many refunds.
Its just the general arrogance and abuse.
If it was the local merchant, I would have had a rampage in the shop.
I think the above is the real crux of the issue. If it was JUST the chargebacks, people would probably take them without too much complaint. But coupled with all the myriad failures and abuses Istock has heaped on contributors over the past two years, it is part of an ugly pattern and therefore infuriating.
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Nice. I have to refund money images that were fraud, that I had no control over, and it's okay for IS to hold my Paypal payout too...
I believe this to be my reality - 1. The ASA that I agree to as essentially meant "play by our rules or go." 2. There will be no end to the breakdowns, mistakes and disfunction until the idea of Istock dumping our ports into Thinkstock and Photos.com looks like our saving grace. This is a "mind screw" if you will, manipulation, plain and simple.
I'm relieved this is not my main source of income. I feel for those whom it is.
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Got a bunch of refunds too. I wonder why they can't just pay these expenses out of their own pockets. It's their responsibility to prevent credit card fraud.
+1
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Has anyone ever had money taken off them at SS for such reasons?
I know I haven't.
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Has anyone ever had money taken off them at SS for such reasons?
I know I haven't.
donīt remind them!! :D
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Hahaha.... I didn't intend to do that! :D
I was just thinking that - if SS can manage such events without deducting money from us, why can't others?
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Hahaha.... I didn't intend to do that! :D
I was just thinking that - if SS can manage such events without deducting money from us, why can't others?
a few will jump in and say they can because they pay us low %, IS pays more right ;D
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I still can't see why we should pay for their inability to check their buyers' credentials.
By the way, the mere fact they are effectively and systematically giving our pictures away to such nice people who use stolen cards, should entitle us to a compensation, not the other way around.
How are they protecting our copyright if they don't even know who's buying our pictures? (I doubt they use their real names with stolen cards)
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Well they cant use a false name or their own name when using the stolen credit card, they need to use the actual name on the credit card, otherwise the payment wont be authorized by the CC issuer.
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Well they cant use a false name or their own name when using the stolen credit card, they need to use the actual name on the credit card, otherwise the payment wont be authorized by the CC issuer.
Which means they are using a false identity with a real name. Anyway, someone else should pay for that: the stock agency, or their insurance, or the credit card issuer, or their insurance. Not us: we already had our photos stolen, that's enough.
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Has anyone ever had money taken off them at SS for such reasons?
I know I haven't.
N0, but I have at Bigstock. They took 12$ back this month
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Has anyone ever had money taken off them at SS for such reasons?
I know I haven't.
N0, but I have at Bigstock. They took 12$ back this month
thats curious, thanks for sharing!
from my 300$ ::) made since April 2009, only have two situations:
August 27, 2012 07:54 AM [SYSTEM] payable adjustment offset $-0.21
May 18, 2012 09:50 AM Commission calculation correction $0.21
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Has anyone ever had money taken off them at SS for such reasons?
I know I haven't.
N0, but I have at Bigstock. They took 12$ back this month
thats curious, thanks for sharing!
from my 300$ ::) made since April 2009, only have two situations:
August 27, 2012 07:54 AM [SYSTEM] payable adjustment offset $-0.21
May 18, 2012 09:50 AM Commission calculation correction $0.21
Mine was a [SYSTEM] payable adjustment offset. Don't even know what that means but thinking about it I seem to remember the same photo selling multiple times at the same time of day a while ago so maybe it was that.
I've just looked at my stats and I've had a total of 19 [SYSTEM] payable adjustment offset in the last 2 years one of them for 32$ and one positive commission Calculation correction which gave me nearly 6$ in my favour.
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I still can't see why we should pay for their inability to check their buyers' credentials.
By the way, the mere fact they are effectively and systematically giving our pictures away to such nice people who use stolen cards, should entitle us to a compensation, not the other way around.
How are they protecting our copyright if they don't even know who's buying our pictures? (I doubt they use their real names with stolen cards)
Exactly. They are even stupid when telling us about it. Again this a case we could win against the agency.
They are middlemen and live from redistibuting our copyright, not so much the images, it is the copyright that is the important good in the shop. It is a quite serious offence from the agencys side, since the stolen good can be endlessly copied and dont loose value by the copying process.
Actually, instead of us being refunded, the agency should be charged the amount that compares to selling the rights, because thats what they do, let our work be stolen, so it can endlessly be copied.
Why dont some guy invent a selfdestructing jpg that destructs when the licence has expired? THAT would be a powerfull innovation.
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Close but no cigar
http://www.petapixel.com/2011/01/17/x-pire-software-adds-a-self-destruct-feature-to-your-digital-photos/ (http://www.petapixel.com/2011/01/17/x-pire-software-adds-a-self-destruct-feature-to-your-digital-photos/)
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Sorry Jens but thats BS and you know it. The fraud rate in the payment industry is about 1%. There is always some risk when selling online. And who says the chargebacks where fraud? What if the image was not used or someone made a mistake and purchased the wrong image? Maybe the image was not up to standards?
By accepting the image into the IS Catalog, isn't IS saying it's proper size and quality? Why do we go through such a rigorous acceptance review if not?
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Has anyone ever had money taken off them at SS for such reasons?
I know I haven't.
never
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Never in 6 years.
But maybe better not to discuss it in case the SS investors are visiting this forum. You don't want them to follow IS' very bad example of how to increase profits!!
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I emailed Istock support about my 24 refunds and they said my refunds were legitimate sales. They also stated that "As a general rule, we do not void downloads after a two week period." So why did they refund after a whole month?
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Why didnt you ask them when you were on the phone with them??
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That exactly what I got. I am not drawing anymore till the industry changes
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It is interesting that the retailer in this case can take the money from the supplier. I know in Canada the laws are a bit different the the US for credit card sales (worked for a bank for 15 years). When a chargeback comes the credit card company asks for a signed copy of the credit slip from the retailer, if you don't have one or the signature is found to not match that on file the retailer is responsible for not having authenticated the purchase through standard means. With online, mail order, or any other non witnessed CC sale the retailer must apply for the right to take the non authenticated cc sales and then will often have to place a certain amount of funds in a secured account depending on their credit rating and sales history. The retailer is held fully responsible for all CC sales without a witnessed signature if they are disputed and the retailer can't prove that the purchase was legit. Basically if I go in and sign a legal document, have it notarized that says, I didn't make that purchase they give me my money back and the cc issuer gets it from the retailer.
Now Walmart, or Sears, or any other retailer I know of can't then go to the RCA and say, hey that TV you gave us, we're taking the money back cause someone commited a CC fraud and we never got the money for it? Doesn't really make sense, but I guess until someone actually lost enough to make a court case this won't get solved and they can make their own rules. Much like electronic bank, bank machines etc, the bank have many rules that the court won't uphold if it gets taken to court, such as if you claim the machine gave you less money and the bank disagrees, but they do it anyhow as there is no law saying they can't, just if someone takes it to court they get their money back.
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Right. Their practice simply doesnt hold water.
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there's 2 things I don't get:
1) you steal a CC and go and buy..... stock photos? ???! seriously?
2) don't you have to be a registered buyer with a validated email address? surely IS is passing this info onto the CC companies. Haven't they caught any of them and made and example to scare others off?
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there's 2 things I don't get:
1) you steal a CC and go and buy..... stock photos? ???! seriously?
Yep. 2 years ago I had over $2K worth stolen from iStock and some people had more. It's a major problem.
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surely they have the ability to add a tracking file to the download (or something??)
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had a refund yesterday ;D
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So the merchant can not keep the thieves out of the warehouse?
Thats strange, because others can.
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there's 2 things I don't get:
1) you steal a CC and go and buy..... stock photos? ???! seriously?
Yep. 2 years ago I had over $2K worth stolen from iStock and some people had more. It's a major problem.
What I don't understand is why it is only "a major problem" at iStock? We've never had refunds of any description at SS and even at DT or FT the amounts refunded are comparatively trivial.
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Years ago I had occasional refunds at SS but they seem to have fixed the problem or are * up the costs of fraud. I strongly agree with all who say the retailer or CC need to be the gate keepers here, and not the supplier. After all, that's part of what their gross percentage of the sale is meant to cover!
I just had $40 of refunds at IS yesterday and like the OP, am sooooMAD about it!
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If someone makes a blog and collect data.. Like 100 refunds, well described.
There is a lawsuit to be taken.
Because we are small and independant, it does not mean that we have no rights.
It is their shop, it IS their responsibility.
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If someone makes a blog and collecst data.. Like 100 refunds, well described.
There is a lawsuit to be taken.
Because we are small and independant, it does not mean that we have no rights.
It is their shop, it IS their responsibility.