I haven't been here for many moons, but can't help responding to this.

There are many legitimate reasons why people are over weight. for example... many people who have been sexually abused put on weight to "protect" and hide themselves. And in Canada, it has been stated that 1 in 4 women have been sexually abused at some point in their lives and many do not get help.

Also, thyroid problems often go undetected and can cause weight gain. Quitting smoking leads to weight gain (I know I put on 28 lbs when I quit and it just won't go away - no matter what I do). Alcoholism causes the body to put on weight to absorb the alcohol, but personally, I don't know any alcoholics that are vegan and frequent the gym.

Arthritis and injury can stop peoples ability to exercise, medications like lyrica can make you put of as much as 30 lbs in just three months. Then their are people in their 60s and 70s who just don't have the energy anymore do to aging.

Many people work a 40+ hour week, look after their children, their aging parents, do their own housework, and have to prepare meals that a "family" will all actually eat, all in 15 minutes so these things do not leave time (or money) to go to the gym let alone convincing your children that not eating hamburger helper will save the planet. (it probably would - lol)

Its all fine and dandy to think that all "fatties" can be cured by eating less and an hour at the gym every day, but this is not always true nor feasible. I think tolerance and support, not judgement are necessary. I know obesity is on the rise and is a health issue but we should look at "why" it is, and not stoop to name calling.

Last download - April 28th for me. I thought it might be down too??? Ouch.

Haven't posted here in a long time, but I'm having more downloads & money this week than I've had in months and months! Even having downloads overnight so they are there when I wake up!

Sorry its not working for everyone, but I'm lovin it! Hope it lasts.

LEAF... ILY - this works so well!  You are the best and just saved me hours of work!  Thank you so much.

Regards
PenelopeB - Penny

StockXpert was easy to delete compared to DT.  With StockXpert, you could delete a whole page at a time, versus disabling each file individually with DT.

I worked in a factory (real sweat shop) on an assembly line for my job for $1.45 hour making aluminum lawn furniture, working a huge brake press, then got promoted to the antenna department where I built huge 40 foot radar antenna from blue prints - still make $1.45 hour. Flipping burgers sounds great! Oh... I was only 17 years old.

 "Well Walleye is a perch not a Pike! "


Actually, a Walleye is from the Perch family, but not a "Perch". In Canada, Walleye is often mistakenly called a Pickeral, which is a hybrid Pike. A Pike is a totally different fish.

I like the Avocado line... a fruit that eats like a veggie!  Put it in both, IMHO

Well... I don't want to jinx myself, but I am very happy with the results of my exclusivity so far.  (regardless of any cannister level stuff)

I deleted portfolios from StockXpert, SS, FT, DT, BS and Veer. 

I learned how to drive in a big green dodge that looked like that in 1970. It had 4 on the column.  Ha!  Awesome!

One more question...

If your StockXpert portfolio went over to thinkstock, then you went exclusive, would your file have to be deleted off thinkstock to be exclusive?

Sorry, but I didn't have any photos at Alamy so I don't know.

DT and BS, I stopped uploading over a year ago as I was on the fence for a long time.

I could be wrong, but I think maybe DT paid me out to shut me up about the discrepancy between the number of downloads on Imagetrail versus the number of downloads recorded  on DT with respect to "level" status of images.

I may be way off base on this, perhaps it is a two downloads on IT count as one on DT?
but for those of you on both sites, I certainly would be checking this out. I checked at least three images on DT where they only had a level of up to say...45 downloads, but they had 65 downloads on Image trail???  Maybe some of those came from Fotolia?

Thank you Lisa.

btw.. I just heard from DT, and they will pay out my account. Thank you DT!

Update... 4 pm DT lightening fast. Much appreciated.

Will do... should be interesting. Lets see how this affects my Stock income.

Its official... I've got my crown!

I tried to plan it strategically.  BS I was only owed $1.50, Veer, never had a sale there to start with, SS, waited until I had reached the payout level, FT offer to pay me with ID, StockXpert is going to pay me, and DT is the only one to rip me off.

Jsolie... You are my hero!  I contacted Peter at the email below, and he responded right away (within 24 hrs) and Presto! My account is gone. Thank you so much.

So sad... this was my first site, way back when.

Big fish eats the little fish.

Ok, well if that is the case and the buyer was reverted over to DT, then the download figures don't match DTs and I've been ripped off for a bunch of downloads. If anyone is on this IT site, can you check you downloads and compare to DT to see if they do or don't match?

If I were DT, I would contact IT and just get them to remove my page, then the evidence would be gone (and that would solve my problem)

Do downloads at imagetrail all go through DT and are they counted towards the image level of each picture at DT? 

If so, then I've got major discrepancies between the level of my pictures on DT versus the number of downloads reported on image trail. 

One picture I have that is on IT and was on DT, was downloaded 65 times alone on IT, yet only had a level on DT of 25 - 49 downloads? and this is repeated through out.

Does anyone know?

Sorry, I thought is was FT but it was SS.

The Pixmac photos are gone this morning with a "sorry" email, but the Imagetrail ones are still there.

Wow... this is turning into a nightmare. I have called and emailed DREAMSTIME as it is obviously their affiliate as my user name is Sugarfoot.

Very sad. What has happened to this industry???

I checked off the affiliate thing in both DT and FT very early last week, so there is no excuse.

Even though Pixmac said they would take down my portfolio, its is Monday now and they are still up. Emailed them twice now, I hope they get their act together soon. It is not even thumbnails but my whole portfolio is for sale even though they were deleted earlier last week.

Also, DT has now emailed me stating they will not send me my $65.00 payout as it has not reached the $100 mark. So now, they claim that I lose it or buy picture. I am mighty P*SSED about this. I always had great admiration for Dreamstime, but with all the trouble I've had lately... it sure has wained! I am going to email them. They are the only other site that has done this. All the others have offered to pay out the balance.

So three more things to add to the exclusive process.. Make sure your payout at DT is either Zip or $100. and what ever you do... don't use their Keyword service if you are planning to leave their. And make sure you plan ahead so Pixmac can catch up.

They said a week, waited 8 business days, contacted them twice more and Brian O'Shea via a site mail here. A fellow named Ryan said they would be down within 24 hours, and was good for his word. I had no sales at Veer so didn't have to worry about them hanging around for 60 days, so don't know how that works. Sorry. Don't know about affiliates either?

The 60 days is just in case someone has one in their checkout that they have purchased and it hangs around, so they told me.

DT, SS, FT, StockXpert, BS, and VEER.

Thanks Lisa. I will check back in.

I am silver at iStock, and wanted to preserve the download level to gold.

I have found the minilypses at iStock "fantastic", done three now and scheduled for another in May and hopefully another Toronto one this summer. If I can do more of these time and money wise, I'll go to as many as I can. Learned more there than anywhere else and the people I've met have been very nice and supportive even though I wasn't exclusive.

I've also found keep up with all the politics of all these sites, together with the constant "chipping" away of my rights and income very disheartening. This way I can concentrate on learning more and taking better pictures. All my best stuff from the minilypses is only on istock anyway, so it just seemed the natural way to go.

I have a sneaking suspicion that if you use their keyword service that it bumps the upload date up to the date you used the keyword service. Somehow, one of my photos got keyworded (I didn't request it?). The original upload date was 2005, it was recorded as keyworded incorrect (actually, all my files got marked as bad keywords), somehow it got re-keyworded, but the upload date changed to the date it got re-keyworded. I haven't uploaded to either DT or BS for a while as I've been on the fence for some time. Could posses a nightmare if you are trying to avoid the 6 months thing.

Unless this was just a random mistake as I didn't request the re-keyword service??? Glitch? DT was very nice about this and handled themselves very professionally. Thank you DT.

I think all the cache of thumbs and files will disappear over the next few days, as I manually deleted every file on every site that I could backed up by an email request to remove thumbs and affiliates. I also checked out of affiliates on every site I could prior and emailed the affiliates. Every site so far has been very nice and wished me good luck, and if you come back, we are still here. So far so good. Lets see what happens with my application for exclusivity from iStock.  I've done all I could to this point. Even Veer has taken everything down now. The thread on this forum regarding "going exclusive" really helped. Thanks folks.

Other than the fear of deleting all those files (some sites were nerve racking, but others, it was YES! no more cheesy commissions) makes me wonder ...Sure hope this was the right move?

Well... I've done it now! I have deleted all my files from every site so I can go exclusive with iStock.

Veer just contacted me and said my portfolio will ge gone by tomorrow.

Just a note to those thinking of doing this... be careful of Keywording at DT

It has taken me over a week to get everything removed. Phew.

Kinda scary - we'll see. Hope that crown fits!