MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Pond5 => Topic started by: stockVid on April 01, 2016, 13:33
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Are P5 sales reported in real time or at the end of each business day?
Every sale I have appears to be in the middle of the night (PST).
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99% of the time, it's the same time every day on the dot. (1:30AM New York time)
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If you are in your dashboard, it is updated daily. However, if you click in "financials" it will show your sales in real time.
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If you are in your dashboard, it is updated daily. However, if you click in "financials" it will show your sales in real time.
Is that a new thing? Financials always usually update once a day at 0530 GMT (reports are now an hour earlier, probably because Europe has gone onto summer time.)
The new site is a bit buggy so today's sales are yet to show up in my dashboard but I got email notification and they're showing in financials.
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If you are in your dashboard, it is updated daily. However, if you click in "financials" it will show your sales in real time.
Is that a new thing? Financials always usually update once a day at 0530 GMT (reports are now an hour earlier, probably because Europe has gone onto summer time.)
The new site is a bit buggy so today's sales are yet to show up in my dashboard but I got email notification and they're showing in financials.
I'm not 100% sure but when I've gone into that area at odd times I see new sales that don't show up in the dashboard. Then, the next day, I see those updated on the dashboard.
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I always get the email between 06:30 and 8:00 in the mornings. That's 00:30 to 02:00 Big Apple Time.
One thing I did notice on the 1st of April... I got the email at 06:32. I'm assuming P5 run on US time, so that's 32 minutes past midnight on the East coast. I had two sales. When I logged in to my dashboard, it showed both sales as being made on the 1st of April. I find it unlikely that those two sales were made within a 32 minute period.
I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, and I need to look into it a bit more to see if this has happened before, will happen after... but I'm assuming that reporting sales in one month, rather than the previous month, could be of benefit from a tax/reporting/payouts/something kind of vibe.
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I always get the email between 06:30 and 8:00 in the mornings. That's 00:30 to 02:00 Big Apple Time.
One thing I did notice on the 1st of April... I got the email at 06:32. I'm assuming P5 run on US time, so that's 32 minutes past midnight on the East coast. I had two sales. When I logged in to my dashboard, it showed both sales as being made on the 1st of April. I find it unlikely that those two sales were made within a 32 minute period.
I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, and I need to look into it a bit more to see if this has happened before, will happen after... but I'm assuming that reporting sales in one month, rather than the previous month, could be of benefit from a tax/reporting/payouts/something kind of vibe.
Thanks for pointing this out. I just checked my admin and I also had a big jump in sales reporting on April 1st.
Can they really be delaying reporting sales 'till the next month?
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I hope not. It could be coincidence, but it crossed my mind, so thought I'd share!
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Can they really be delaying reporting sales 'till the next month?
When P5 pays out, they pay out your current balance at that time (i.e., on the 15th, usually). What benefit would they get for delaying reporting of sales from the 31st to the 1st?
Though it has been said that all sales are delayed by 3 days, in order to give a window for refunds. I don't know if that's true or not, but as I've never knowingly had a refund at P5, it might be.
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Can they really be delaying reporting sales 'till the next month?
When P5 pays out, they pay out your current balance at that time (i.e., on the 15th, usually). What benefit would they get for delaying reporting of sales from the 31st to the 1st?
Though it has been said that all sales are delayed by 3 days, in order to give a window for refunds. I don't know if that's true or not, but as I've never knowingly had a refund at P5, it might be.
That would make sense then. Like if a check takes three days to clear, it always clears at the same time every day, early in the morning, no matter what time you pay it in. Well, it does at my bank anyway. But as to what benefit there would be... I'm not sure how taxes work in the US, but if they have to pay tax monthly or quarterly, then they can reduce their tax obligation, albeit very slightly, by tagging some late sales onto the next period instead. Sure, they pay the same overall in the long run... but it's the same reason that companies put off paying invoices as long as possible. Better in their bank than somebody else's.
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Just use your imagination!
http://www.moneyhouse.ch/en/u/pond5_gmbh_CH-660.2.216.012-1.htm (http://www.moneyhouse.ch/en/u/pond5_gmbh_CH-660.2.216.012-1.htm)
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They always report three days after (with a few exceptions), with an e-mail usually around the exact same time. It has never been real-time.
Sometimes, however, the system seems to skip a day and adds those sales to the next day. It's never faster than three days. This usually happens around payday.
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So three days have passed and no sales email again. That's a bit strange. Maybe it's just me?
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It's up the spout - no sales have been reported site-wide for 3 days which is very annoying. I and others have badgered support and also posted in the forums, hopefully this gets resolved ASAP since Payday is tomorrow.
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It's up the spout - no sales have been reported site-wide for 3 days which is very annoying. I and others have badgered support and also posted in the forums, hopefully this gets resolved ASAP since Payday is tomorrow.
And what did they say? "Oh so sorry we've been busy crop dusting around our new swanky office on Park Ave." >:(
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Oh, so I'm not the only one? I just thought sales were bad, so that's kind of a relief. It has happened a few times before just before payday, but not several days like now. I usually sell multiple files every day.
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It's up the spout - no sales have been reported site-wide for 3 days which is very annoying. I and others have badgered support and also posted in the forums, hopefully this gets resolved ASAP since Payday is tomorrow.
And what did they say? "Oh so sorry we've been busy crop dusting around our new swanky office on Park Ave." >:(
They said IT's on the case but that was over 24hrs ago and another scheduled sales report has gone by without being released.
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It's up the spout - no sales have been reported site-wide for 3 days which is very annoying. I and others have badgered support and also posted in the forums, hopefully this gets resolved ASAP since Payday is tomorrow.
And what did they say? "Oh so sorry we've been busy crop dusting around our new swanky office on Park Ave." >:(
They said IT's on the case but that was over 24hrs ago and another scheduled sales report has gone by without being released.
Love it! They blame each other depts. Btw, P5 CTO is gone...so how about blaming HR for not replacing him to organize sales report. ::)
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...or a dirty trick to delay 4-5 days of sales to the next payment, keeping a huge extra sum of $$$ to earn interest on for another month...
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Still no sales for me since my email exchange. I hope they aren't the new REVOSTOCK.
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Still no sales for me since my email exchange. I hope they aren't the new REVOSTOCK.
You could search for your own content just like a buyer and see if they have plucked your content from the search, it is possible they are doing that under the new management. Doubt it but change has happened over there. You aren't the only one experiencing a sales drought there though, it is pretty much everyone. Could very well be the next revostock, they could be preparing to pull the plug for all we know but they did talk a lot recently about virtual reality video so it seems they might b changing formats to a smaller boutique type operation and that would also explain the new very very tight review policies.
Something to keep in mind is anyone of these companies can do out of business overnight and we are out of a source of income, they are just startups, just websites, they can turn the switch off overnight, shut it all down and walk away. They weren't making money if they had to take $60 million in VC funding.
Now, Know your onions keeps saying the employees were on non-stop vacation, maybe he can elaborate, literally on vacation? pond 5 does have an unlimited vacation policy according to their site.
Sad to see Pond5 go, big earner for me.
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Relax. Pond5 is many, many times bigger than RevoStock ever was, which was almost a one-man operation (well, small team). I don't think it's going anywhere soon, it's just a matter of it still being #1 in footage sales or not.
It has been my best earner for a couple of years now so it would really suck if it went south, but of course, someone else will be quick to pick up the market share.
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Love it! They blame each other depts. Btw, P5 CTO is gone...so how about blaming HR for not replacing him to organize sales report. ::)
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Not good, these are small departments too not departments with hundred people, a "team" there is probably 2-3 people at most and answers should be immediate. Something tells me you are on to something, they are going around in circles blaming each other and occasionally giving the customer/supplier/us the middle finger.
Could not be all attitude directed at us though, could be intense unhappiness within the company, employees may not be happy, not like the new leadership for all we know and it's basically work to rule. I have seen that before in a workplace, everyone just dumbed down, worked to rule and eventually the company went bankrupt but was bought by different owners.
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Relax. Pond5 is many, many times bigger than RevoStock ever was, which was almost a one-man operation (well, small team). I don't think it's going anywhere soon, it's just a matter of it still being #1 in footage sales or not.
It has been my best earner for a couple of years now so it would really suck if it went south, but of course, someone else will be quick to pick up the market share.
I think others are already feeling it in their internet connections, one would be stupid not to be uploading 24/7 to every other site right now because while Pond5 might not be going south just yet they very well may be changing direction.
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...or a dirty trick to delay 4-5 days of sales to the next payment, keeping a huge extra sum of $$$ to earn interest on for another month...
what interest? where do you get any meaningful interest today? we're not in the nineties anymore...
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...or a dirty trick to delay 4-5 days of sales to the next payment, keeping a huge extra sum of $$$ to earn interest on for another month...
Oh I would be so happy if that's all it is, I''ll give them a month of interest in return for all my sales delivered on the 16th :)
I was a power selling there....I stress "was".
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Love it! They blame each other depts. Btw, P5 CTO is gone...so how about blaming HR for not replacing him to organize sales report. ::)
Not good, these are small departments too not departments with hundred people, a "team" there is probably 2-3 people at most and answers should be immediate. Something tells me you are on to something, they are going around in circles blaming each other and occasionally giving the customer/supplier/us the middle finger.
Could not be all attitude directed at us though, could be intense unhappiness within the company, employees may not be happy, not like the new leadership for all we know and it's basically work to rule. I have seen that before in a workplace, everyone just dumbed down, worked to rule and eventually the company went bankrupt but was bought by different owners.
As I said long ago, circus artists can NOT fit in corporate environment that is on now. If founders thought that getting $61mill is just that, they were dead wrong. Even them got replaced (although, let's not worry about their bank accts). You gotta perform or you OUT. And that's what they do now, new leadership is bringing new employees and it will take time to make ops smooth.
And guess who is gonna suffer most? :-\
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Love it! They blame each other depts. Btw, P5 CTO is gone...so how about blaming HR for not replacing him to organize sales report. ::)
Not good, these are small departments too not departments with hundred people, a "team" there is probably 2-3 people at most and answers should be immediate. Something tells me you are on to something, they are going around in circles blaming each other and occasionally giving the customer/supplier/us the middle finger.
Could not be all attitude directed at us though, could be intense unhappiness within the company, employees may not be happy, not like the new leadership for all we know and it's basically work to rule. I have seen that before in a workplace, everyone just dumbed down, worked to rule and eventually the company went bankrupt but was bought by different owners.
As I said long ago, circus artists can NOT fit in corporate environment that is on now. If founders thought that getting $61mill is just that, they were dead wrong. Even them got replaced (although, let's not worry about their bank accts). You gotta perform or you OUT. And that's what they do now, new leadership is bringing new employees and it will take time to make ops smooth.
And guess who is gonna suffer most? :-\
You nailed it on that one! like any startup, the day you take delivery of VC funding is the day the party is over and you start working for not the customers but the investors and VC's will bleed the company dry, they aren't in it for the long haul and to make a family business out of it and that's just the way it works.
There may also be an issue of lack of certain skills in the workplace that the new managers are expecting to see so I would not doubt there will be some front line personnel changes.
The question is will Pond5 be able to come back as a top seller for us? these days if you lose traction it's near impossible to come back into favor with the customer and one only has to read the story of Blackberry to what happened there and to this day no matter what they do and come out with the customer isn't even looking, the name has been tarnished.
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Love it! They blame each other depts. Btw, P5 CTO is gone...so how about blaming HR for not replacing him to organize sales report. ::)
Not good, these are small departments too not departments with hundred people, a "team" there is probably 2-3 people at most and answers should be immediate. Something tells me you are on to something, they are going around in circles blaming each other and occasionally giving the customer/supplier/us the middle finger.
Could not be all attitude directed at us though, could be intense unhappiness within the company, employees may not be happy, not like the new leadership for all we know and it's basically work to rule. I have seen that before in a workplace, everyone just dumbed down, worked to rule and eventually the company went bankrupt but was bought by different owners.
As I said long ago, circus artists can NOT fit in corporate environment that is on now. If founders thought that getting $61mill is just that, they were dead wrong. Even them got replaced (although, let's not worry about their bank accts). You gotta perform or you OUT. And that's what they do now, new leadership is bringing new employees and it will take time to make ops smooth.
And guess who is gonna suffer most? :-\
You nailed it on that one! like any startup, the day you take delivery of VC funding is the day the party is over and you start working for not the customers but the investors and VC's will bleed the company dry, they aren't in it for the long haul and to make a family business out of it and that's just the way it works.
There may also be an issue of lack of certain skills in the workplace that the new managers are expecting to see so I would not doubt there will be some front line personnel changes.
The question is will Pond5 be able to come back as a top seller for us? these days if you lose traction it's near impossible to come back into favor with the customer and one only has to read the story of Blackberry to what happened there and to this day no matter what they do and come out with the customer isn't even looking, the name has been tarnished.
I don't think they are rushing to become bestsellers anymore. It's more like acquisition they are craving...
My craziest prediction is that Google might buy them out in the end, which for sure P5 would love. That's why that VP guy from Google got on board to fix them up in a way that Google needs them.
Time will tell. 8)
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so much unfounded paranoia in this thread
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I don't think they are rushing to become bestsellers anymore. It's more like acquisition they are craving...
My craziest prediction is that Google might buy them out in the end, which for sure P5 would love. That's why that VP guy from Google got on board to fix them up in a way that Google needs them.
Time will tell. 8)
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Yep, that thought(s) have been going through my mind as well, they aren't gonna pay back the investors, maintain operating costs off of what they make selling some videos online, no gonna happen. Two things on the radar, their big push towards Virtual reality video content and the current Google VP who has joined the board. They are a late stage startup with no change in hell of staying the course on their own so getting acquired is probably what the investors are looking for at this point and they will make it happen if they have to, they don't want to and they won't lose $60 million.
Google is a player in virtual reality content so if pond5 can pull it off then that's what happens and for the rest of the contributors it's probably time to find another site or means of selling our video and photos.
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Another sales report was due just over 2 hours ago and it seems this one hasn't come through either. I and other artists have email support... again.
What makes this personally frustrating is after train wreck start to year sales appeared to be really taking off in the right direction and ATCs ("add to carts" where you can track which clips have been added to customers' cart) over the last 4 days have been best in years. So yes I'm particularly keen to see if these ATCs have converted to sales but of course everything's messed up right now.
I still have faith in the company but these glitches and corresponding lack of communication is frustrating - I hope it gets resolved ASAP, especially with Payday tonight / tomorrow.
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Another sales report was due just over 2 hours ago and it seems this one hasn't come through either. I and other artists have email support... again.
What makes this personally frustrating is after train wreck start to year sales appeared to be really taking off in the right direction and ATCs ("add to carts" where you can track which clips have been added to customers' cart) over the last 4 days have been best in years. So yes I'm particularly keen to see if these ATCs have converted to sales but of course everything's messed up right now.
I still have faith in the company but these glitches and corresponding lack of communication is frustrating - I hope it gets resolved ASAP, especially with Payday tonight / tomorrow.
After 10 years of existence they just announced hiring for Head of Customer Service...so be patient with your requests. You will get an answer...eventually. :o
http://www.ventureloop.com/stripes/jobdetail.php?jobid=501462 (http://www.ventureloop.com/stripes/jobdetail.php?jobid=501462)
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Another sales report was due just over 2 hours ago and it seems this one hasn't come through either. I and other artists have email support... again.
What makes this personally frustrating is after train wreck start to year sales appeared to be really taking off in the right direction and ATCs ("add to carts" where you can track which clips have been added to customers' cart) over the last 4 days have been best in years. So yes I'm particularly keen to see if these ATCs have converted to sales but of course everything's messed up right now.
I still have faith in the company but these glitches and corresponding lack of communication is frustrating - I hope it gets resolved ASAP, especially with Payday tonight / tomorrow.
After 10 years of existence they just announced hiring for Head of Customer Service...so be patient with your requests. You will get an answer...eventually. :o
[url]http://www.ventureloop.com/stripes/jobdetail.php?jobid=501462[/url] ([url]http://www.ventureloop.com/stripes/jobdetail.php?jobid=501462[/url])
Ireland again, Ireland, Prague, like is that where most video sales come from? I don't know to be honest, thought it more from North America but they are hiring programmers, engineers and now customer service all in Ireland. I dunno.....
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It's 15th payout time, all I can say is the new Pond5 is definitely a disaster.
Slow tick-tock downward of p5 death has started, lol good riddance to the new hands at Pond5.
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It's 15th payout time, all I can say is the new Pond5 is definitely a disaster.
Slow tick-tock downward of p5 death has started, lol good riddance to the new hands at Pond5.
Sadly, and there is no obvious choice replacement to jump over to if they are in fact not going to be able to get back on track. Huge loss financially for some artists. Definitely a disaster. No sales there anymore.
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(Friday April 15th)
Is Pond5 sales reporting still broken - or am I having a bad month?
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Got paid on time as usual. Not sure what the fuss was about there. Hopefully sales reporting is down for the last few days, it'd be nice to see a backlog of sales appear soon. However even if sales reporting has been down for a few days, I don't see how this translates into such doo and gloom unless others have factual info I don't know.
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I got paid as usual. Pretty average amount. Sales reporting has been down a couple days.
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(Friday April 15th)
Is Pond5 sales reporting still broken - or am I having a bad month?
Don't know, no one getting sales for a month and now we find out sales reporting is broken so when it is fixed and you get 100 sales in one email you know you had a good month but if you get zero you will know you didn't miss anything while the system was sleeping :)
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Got paid on time as usual. Not sure what the fuss was about there. Hopefully sales reporting is down for the last few days, it'd be nice to see a backlog of sales appear soon. However even if sales reporting has been down for a few days, I don't see how this translates into such doo and gloom unless others have factual info I don't know.
No one has factual information and that's the problem here, complete lack of information from Pond 5 and maybe it's the new management style of don't say a word or tell anyone anything, maybe it's for legal reasons, don't know but it's led to a ton of speculation as for what's gone wrong. Many haven't had sales now in over a month.
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Consensus on the Pond5 forum is that today's sales report only covered 1 day of the 5 or so that are currently unreported, so there are likely more days' worth of sales still in limbo awaiting to be reported. Some sort of communication from Pond5 would be very much appreciated.
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Consensus on the Pond5 forum is that today's sales report only covered 1 day of the 5 or so that are currently unreported, so there are likely more days' worth of sales still in limbo awaiting to be reported. Some sort of communication from Pond5 would be very much appreciated.
Some sort of communication would be appreciated especially as they should have paid the royalties on those sales yesterday.
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Consensus on the Pond5 forum is that today's sales report only covered 1 day of the 5 or so that are currently unreported, so there are likely more days' worth of sales still in limbo awaiting to be reported. Some sort of communication from Pond5 would be very much appreciated.
Well, that would be good, but I doubt it. I had about 3x my daily normal so it was almost definitely a combination of the last couple of days.
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This is not good.
They had to pay the .50 per clip to the Subscription Suppliers. That money had to come from somewhere.
It says a lot when we do not know how many days sales are missing from last months reporting and P5 management are saying nothing.
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I got an email that my payment to skrill will come soon....
It is amazing how they can make such a mess of an agency that was really well run for over 10 years.
what kind of business amateurs are these so called investors?
They must be playing with other people's money, no real investor would make so many mistakes in such a short time.
How will we ever know how many sales have not been reported?
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I think they are short on cash so that they waited till April 16 to post the new sales. That way they don't need to pay it on the 15th.
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I have had a large amount of clip page views this week. I know from past history that always results in some sales. Therefore I'd be fairly confident I have around half a dozen give or take unreported sales. However I suppose at this stage we can't do anything but wait for the next say to see what happens.
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Consensus on the Pond5 forum is that today's sales report only covered 1 day of the 5 or so that are currently unreported, so there are likely more days' worth of sales still in limbo awaiting to be reported. Some sort of communication from Pond5 would be very much appreciated.
Well, that would be good, but I doubt it. I had about 3x my daily normal so it was almost definitely a combination of the last couple of days.
Let's hope you just had a very good day of sales! ;)
Today's sales were from clips which appeared as new cart adds on 13th Apr. Normally that would equal sales report on 15th, but it's two days late. Same situation with yesterdays clips that show up as sales. Suggests there are still at least 2 days of sales in limbo.
And the guys / girls in the Pond5 forum who are actively discussing this issue are regular sellers who know when something's amiss and a lot of them are hollering!
Edit: Pond5 admin just stated the "catch up" has started for some people and should be complete for everyone over the next few days.