Received this email:

After 10 years of operation Stockfresh is closing its doors on October 17, 2020.

Why are we closing?

As you probably know, the stock photography market has changed a lot in the last few years, and we don't feel we can make a meaningful contribution any more in the current business climate. The disconnect between what customers need in 2020 and their expectations regarding prices in a market that's been oversaturated for years makes it really difficult to build and grow a sustainable stock photography business. Therefore, for the time being we decided to focus our efforts on other projects.

How does this affect customers?

During the next 30 days, customers will still be able to buy your images using the instant download feature and use up all their remaining prepaid and subscription credits. They will also be able to re-download images they previously purchased for backup purposes, just like before, if the images are still available for sale on the website. After October 17, customer access to all images will be disabled.

How does this affect contributors?

As a contributor, your work will still be available for sale for the next 30 days by default, however you can request us to close your account early and claim your earnings at any time during that period, if you have reached the $50 threshold. During this time we'll not be able to accept any new submissions. On October 17 all remaining images will be removed from our servers automatically, and you will be able to request your earnings no later than November 1. To make this process smooth, please make sure your payment details are up to date.

Thank you very much for your continued support. It's been great working with you and we wish you the best of luck for the future!

Stockfresh
Best regards,
The Stockfresh Team

And another small agency bites the dust. It was one of my lowest earners, so it doesn't affect me. But they were a fair agency, and with the major agencies letting us down, there's now hardly a decent agency left.

I rated this agency as one that may break through, it had a well designed interface, with occasional sales, I have $40.85 in sales and used to get a payout once or twice a year.

A great shame that they can't keep going, I guess having also bought on this site it is down to the overall quality of the search and imagery, as both these could be difficult.

Still a site that is going that had quit a bit of potential.

I am at 47$ and they will not pay me and will hold my money?
Or am I missing something?

They say they will make a payout in the last paragraph.

Quote from: H2O on September 17, 2020, 08:40

Quote from: Mir on September 17, 2020, 07:47

I am at 47$ and they will not pay me and will hold my money?
Or am I missing something?

They say they will make a payout in the last paragraph.

I wrote to support to clarify. In the last paragraph, they don't explicitly say that they'll make payout under $50, although that's what I think is likely. I'll post an answer here.

Peter has always been good to deal with, I would imagine he will pay out for sure, but I agree, the wording was a little vague. Interested to see the response you get.

we don't feel we can make a meaningful contribution any more

Did they ever?  In the poll, they have consistently been below featurepics, Panther, and Yay, which is quite an achievement in insignificance.

The small agency I always liked is featurepics - weird reviewing sometimes, but no subs, mostly OK prices and 50% commission.  But not many sales of course.  Can't imagine they will hang on very much longer either.

Well, it was nice.

Another small turd agency finally glug down after circling the bowl

Hopefully the biggest turd agency (SS) goes the same route, but since it�s the biggest turd it may need a plunger to finally get it to go

Why is StockFresh a turd? Just because it doesn't have enough sales, doesn't make it a turd. It was a fair agency.

My earnings are stuck at 49.40 at Stockfresh. Is it allowable for me to have my son purchase a photo to put me over the 50.00 limit

I have asked support (no answer yet) about whether contributors with a balance lower than $50 at the time they close (Oct 17) will be paid.

The email about closing said that we had until Nov 1 to request payment and made it sound as though that would be regardless of the balance. Mine is $39.95 now, but other than one sale after the closure announcement, I haven't seen other activity (I had hoped perhaps buyers with credits to use up might bring a little boost to the balance).

Perhaps wait just a bit - you have until October 17th to have your son make a purchase (and I can't imagine there'd be any blowback - after all, what would they do? Close your account? )

I haven't received an answer too.

Same answer just received as well, I feel  once more that another MS company treat us as we have no rights at all, just making profit with our work.

No answer here.
This was going to be my first payout, now I feel I wasted my time uploading there.
I don't mind waiting to reach the threshold but I find it unfair to never receive the money you earned.
Is it even legal for them to keep your earnings?
Very disappointed, not even for the money themselves but just feeling cheated.

A follow-up email from Peter:

"Hi Colin,

Thank you for the feedback. It�s Peter from Stockfresh here.

In the last few years we�ve had a rapid decline in sales due to the fact that the entire microstock market has been struggling, meanwhile our costs have been growing to the point that we we were running out of funds. It became clear that despite our best efforts this business has no future, and we wanted to make sure we could still pay everyone we�re obligated to pay according to the contributor agreement (everyone above the $50 threshold), so we decided to close the site down.

I understand this is very disappointing, but based on the financial situation of the company it is very unlikely we can pay anyone else, and if we kept going on, the situation would only get worse, as the market itself is also getting worse. I�m sorry we weren�t able to crack the code, but I see that it�s a huge struggle for everyone.

We tried our best and it went well for a while, but unfortunately things didn�t work out in the end and the business failed. There�s nothing left to "keep� for ourselves from it, all the money will go to contributors and some customers who will be given refunds.

Hope this explains it better, feel free to contact me any time you like."

It's an agency's duty to keep contributor royalties separated from business spendings, so that in case of a shutdown, we can all get paid. But what I understand now is that Peter says that there's not enough funds to pay everyone their outstanding royalties. Well, then they shouldn't have spent all the money that belonged to the contributors. I doubt it's even legal to do that.

Very disappointing to see them make this decision and then blame the microstock struggles. It's just bad financial management.

Received this email:

After 10 years of operation Stockfresh is closing its doors on October 17, 2020.

Why are we closing?

....
....
Stockfresh
Best regards,
The Stockfresh Team

And another small agency bites the dust. It was one of my lowest earners, so it doesn't affect me. But they were a fair agency, and with the major agencies letting us down, there's now hardly a decent agency left.

fair, but not enough: if you fall in the "under-threshold" range of time until they close, they hold your money entirely. Maybe this is not a huge amount of money given it's under 50$, but that's not the point: they are holding money that they don't own at all. And this is NOT fair, even if we subscribed a contract. It's an unfair contract.
I can accept this condition in standard dimes, but not in closing times: you have to properly pay off contributors and THEN you can close accounts and so on.
This is absolutely an unfair, diffused, behaviour.
And of course, you have to do a simple multiplication to understand how much this is unfair for us and convenient for them.

Totally unfair.
A little thing, of course. But not fair at all.

Finally got a reply back:

Quote

"Hello,

Thank you very much for writing.

Regarding the closure of Stockfresh, we are going to pay all contributors who are above the $50 minimum payment threshold, as stated in the Contributor Agreement (https://stockfresh.com/info/ca).

If you are below the $50 minimum payment threshold, you can either
        a) wait for customers to download your images to reach the threshold before October 17 and make a request before November 1, or
        b) contact support to have your images removed from the website without payment at any time, with immediate effect.

If you have any other questions let us know.

Best regards,
Customer support
https://stockfresh.com"

As sales are basically non-existent, there is no way I'll reach $50 before October 17th. Which means that any balance below $50 will not be paid out (if I understand correctly)...Which is very, VERY BAD.

Now you think they are a turd?

I found that Stockfreash is based in Hungary.
I dont know if the CEO is still involved in the acyivity of SF but I intend to claim against the company and those behind.
There are several ways to report internet fraud (*) (I guess we are in this category) in the EU.
This is a general one at EU level:
https://ec.europa.eu/anti-fraud/contacts/fraud-reporting-form_en
The other one through the national police
https://www.europol.europa.eu/report-a-crime/report-cybercrime-online
There are probably other ways to proceed as well, If you have ideas let us know.
There must be also claims options fron non EU countries
I will wait few days before claiming but will do so when the best option is clear-

(*) I know < 50 dollars is not much money, but it is not acceptable. What next? company having buisiness models based on unreached limits?
I guess we are > 4000 contributors (?)  a vast majority below the threshhold (most ask payment when reaching the limit) so say 3000 contributors with an avg of 25 dollars: this is 75.000 dollars
Individaully the fraud is small, but with the numbers it is far from being peanuts.

One additional wrinkle in this story.  I just sent SF the following message:

Quote

I attempted to request payment of royalties on my account.  You now require a Certificate of Residency.  As a US resident, the cost of such a certificate is $85, which coincidentally is the amount of money owed to me.  Additionally, processing of the certificate and mailing it will likely take longer than you plan to be in business.  Is there any less onerous way to demonstrate my citizenship/residency that will satisfy your requirements? 

Thank you for your attention.

so this is a kind of new threshold in case you were over 50 $....
This seem to confirm that SF is not the "fair" agency we though they were!

Since they added this requirement some time back, I've successfully processed numerous payments by providing an invoice. It's an alternative to the residence certificate and is accepted. You just need to add these details:

TO: Stockfresh.com Kft. Medve utca 24, Budapest 1027 Hungary
EU VAT No.: HU23009701

Hope that helps.

I hope so too.  I'll give it a try.

Quote from: disorderly on September 26, 2020, 10:02

One additional wrinkle in this story.  I just sent SF the following message:

Quote

I attempted to request payment of royalties on my account.  You now require a Certificate of Residency.  As a US resident, the cost of such a certificate is $85, which coincidentally is the amount of money owed to me.  Additionally, processing of the certificate and mailing it will likely take longer than you plan to be in business.  Is there any less onerous way to demonstrate my citizenship/residency that will satisfy your requirements? 

Thank you for your attention.

you don't need to make it as complicated for yourself.. just a utility bill will do..

Turns out I didn't need to worry.  SF Support said an ID was all they wanted, and under the circumstances, they didn't even need that.  They put in a payout request for me, and that'll be that.

Just received an update from Peter following my reply:

Quote

Hey Colin,

It turns out I was a bit too worried about the financials of the business, and communicated prematurely. I�m a developer and this is not my strong suit. The bottom line is that everyone will be able to request their earnings starting Oct 17. Until then it�s business as usual ($50+ payouts).

I apologize for the confusion, and if you have any questions feel free to email me at any time.

Best regards,
Peter

Good news after all! To be honest, I didn't expect an update after my reply, but it's confirmed: it turns out everyone WILL be able to request their earnings after Oct 17.

I got a similar statement after talking directly with Peter. Good news.

Good to hear they are paying everybody out. I was disappointed when they launched that they were just trying mostly to recreate StockXpert instead of building something that was pushing the industry forward. That said, I have respect for all of them running the agency. It is not an easy thing to do. They treated me great, and I was happy with what had been going on recently. I'm pretty much 100% passive now (waiting to see what happens with no real reward for creating more content), but I'd love to jump back in if any of these players have a new and inventive idea. I've run stuff myself, and I know that I'm just not cut out for that.

Just a reminder to anyone with a balance at StockFresh that it's now time to send in a payment request. I did (for $40.95) and it's now pending.

I had to throw together an invoice in Word and upload a PDF of that with the request - as I don't have a TAX ID document - so I'm hoping I've done all that I need to.

You have until Nov 1 2020 to make your request

Thanks for the heads up, I almost forgot them already...

Quote from: Mir on October 17, 2020, 16:35

What is the certificate of tax residence they are requesting?

I wrote to them about that; a US certificate cost as much as SF owed me.  I was told not to sweat it, that a copy of your ID with an address would suffice.  In my case they didn't even require that much.  They put the payment request in for m and I got the money a few days later.

Thanks, I received my payment.

Has any who submitted a payment request after 10/17 received their payment yet?  Mine has been pending since 10/19.

Stockfresh is now an affiliate site for Shutterstock, i.e. every image on an image page links to the image on shutterstock with a referral link. Not a bad a idea by Peter, he can now earn money from the site without doing anything.

Stockfresh should be put in the "Sites that no longer exist" section in this forum and removed from the list of sites in the sidebar, but that's up to Tyler. :-)

Stockfresh still gets a fair bit of traffic, I'm only basing this on Alexa where it's ranked 93,768, although this has fallen from 71,272, 90 days ago. Microstockgroup currently ranks 112,307.