Hi there,

I am.. the last one... i mean I am not a pro and i'll never be, i just started uploading since few months and my portfolio sucks; basically i just follow one of my passions and see whether or not one could make some small extra bucks this way.

From my little experience, I have to admit that somehow the whole thing could work even for a newbie like me, and that's good.

But there are still things that i really do not comprehend at all, maybe because of my small experience; so that's why i'm writing here, in the hope that someone more skilled than me could give me some hints or just a plain and brief explanation of how things go.

Here are the facts:

During last week i noticed a strange problem, which i described in the istock forum:

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=364621&messageid=7070177

and nobody from the staff is considering it. Other users, yes they are considering it.

Before writing that topic, I submitted a ticket and sent 2 emails. No answers.
The only thing that happened is that from today i cannot see anymore (in my account page) even the ticket i submitted (was pending till yesterday). Of course that problem still persists.

Anyway, today i discovered another fact, one of my (cuban) pic was published here few days ago:

http://www.pecand.com/this-is-what-obamas-huge-announcement-on-cuba-really-means/

(sorry i don't want to promote myself in any way, i just want to show what happened)

The first photo in this article was made by me and is currently available from 3 agencies, you can see my name under the pic. I use this name only on Istock.

This pic was sold by Istock or thinkstockphotos, which is the same, and i did not get a cent, a penny, nothing. Zero.

So, what you guys/girls should do if you were me? Assuming that writing to them seems to be a waste of time.

Ok, ok, i know i could change sport, i know i can delete my pictures, i know i suck and i am ugly, but, after all ... is it normal such a behaviour from one of the top agencies?

Is it a kind of decline of the empire or they have always worked like this?

Please share any of your thoughts, they will be well accepted (at least by me).

1. There is no rush to fix bugs, no matter how urgent we might consider them and how it might impact on our findability/sales.

2. Support tickets can easily take upwards of four weeks, at the end of which you might get a helpful, unhelpful or totally irrelevant reply.

3. The in-use you noticed might have been sold in early December via Getty360, PP or subs, in which case they won't be paid until late January

Good to know, many thanks! I'll be rich in a month, good.

Infact I do not know anything about subs, I only know I don't like them.

And now i see that even an istock moderator replied at my topic in their forum.

Is it the power of the microstockgroup forum?

If you ask some "faq" question the support guys are often bored. There`s no priority to answer these questions. And you are not a customer. Just a "contributor" 
That`s the evil business called Microstock 

Quote from: tickstock on December 19, 2014, 11:05

Quote from: roberto lusso on December 19, 2014, 11:03

Is it the power of the microstockgroup forum?

Unlikely, most of the people that have any say on the sites have been run out of here a long time ago.  Very few admins and influential contributors come onto this forum compared to a few years ago.

Also many of these have been run out of iStock or have less influence or stake there compred to a few years ago.

I wasn't just talking about iStock, important people from lots of sites used to come here and now very few do and very rarely at that. 

most of the people that have any say on the sites have been run out of here a long time ago.  Very few admins and influential contributors come onto this forum compared to a few years ago.

This forum is still read most days in Calgary.

You can prove that for yourself by putting a small invisible image in your signature. Similar to how flagcounter works.

Quote from: bunhill on December 19, 2014, 11:37

Quote from: tickstock on December 19, 2014, 11:05

most of the people that have any say on the sites have been run out of here a long time ago.  Very few admins and influential contributors come onto this forum compared to a few years ago.

This forum is still read most days in Calgary.

You can prove that for yourself by putting a small invisible image in your signature. Similar to how flagcounter works.

I guess there's a chance someone important is still reading it then.

Anyone in Calgary is still important?

I sometimes wonder why I continue to contribute to iStock. In my experience, their uploading and keywording/captioning procedure is the most long-winded, clunky and time-consuming of any of the microstock sites and sometimes their reasons for rejecting images are quite extraordinary. In addition, my sales-to-images-accepted ratio is far lower at IS, compared with other agencies. Does anyone else feel the same way?