384 deactivated, 36 to go.  I really don't want to wait until February 2, I would not be surprised if they tried to stop that somehow.  Maybe I'll leave a couple up there til then.

Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using Tapatalk 2

I doubt if they will provide an opt out -- we asked for one FOR YEARS for that Microsoft deal, and they just ignored the question after awhile and locked the thread.  Even if they did -- I would never trust them again.  If everyone who wanted to opted out of these things, they'd have no content to deal with. 

Never heard of SparkRebel; it looks like Pinterest.

It appears that way Sue -- here's a link - I saw it in a few places described as a Pinterest for teenage girl's fashion, an on-line mall.   

http://sparkrebel.com/about

I just saw this in the termination part of the ASA:

"notwithstanding termination, iStockphoto and its distribution partners shall have the right to continue licensing Accepted Exclusive Content until it is removed from the Site or other sites where Accepted Exclusive Content is distributed and for up to (1) year following termination where such Accepted Content has previously appeared in iStockphoto's promotional materials, CD programs or Distribution Partner marketing programs"

So it sounds like dropping the crown, deactivating images, whatever means they can continue to sell images (or give them away like they're doing with Google, Microsoft, Zazzle) -- although it says nothing about how they are paid for once the account is closed. 

I read yesterday in one of the FB groups that there was some fraud that hit yesterday, but I've only heard one report of refunds from it.  To the best of my knowledge, the scam site is still working just fine, so maybe that's it.  I know they're finally getting around to doing refunds from that because the one buy I made from that for tracking was finally refunded. 

And now the Sr. Director of Search Strategy for Getty is posting in the best match Discussion thread  (although she's basically saying it's all working like it should) -- what is happening here?      

Re that site, from the contributer newsletter:
"Our legal team continues to investigate this matter and we will keep you updated. That being said, please consider this a reminder to guard your iStockphoto credentials carefully. Do not use your iStock log in details at any other sites, and consider changing your passwords from time to time.

And while we�re on the topic of fraud, let�s talk about refunds. There is a lot of discussion in the forums about refunds at iStockphoto being �higher than normal� due to credit card fraud. This is simply not the case. We have a very robust set of fraud detection systems in place, and, in fact, our credit card fraud rates are below the standards set by the credit card companies."

I'm one of them who used their $2 promotion to buy an XS of my own -- a newly uploaded file, in my portfolio for one day, no views.  MyUploads, open in another window at the time, immediately showed a download of an XL, the largest size available for me.  iStock was notified.  I haven't seen a refund yet.  This was 11 days ago.  My purchase from istockreseller was done in an incognito window, with no cookies or caching or history or IP information going to them, with a throw-away account that has no connection to my real name or email address.  They have no paypal info or credit card info from me, and I've received no other emails from them or anyone else (which frankly surprised me, as I expected a boatload of spam).  The downloaded file went immediately into the trash without being opened (who knows what they might have embedded in them). 

With several people doing this now and providing all the detail to iStock (and one would assume iStock would be doing this to, to track the payer of these), I question the "very robust set of fraud detection systems".  Someone is paying for these large size purchases from iStock.  I still believe that if this happened to Amazon or BestBuy or your bank, this would not still be going on almost a month after first being reported.  Can it be that difficult to track where it's coming from when they get paid for these?

I understand some of the responses and Sean's blog post -- no, the site probably hasn't been "hacked" -- but someone is getting our images.  This is taking the fun out of getting downloads, because now I instantly wonder if they are legitimate, and if I will find myself going into the hole after the next payout (I also don't understand the time delay for the refunds).

I'm getting concerned about this.  The forum threads about it have been locked, as they should.  But I'm wondering if TPTB are doing anything about it.  It is back online, the add-money link to Paypal was broken (and reported as such by iStock) and is now working again.   One can sign up, and get sent $2 in promotional money, and use it to download images.  If these are truly being paid for with stolen credit card numbers, we'll undoubtedly be seeing refunds -- and in the meantime, it is possible to "buy" and download our images.  I haven't received any reply to the emails I sent CE about this.  It ticks me off -- they've known about this for more than a week.  If this happened to an on-line retailer or bank or whatever, they'd have it shut off by now.  (venting because thinking of refunds).

Quote from: gostwyck on October 21, 2012, 10:47

I can't believe they haven't got a team working on the zoom feature issue on a 24/7 basis until it is fixed. How difficult can it be? They've had enough time to have re-written the code for entire website twice over.

Be reasonable. Maybe the guy who updates their web pages, when possible, is on vacation. Or perhaps he is really busy finishing something else for another client.

Seriously though, are you even sure they have a dedicated in-house IT team anymore. Perhaps, like so much else in the dysfunctional Getty family, duplicated roles within the different brands are gradually being merged. (Weren't they talking about mostly merging the ingestion/inspection processes a while ago).

It's not just this time though.  This has been ongoing since the original "F5" how many years ago.   Things haven't been working normally since then.  This can't be attributed to someone being on vacation this many times or a rush job on something else.  Basic functionality and accurate reporting should be a given. 

I wondered about the merge idea myself.  The istock support emails are now coming from @gettyimages.com rather than @istockphoto.com, so that has been merged.  But the gettyimages website was showing several IT positions open, and showing the location in Calgary.  So at least some of them would still be there it seems. 

I can't find it at the moment, but somewhere in the HQ Update thread, Dave Clark (dcdp) posted a new greasemonkey script (I think it was modified from Sean's script) that you can install and it will find the downloads that go along with the mystery money.  I couldn't get it to work for a bit, and then he told me I needed to check the "Force Search" option, which goes through every file -- and I found it.  If you have a lot of files, it can take awhile, but it is better than going through each of your files individually to look for a download that isn't showing otherwise.  If you can't find it in the thread, I'm sure you can site mail him and he'll be happy to point send you a link.

Quote from: KarenH on July 16, 2012, 07:40

Quote from: ShadySue on July 13, 2012, 16:10

Quote from: ffNixx on July 13, 2012, 16:03

Quote from: corepics on July 13, 2012, 14:46

Perhaps a client demanded a refund on a sale which istock never reported to me in the first place?

Have there ever been sales at iStock that weren't reported?

How would we know?
AFAICS, the only way of catching that would be if you found an in-use of a file you'd never sold, that had only ever been on iStock, and you reported it as used without a sale and there was no reasonable explanation. I don't think I've ever heard of that happening. Once, someone thought he'd found that, but it turned out it was a Getty sale via V/A, which was reported a few weeks after the sale, as usual.

That happened to me once.  Found a photo in use that had never been reported as downloaded, and as I'm exclusive, it had never been uploaded anywhere else.  I reported it to CE, got the canned letter, and IIRC, I followed up on it later and found it still there, and had to report it again.  And I'm not near home now to check, but I think I will follow up on it when I do get there.  There's probably no way of telling if something was an unreported sale or if someone just lifted it off the site (which has happened a few times).

What do you mean by "someone just lifted it off the site"? Do you mean hacked into the iStock servers and downloaded the full size file?

Do please report back what you eventually find out about the unsold photo you found in use.

By "lifted it off the site", I meant just copied it and used it, not hacked into it.  The image is still up there in use, more than a year after being reported (twice) to iStock.  It's a watermarked image, never had a download, and the image does not link back to iStockphoto - a realtor uploaded it to her blog.  I reported it again, a third time, 13 months after the first report, and never even got a canned response.   Not even the auto-acknowledgment.

Quote from: ffNixx on July 13, 2012, 16:03

Quote from: corepics on July 13, 2012, 14:46

Perhaps a client demanded a refund on a sale which istock never reported to me in the first place?

Have there ever been sales at iStock that weren't reported?

How would we know?
AFAICS, the only way of catching that would be if you found an in-use of a file you'd never sold, that had only ever been on iStock, and you reported it as used without a sale and there was no reasonable explanation. I don't think I've ever heard of that happening. Once, someone thought he'd found that, but it turned out it was a Getty sale via V/A, which was reported a few weeks after the sale, as usual.

That happened to me once.  Found a photo in use that had never been reported as downloaded, and as I'm exclusive, it had never been uploaded anywhere else.  I reported it to CE, got the canned letter, and IIRC, I followed up on it later and found it still there, and had to report it again.  And I'm not near home now to check, but I think I will follow up on it when I do get there.  There's probably no way of telling if something was an unreported sale or if someone just lifted it off the site (which has happened a few times).