Author Topic: When were your fraudulent downloads relative to when it became known at iS? (Read 10931 times)

tundraphoto · « **on:** February 03, 2011, 10:22 »

With all the forum posts, etc., on the fraudulent purchases, I just wonder how long iS knew before something was done to stop it. How quickly did they act to protect the property?

Mine was early on 12/27. The first post here on the issue by sjlocke was on 12/26 and on iS forum very early on 12/26. My purchase was at least 12 hours, and likely more, after iS was notified of a potential issue.

fotoVoyager claims to have submitted a support ticket prior to Dec 26, 2010 2:56AM.
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=286152&page=1

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #1 on:** February 03, 2011, 10:38 »

If you look at the reports here, this has been going on for a while - things seemed to really ramp up in November and early December. There were reports from much earlier in 2010 if you go back a few pages.

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #2 on:** February 03, 2011, 11:21 »

Yeah, I didn't notice patterns until the 26th or so, but apparently I had a ton 12/20-24, lots of V/A files - *insult removed*. It started 12/16 tho. I only thought I was hit for $1k. The $3.4k completely surprised me. I felt my sales volume was within acceptable normal values.

stockastic · « **Reply #3 on:** February 03, 2011, 11:27 »

The number of images stolen has to be very large. I'm the smallest fish in the pond, I have only 60-some images at IS, and yet I got a clawback notice yesterday. The image that was stolen had sold 128 times - big for me, but tiny for IS. So if the thief worked his way down to my level, this had to be a massive operation.

pet_chia · « **Reply #4 on:** February 03, 2011, 12:55 »

Quote from: sjlocke on February 03, 2011, 11:21

Yeah, I didn't notice patterns until the 26th or so, but apparently I had a ton 12/20-24, lots of V/A files - *insult removed*. It started 12/16 tho. I only thought I was hit for $1k. The $3.4k completely surprised me. I felt my sales volume was within acceptable normal values.

I don't know how online credit card transactions work w.r.t. the interactions between credit card company and online vendor. But I am surprised that the use of a fraudulent or stolen credit card# apparently did not become known to IS until something like 10 days after the first occurrence. I wonder if the credit card company attempted to notify IS sooner than that, but the message was not received because of the extended time off that people were taking at HQ.

The one time when someone fraudulently used my credit card # - a suspicious-looking online purchase in Europe - I think I was notified by phone within a couple of days at most. If the first fraudulent purchase occurred around Dec. 16 (Thursday) then were the phone calls and emails unanswered from that weekend through the next week until around Dec. 26? I'm thinking it's either that, or else the credit card company was negligent at detecting and sending notification suspicious purchases. Or maybe the credit card company was swamped and too busy handling the Christmas rush to get around to notifying merchants of cases or fraud.

tundraphoto · « **Reply #5 on:** February 03, 2011, 13:25 »

Now that I think about it, I had a similar bout last year. I tried to make an international purchase using my credit card. It was rejected. Within no more than 2 minutes, I received an automated call from the credit card company notifying me to contact them immediately if this was a fraudulent transaction. I was very surprised how quickly that occurred. I guess the purchases at iS looked too normal to set off any alarms.

stockastic · « **Reply #6 on:** February 03, 2011, 14:26 »

I wouldn't rule out the possibility that an IS employee or contractor was involved.

designalldone · « **Reply #7 on:** February 03, 2011, 14:42 »

Quote from: stockastic on February 03, 2011, 11:27

So if the thief worked his way down to my level, this had to be a massive operation.

Could it not have been a script or automated piece of software that chooses files at random? Considering the number of files affected I'd be amazed if this was someone manually downloading them one at a time?

stockastic · « **Reply #8 on:** February 03, 2011, 16:15 »

Quote from: designalldone on February 03, 2011, 14:42

Quote from: stockastic on February 03, 2011, 11:27
So if the thief worked his way down to my level, this had to be a massive operation.

Could it not have been a script or automated piece of software that chooses files at random? Considering the number of files affected I'd be amazed if this was someone manually downloading them one at a time?

Sure but for an automated attack to hit a portfolio as small as mine, out of millions of images, would be very unlikely unless huge numbers of images were taken. Also, the stolen image was my best seller, another odd coincidence unless maybe the software was working through a list of users and taking the best sellers. There was nothing beautiful about this photo that would attract the eye or say "best seller" to anyone; so yes I'm confident this was in some sense a completely automatic ripoff.

As I posted previously, we shouldn't rule out insider participation in this scam.

tundraphoto · « **Reply #9 on:** February 03, 2011, 16:18 »

My file only had 4 previous downloads and was pretty generic (it was of a generic structure). So, I am wondering the motivation as well.

jamirae · « **Reply #10 on:** February 03, 2011, 16:35 »

yeah, I had one file taken. it was fairly new and not more than 10 downloads. Just a file of a guy delivering a package to an office worker. not vetta and I wasn't exclusive anymore at that time (dropped in Oct).

stockastic · « **Reply #11 on:** February 03, 2011, 16:47 »

You other guys who had just one photo nicked - was it your best seller?

Snufkin · « **Reply #12 on:** February 03, 2011, 17:10 »

Quote from: stockastic on February 03, 2011, 16:15

As I posted previously, we shouldn't rule out insider participation in this scam.

The question is: did the scam help IS achieve their targets for 2010?

Personally, I have no confidence in their integrity anymore, I have no confidence anymore that they even report all sales correctly (be it due to greed or due to their incompetence). This place is run by sick people.

cathyslife · « **Reply #13 on:** February 03, 2011, 17:56 »

Quote from: stockastic on February 03, 2011, 16:47

You other guys who had just one photo nicked - was it your best seller?

I only had one stolen, no not a best seller. Relatively new file with only a few downloads.

tundraphoto · « **Reply #14 on:** February 03, 2011, 17:57 »

Quote from: stockastic on February 03, 2011, 16:47

You other guys who had just one photo nicked - was it your best seller?

It was one of my poorest sellers, though it did have a few downloads.

stockastic · « **Reply #15 on:** February 03, 2011, 18:00 »

Fun to speculate from available clues, but of course we'll probably never know what really happened.

Is it possible that the stolen images were ones that had just sold that day? Really wondering why my best-selling photo was selected; of course it's the one most likely to appear in a list of recent sales... in other words maybe they grabbed the most recently sold image(s) from each account.

sc · « **Reply #16 on:** February 03, 2011, 18:01 »

Quote from: stockastic on February 03, 2011, 16:47

You other guys who had just one photo nicked - was it your best seller?

Nope - a total of only 16 dl's

Artemis · « **Reply #17 on:** February 03, 2011, 18:14 »

They didnt love dogs... i'm one of the very few ones (it seems) that was not affected.
I was wondering whether to feel insulted or lucky, but firmly choose for the latter. I really feel for those who were affected, its crap.. and since yesterday double crap

lisafx · « **Reply #18 on:** February 03, 2011, 18:38 »

I don't think I got the e-mail. No idea when the images were stolen. I contacted support. But in the meantime, by calculating my daily totals for the past week, and my actual total as of now, it looks as though I lost around $140ish.

cathyslife · « **Reply #19 on:** February 03, 2011, 20:32 »

My bogus download happened on 12-22-10.

Tomboy2290 · « **Reply #20 on:** February 04, 2011, 00:13 »

Quote from: stockastic on February 03, 2011, 16:47

You other guys who had just one photo nicked - was it your best seller?

I had 8 images taken, all of them orange flamers. But my three very best sellers weren't targeted.

Anyka · « **Reply #21 on:** February 04, 2011, 01:07 »

They only stole 2 of mine, for 7,5 dollars in total. No bestsellers at all, just two animal shots. I'm glad they did not go for anyone's bestsellers : if the purpose was to start selling them, all victims would have lost lots of future sales ...

lagereek · « **Reply #22 on:** February 04, 2011, 03:13 »

Scary scenario! if IS, the biggest one where all their contributors becomes the victims, then what about all the rest? At this moment I think the entire Micro industry is in jeopardy, built on a very fragile business module over an Internet where everything is possible and with no stopping.

Seams to me this scam was engineered and whatever is the mastermind behind it, they did a bloody good job, undetected for months. Probably just pure luck it was detected at all?

best

fotografer · « **Reply #23 on:** February 04, 2011, 04:05 »

I had 8 taken. They were a mixture of good and not so good sellers. My best sellers for dls and for dls per month weren't touched.

lagereek · « **Reply #24 on:** February 04, 2011, 05:21 »

Whats the point everyone writing telling how many images they lost?? in the end we have 10 pages of numbers??

MicrostockGroup Sponsors

Author Topic: When were your fraudulent downloads relative to when it became known at iS? (Read 10931 times)

tundraphoto

Jo Ann Snover

Sean Locke Photography

stockastic

pet_chia

tundraphoto

stockastic

designalldone

stockastic

tundraphoto

jamirae

stockastic

Snufkin

cathyslife

tundraphoto

stockastic

sc

Artemis

lisafx

cathyslife

Tomboy2290

Anyka

lagereek

fotografer

lagereek

Related Topics

Sponsors

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors