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Messages - ShadySue

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14426
Seeing as how they cannot have a solid grasp on peoples' numbers for at least 3 days ( the usual RC calculations ), plus the fraud RC removal, plus the Vetta and audio RC additions ...
I think they'll hit it anyway, and say they'll adjust later, knowing it's almost impossible for us to know what's really due to us.
If I'm wrong, it's the first nod to consumer sensibilities we'll have had in months, though it will only affect the people 'on the cusp'.

14427
As the istock commission cuts are happening 1st January 2011

I will bet you a dollar that they won't be happening tomorrow.  I would say the 17th at the earliest.
It would cost me too much to send you the dollar, but I'll be surprised if they haven't had the Big Red Button ready to press since early September, and it will be pressed at midnight Calgary time. Maybe Kelly will come into the office specially to hit it.
But I could be wrong, of course.

14428
I'll be sticking on 30%, but as I'm within 400 dls of turning gold, it will soon be falling from what I should have expected.

14429
It ain't a cut for everyone...
Well, I guess an exclusive who keeps the same level and has no Vetta, Agency or extended licences won't get a cut.
And maybe a few Black Diamonds have reached the 45% level (but will still have the above cuts, so who knows where the balance will be, even for them)

14430
I'm already uploading much less, especially since my old files are vastly outselling my newer ones - even the ones which wouldn't pass inspection nowadays - go figure! On current showings, that won't change. I happened to catch a new file last month which had sunk to position 83 in a best match search less than 24 hours after appearing in my portfolio - and now people are reporting files not even getting into their ports.
Ethan and Duck will get a well-deserved rest when my canister turns gold but my royalties don't, as I'll almost stop wiki-ing, suggesting bulk wikis and bombarding their in-trays!
I'm guessing people won't help others so much on the forums, as everyone is now directly a rival, not just for sales but for percentage rates, as only a certain percentage will reach each level. Previously helping someone in a different genre had no adverse effect on your own progress; now it does.
But it's not just the cash grab: they just seem to be totally incompetent at everything they do. They don't seem to have any plan, far less a long-term one.  They've heard of buyers, but want no truck with them.
My year started OK: dls down, $$$ up, but my end of year is bad: this month will be over 20% down on last Dec and much more compared to Dec 08 for $$.
I'll be keeping a watching brief on editorial, but to be honest, I can't imagine any local situations selling in numbers which would make micro prices worth it. Different for contributers in big cities, probably.
In Pollyanna mode, things can only get better, but realistically ... ???
So ... continuing to focus, optimistically, on RM/editorial at Alamy. May start looking at other RM agencies with a more local/specialist focus.

14431
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Istock F5 epic fail
« on: December 30, 2010, 13:05 »
Look at the buyer mentioned earlier in this thread waiting 3 hours to download the images they needed. There are plenty of other places to buy images, many cheaper and just as good quality as istock's offerings. And yet buyers will still suffer through the problems and keep buying from istock after each and every misstep.
That buyer had already had the images in a lightbox approved by a client, so it wouldn't have been easy to start again looking for images and getting them approved. Maybe there was a deadline. But we don't know that s/he will be a loyal buyer when their image bundle needs renewed.

14432
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Istock F5 epic fail
« on: December 30, 2010, 11:27 »
What we are experiencing at iStock is incompetence and gross mismanagement. As CEO of a technology company, the Board would fire my as* in a heart beat if I ran the business and produced a website with the magnitude of problems and lack of testing and Q/C we are experiencing. On top of all the issues they close the shop and take a vacation. This is either total incompetence or just plain arrogance. I don't see a long term future with iStock.


This is one of the things that frustrates me the most.  Before going into the programming end of development, I spent a few years in QA as a tester and then managing the QA function.  I see some of the stuff that gets rolled out here where basically it's the buyers and contributors testing it, and so obviously broken, that I'm just mind-boggled that it got put into production in that shape.  It bugs me when people say "well those things will happen in all companies" -- not to this extent and repetition, and not without heads rolling.  I'd have been let go in a heartbeat. 

Oh, who knows, he might be on a big golden goodbye deal like Fred the Shred. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Goodwin
The salient points are:
"Sir Frederick Anderson Goodwin CA, FCIBS, (born 17 August 1958) is a chartered accountant who was formerly chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS).
From 2000 until 2008 he presided over RBS's rapid rise to global prominence as the world's largest company (by assets - 1.9 trillion),and fifth-largest bank by stock market value and its even more rapid fall as RBS was forced into effective nationalisation in 2008.
On October 11, 2008, Goodwin officially announced his resignation as Chief Executive and an early retirement, effective from January 31, 2009 - a month before RBS announced that its 2008 loss totalled 24.1bn, the largest annual loss in UK corporate history. Following the February 2009 disclosure of his approximately 700,000 per year pension award from RBS he was the subject of widespread public, political and media criticism."

and
"...Around this time he gained the moniker "Fred the Shred" from City financiers, reflecting a reputation for ruthlessly generating cost savings and efficiencies"
Basically Fred's in clover and doesn't GAF about the detritus (ordinary bank employees) left in his wake.

14433
I like Canstock -... with about 1000 images on the site, I have earned $144 in 2010.
Steve
Let's all rush over there straight away!  ::)

14434
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Fraud going down at IS
« on: December 30, 2010, 09:04 »
When i checked the iS forums this morning there was a thread made by a contributor (whiteway) who also had 'fraudulent transactions'. He posted that when he googled his name  today he got A LOT more hits than usual, all leading to what google calls 'attack sites' (if i recall the post correct).
Wanted to see the replies but there's no sign of the thread anymore... Ho ho ho indeed.
I've had that since not long after I joined, on many sites, with the same surrounding text in several. It's probably done by a harvesting bot. I previously got it from Usenet and/or my personal website. I'm even down as having written user testimonials on things I've never even heard of, at least twice with my name and istockphoto underneath (randomly harvested, nothing to do with photography).

14435
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Fraud going down at IS
« on: December 30, 2010, 08:52 »
You do wonder if they have any responsibilities at all in the business relationship we're supposed to have with each other.

no, No, NO - you clearly don't get it.
We have all the restrictive responsibilities, especially if exclusive, they have only rights.
We signed up to it in the artists' supply agreement http://www.istockphoto.com/asa_non_exclusive.php or http://www.istockphoto.com/asa_exclusive.php whereupon they exempt themselves of any repsonsibilies or liabilities, which may or may not hold water in Canada.
But note 16.4 says, "If all or part of any provision of this Agreement is wholly or partially unenforceable, the parties or, in the event the parties are unable to agree, a court of competent jurisdiction, shall put in place of such whole or part provision an enforceable provision or provisions, that as nearly as possible reflects the terms of the unenforceable whole or part provision."
Again another piece of bad writing. What on earth is "the parties or, in the event the parties are" meant to signify?
I wish, and have said it so often, that they'd pay the Plain English Society to rewrite all their legal stuff and all their announcements.

14436
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Fraud going down at IS
« on: December 30, 2010, 07:55 »
I thought KK's response was condescending, rude, immature and just a bit snotty. He may be under stress, but if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. I think ( as previously mentioned) he could could use a PR person.

His official Spin Doctor is 'Roger Mexico', so I take all RM's half-informative posts with a big pinch of salt; but he's out of the building as he announced with great noise. http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=285392&page=1
Maybe he  was surreptitiously giving advanced notice of the strife which was to come.

14437
General Stock Discussion / Re: I'm paying my models too much!
« on: December 30, 2010, 05:04 »
You've got to admire the honesty of the CEO, bragging about how well they're doing while shafting the very people who lead to its success.
Seems to be the current trend.

14438
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Buyers Bailing on Istock
« on: December 30, 2010, 04:59 »
This evening I see a bunch of angry twitter posts from buyers (apparently they're buyers; I don't know the people) as iStock has implemented a time lock - one download every 5 minutes. One comment was that with a lightbox of 38 images that'll take over 3 hours to download.

I assume this is related to the credit card fraud, but if so, how stupid to limit the small numbers of downloads as well as the big batches. So if I need 5 pictures for a project, I download all 5 in 5 minutes and then I go away for hours or days while I work on things. Users of that sort shouldn't have to wait 25 minutes to download their images. It's the sustained numbers of downloads at speed that should be the flag.

I guess this was the best that the skeleton IT staff could come up with over the holidays???
I see the 404 error on SMs is still there. While me getting that message (which apparently doesn't mean anything) when SMing someone hardly matters, I hope it's been fixed when people send support tickets. Even if it's working, the impression is given that it isn't, and buyers don't all hang around the forums (it was an hour or two after my 404 that it was reported in the Help forum, and a while after that before I and others realised that the SMs were getting through despite the 404).

14439
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Interesting site about Getty
« on: December 29, 2010, 19:09 »
If they're harassing people for using Flickr, now Getty, images, they're on shaky ground. What if they were marked CC at the time they were downloaded, but now should be licensed from Getty? I've used a photo I found on Flickr marked CC 'some rights reserved', and when I clicked on that, it said it couldn't be used for commercial purposes, which was fine for my use, but it also had a 'license from Getty' link, so I took a screendump of the whole Flickr page, just in case.
No wonder people can get genuinely confused.

14440
Canon / Re: Canon 5DMkII = less microstock acceptance?
« on: December 29, 2010, 17:04 »

Prior to the 5DMII my percentage rate of accepted images is about 30-100% depending on the site.

Well.... I got the 5DMII.  And I love the quality of the images and the ISO performance.  The AF system IMO is not as good as the 7D.

BUT....my acceptance rate for the past few weeks since I started using the camera has been about 0-10%.

As has been said, you need to share your rejection reasons. Since I got the 5D2, my rejections for artifacting etc have gone down, compensated by 'poor lighting' rejections shooting up.

14441
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Buyers Bailing on Istock
« on: December 29, 2010, 17:02 »
Here's another:

Quote
idyzyn
idyzyn
Member has had a submission accepted to the Designer Spotlight
Posted 9 mins ago
Quote
   
I've basically left iStock although I used to LOVE IT HERE - returned today to buy a couple of images - and have found that the search isn't working at all for me. Only the Dollar Bin search.

No I'm not trying too specific a keyword. I can type in "boy" and get nothing. I can type in "boy scout" and get nothing. "camping" - etc - NOTHING. So that's what I'll be buying: NOTHING!!!!!



I was just going to post that!  :) 
here's the link if anyone cares to see the thread.

It was probably just that really stupid 'feature' that reports 0 results until they all come down (who thought of that one? Why hasn't it been fixed? Why am I even asking?)

14442
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Credit card fraud not something new to IS
« on: December 29, 2010, 14:47 »
I don't understand how it's possible that iStock supposedly paid back some scammed victims' money directly...
Once I had my CC info stolen, I was reimbursed by the CC company and not the retailer where the card information was (ab)used.
Did you contact the retailler? It looks from that site as though a few scammed people contacted iStock directly and were paid by them (at least, that's what they say). Whether they would also be paid by their cc company, I couldn't possibly say.
What one retailler does and what another does is totally disconnected, therefore irrelevant. Most companies may tell you to sort it through your cardholder, doesn't mean all will.
My credit card company protects me from ID theft and therefore I don't have to jump through hoops by dealing with those companies that encountered fraudulent charges with my stolen CC info.

I simply give my CC company one phone call and all is settled: I get my unauthorized charges voided and a set of new credit cards. Done.

I consider it "more" inconvenient if I have to find out where my card was used, contact all of those retailers and explain to them that my card was stolen so I can get my money back from them...
That's no problem. You did seem to be questioning the veracity of what people had said on that site when you said: "I don't understand how it's possible that iStock supposedly paid back some scammed victims' money directly."

14443
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Istock F5 epic fail
« on: December 29, 2010, 14:40 »
wow.  Twitter is going crazy with buyers pissed about getting 404 errors when they try to download an image.  another big iStock #FAIL!

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=286842&page=1#post5478732
"people are on to it"

14444
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Istock F5 epic fail
« on: December 29, 2010, 14:39 »
Doesn't everyone just dread the New Year. Just wonder what disaster's are going to happen New Years Day.

I don't know about NY day, but definitely the first week or two of the New Year things are probably going to be hitting the fan.  I both dread it and at the same time would like it to be over with so I can stop being in suspense. 
Oh no, they've been practising the code for clawing money back from us since October (at least). This one will go well.  ;)

14445
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Fraud going down at IS
« on: December 29, 2010, 13:30 »
Seems I am late to this discussion, but I just have to agree that Kelly's admonishing contributors for not being thankful enough was pretty disgusting.  Gostwyck nailed it by comparing it to Tony Hayward's "I just want my life back" remark.   Also reminiscent of Kelly's other "Money isn't going to be what makes you happy" quip.  Really, this guy should use some of the additional royalties Istock will be keeping to hire a PR person to proofread his posts.
I really don't think we want a PR spin. There's enough smoke and mirrors over there as it is. We're as well to know who we're dealing with.

14446
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Istock F5 epic fail
« on: December 29, 2010, 12:37 »
Not to mention the current sitemail problem: when you hit 'send mail' you get a 404 message.
I thought I'd suddenly been banned from SM, but it's now been reported on the help forum.
Probably mostly irrelevant to buying/selling, so again, a hiccup, not an 'epic fail'.


It's probably because they are getting bombarded with site mails over all this disastrous current events and the servers can't handle the overload.  ???

Yeah, they're getting 404s when they raise a support ticket too. Like the SMs, they're probably going through, but the 404 is disconcerting.
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=286842&page=1

14447
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Credit card fraud not something new to IS
« on: December 29, 2010, 09:45 »
I don't understand how it's possible that iStock supposedly paid back some scammed victims' money directly...
Once I had my CC info stolen, I was reimbursed by the CC company and not the retailer where the card information was (ab)used.
Did you contact the retailler? It looks from that site as though a few scammed people contacted iStock directly and were paid by them (at least, that's what they say). Whether they would also be paid by their cc company, I couldn't possibly say.
What one retailler does and what another does is totally disconnected, therefore irrelevant. Most companies may tell you to sort it through your cardholder, doesn't mean all will.

14448
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Credit card fraud not something new to IS
« on: December 29, 2010, 08:53 »
I figured as soon as whitemay posted that reference to the trouble on the 800note site, the thread would get locked.

I am certain too that online companies have this problem, but I'm thinking that it is mostly done on a small scale. In other words, a pattern is noticed, perpetrator caught and prosecuted.

This 800note cc stuff has been going on since 2009 and has hit in a big way. Seems like that should have warranted some sort of law enforcement intervention. And really, since IS knew this had been going on (and we didn't) wouldn't that be an even bigger reason not to have the company unprotected during the holidays and announce it to the world? Wouldn't that be an ever HUGER reason to make absolutely certain there were no holes in security before pushing through a whole new website redesign? I suppose, of course, that the old design might have been as holey as a sieve, too, though.  :-\
This sort of scam, at least the earlier ones with smaller amounts of money, aren't a result of iStock's site security. This can happen even with over-the-phone orders - someone steals a card and uses it to purchase something. Hey, the very first credit card I ever got had someone else's new card inside my envelope - if I'd been dishonest, it would have been a dream for a week or two. Even in the old days of cheques, I remember once buying a pair of shoes in a shop. The shop assistant said she would stamp the shop's name on the 'to' line, which was quite standard, and I didn't think to watch her doing it. When the cheque was returned, her name (or if she was smart, maybe a pal's) was on it, and it took me a while to work out that's what had happened. Trouble was, I'd been in several shoe shops, and couldn't remember which one I'd actually purchased the shoes from, so she got off with it.

14449
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Fraud going down at IS
« on: December 29, 2010, 08:42 »
Seems from that site Cathy linked to on the other site:
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-403-265-3062/4
that iStock is paying back money to scammed cardholders who contact them.
I'm sure it will take a while for all of the cardholders to find out - I for one don't do any sort of internet banking.
Some card companies are better than others: my card company phoned me because by chance I registered two websites with the same (American) host within a week (I'm in the UK) and they wanted to be sure it was genuine: and that only totalled about 110.

14450
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Credit card fraud not something new to IS
« on: December 29, 2010, 08:36 »

According to these people these charges started back on Dec 14th....that's before they went on their glory vacation!!

It seems that the first report on that site was actually 14 Feb 2009, though for relatively small amounts, not the sort of huge credit bundles which seem to have been at the root of the current scam.
However, it certainly looks likely that the downloaded images are very likely to end up being redistributed somewhere, and I guess there's not much can be done.
I'd imagine for a minute that other companies, including amazon, are similarly affected. It's a problem inherent in the nature of online trading.

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