MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Sites that no longer exist => StockXpert.com => Topic started by: lisafx on October 07, 2008, 18:31
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Up until the 3rd of October I was getting pretty regular sales on photos.com and jupiterunlimited. Since then I am only getting sales from StockXpert per image and subscriptions. The additional columns for the other two sites aren't even showing up.
I'm still seeing my photos on photos.com, but it seems odd that with 4000 photos I'm not getting any sales from there in five days...?
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I had an excellent July on StockXpert, and when this whole photos.com thing went into effect, everything tanked. August was less than half of July, and September quite dismal. This while all other agencies have improved.
Have noticed that the photos.com sales almost non existent as well.
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Have noticed that the photos.com sales almost non existent as well.
Didn't have since end of september. And I didn't get any of these 50$ sale also
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Haven't had any since Oct 3rd either and I used to have them almost everyday...
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Here no sales on photos.com or jupiter since oktober 3rd either while i did have them regularly prior to that..
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No sales after 2nd of this on jupiter+ or photos.com...
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The same here. Lots of sales there last month but none since 2end October. It looks like they are recording them all as StockXpert subscription downloads. Would of been nice to be informed about this.
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Same here, nothing since the 1st.
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Maybe another bug ? Sales are there but earnings are gone...
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same here, no sales after Oct 2 on photos.com or Jupiterimages Unlimited subscription - daily sales on both before that.
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Hi guys,
Thanks for calling this out. There has been no change in how Photos.com and JIU+ sales are reported in your balance sheet. They will appear as separate line items. I will look into the sudden lack of Photos.com sales
Thanks,
-Steve
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It sure looks like they are all being added to the StockXpert subs sales.
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How can you tell?
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Same here... Photos.com sales ended 9/30, JIU's I've had this month. I joined StockXpert in June, did AWESOME & loved everything, but as soon as the whole Photos.com mess happened sales have just bottomed out. I'm seriously considering bailing out once I hit my next payout... of course that may take a while :) Yes, I know I don't have a golden portfolio yet but why such a bottom out? Does StockXpert push it's newbies, have customers lost faith in JI all together?? It's the constant, "what do I not know" that makes me concerned here now.
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How can you tell?
By the number of sales. My StockXpert subs sales have gone up lots since the photos.com ones stopped. That doesn't seem like a coincidence.
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same here, no sales after Oct 2 on photos.com or Jupiterimages Unlimited subscription - daily sales on both before that.
Same for me, only StockXpert sales since the 2nd Oct, nothing from affiliates.
However, this may be because this includes the last Fri, Sat and Sun which are notoriously slower days.
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Hi guys,
Thanks for calling this out. There has been no change in how Photos.com and JIU+ sales are reported in your balance sheet. They will appear as separate line items. I will look into the sudden lack of Photos.com sales
Thanks,
-Steve
Hi Steve,
Thanks for looking into this. I would hate to think we weren't getting credit for Photos.com and JI sales.
Hope you will keep us posted when you find out what's up... :)
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Wow, you guys are right. Daily photos.com downloads until the 2nd, then nothing.
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Same thing here, regular photos.com sales, after Oct 2nd, no photos.com sales.
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Steve posted over there:
Hi everyone,
We've investigated this and discovered it is a bug. Don't worry. Your earnings are still being logged. You will not lose anything. Once the bug is fixed, you will see the earnings in your balance sheet.
Thanks again for letting us know about this.
-Steve
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Thanks for posting and thanks Steve for looking into it. :)
Good to know its just a bug. But at the moment those sales are not being added to $ totals, which is worrying. Hope this gets fixed ASAP.
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Steve,
Maybe you could answer my question here as it's been avoided on the StockXpert forum, are StockXpert going to set the same maximum resolution for subscription sales on JIU as they do on photos.com, selling an image as XL for 30cents is not something I'm happy about.
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I understand your concern, Lisa, but once it is fixed, earnings will appear and totals will be adjusted.
RT, right now JIU works similar to StockXpert subscriptions--all resolutions. There are no plans to change this, but nothing is set in stone. We want to give this a little more time before we evaluate and decide if we can make adjustments.
Thanks,
-Steve
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Well dang i really should check my stats more carefully. Downloads stopped working for me in the beginning of october as well. But since they are allready trying to fix the bug, i'm not really concerned :) Thanks for letting us know, Steve.
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Am I right in understanding that my images are still sold at JUI and photos but I cannot see how much I earned momentarily? I was wondering why those sales had stopped so abruptly. But as I have so many PPD and even EL sales at SX, I did not give it much thought. So I may be surprised with a lot of sub-sales appearing suddenly - not bad. A thing to look forward to... :-)
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Thanks again Steve. Good to know we will not be out anything.
Hope there are lots of sales at Photos.com and StockXpert, then we will all be pleasantly surprised with a bonus! :)
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It may be too soon but has anybody noticed Photos.com sales logged yet? Current or past dated?
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Non for me yet, and I was getting them everyday.
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Will see... hopefully it kicks in soon :-\
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Nothing here either and I was getting multiple sales daily.
It may be too soon but has anybody noticed Photos.com sales logged yet? Current or past dated?
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I do not see any download on my account since Oct 2nd. If this a bug when it's going to be fixed?
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I do not see any download on my account since Oct 2nd. If this a bug when it's going to be fixed?
And are all the earnings that havn't posted going to be given to us or does this bug screw us out of the past months sub earnings?
Obviously I too have not had any and usually one every day or at least every other day..
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I am still looking forward to finding a huge pile of sub-sales on my account one of these days. Prior to the bug I usually had a few of them every day...
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I am looking forward to it too, but this is dragging out a bit too long for my comfort. If the sales from Photos.com and JU don't start showing soon I will have to reevaluate whether I want to stay opted in.
I am not at all comfortable with the current situation where my images are being downloaded and I am not receiving my royalties or even any record of the transactions. Fixing this bug ASAP needs to be a top priority.
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I have a different question: how many of you have received a REAL sale, US$50 or above?
Regards,
Adelaide
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I have a different question: how many of you have received a REAL sale, US$50 or above?
Regards,
Adelaide
DanP mentioned having one. That's the only one I've heard about.
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I am looking forward to it too, but this is dragging out a bit too long for my comfort. If the sales from Photos.com and JU don't start showing soon I will have to reevaluate whether I want to stay opted in.
I am not at all comfortable with the current situation where my images are being downloaded and I am not receiving my royalties or even any record of the transactions. Fixing this bug ASAP needs to be a top priority.
Agreed. Something this critical is taking too long.
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No signifigant sales... loads of StockXpert subs :-\
This is another distasteful situation which potentially wouldn't haven't been brought out for quite a while if it had not been for this thread. So thank you to lisafx :-*
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Steve, do you have any updates for us?
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My images were a part of the issue with the PPD sized images selling as large size on Photos.com plus.
It seems to me, at the same time they corrected that sizing problem, the sales stats for photos.com and jupiterimages unlimited disappeared.
It would be nice to get more updates on this newest bug.
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55 photos.com sales last month so almost 2 per day all very consistant from the start of the program until oct 2, at which it died and I haven't had a sale since. (But my pay per download on StockXpert has picked up again since which is total concidence but worth more so I'm happy).
Phil
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Sick of playing another waiting game for JI. I'm out of subs again. >:(
That's my 30˘ worth...and whoo I feel better already!
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And here I was thinking it was just me . . .
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Just in case you missed it @ StockXpert:
. Oct 15, 2008 5:58 AM | posted by skapsinow
Hi everyone,
This bug was only discovered last week. Unfortnately the developer tasked with this aspect of development was out all last week. He is back now. This is a high priority for us, and he is in the process of identifying the problem.
I'll continue to provide updates when I hear more. I am on top of this.
Thanks
Steve
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Hopefully by Friday, (a full work week for the returning programmer and two full calendar weeks of no sales recorded) it will be fixed. If not I will most likely follow NYTumbleweeds lead and opt out of subscriptions.
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I used to work as a software engineer, and while it's true that it's always easier for the person who knows an area of code to be the one to diagnose and fix problems, in an urgent situation, anyone competent can debug and fix problems. If that weren't the case, companies would go down the tubes when there was staff turnover.
All that says to me that they think it's low priority - and given that no one looked at the problem last week, the earlier assurances (before the vacationing person returned) that all the sales were being tracked seem premature.
I know these things are no longer my issue, but my BS sensors (highly tuned by my children) went off when I read this explanation.
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Good point JoAnn.
OTOH, why should fixing this be a top priority? For going on two weeks Jupiter Images is collecting money for our images and not having to pay out any royalties on those sales.
What's to change? ;)
Seriously though, I can't believe there isn't more of an uproar about this. This is the first time in my memory that a stock agency has failed to record sales or pay royalties to each and every contributor for a significant and sustained period of time. And apparently almost nobody cares?!
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So they got free ride for two weeks? Wow, why would they worry if they find unexpected money :-)
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The curious things about these bugs (in any site) is that things were working before, then all of a sudden something odd happens. I'm always intrigued by this.
I am an engineer and I do some very basic programming when needed (we have a staff for serious programming). I've seen things go wrong when someone uses an old source code file, not the latest, for editing, but I guess serious programmers have solved this by now. And in my own very little programs, I NEVER made it available before testing everything again (not only changes).
Consider this your punishment for taking part in a subscription site. ;)
Regards,
Adelaide
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I am an engineer and I do some very basic programming when needed (we have a staff for serious programming). I've seen things go wrong when someone uses an old source code file, not the latest, for editing, but I guess serious programmers have solved this by now. And in my own very little programs, I NEVER made it available before testing everything again (not only changes).
Exactly! I am certain that if the programming error resulted in them paying out unearned royalties to contributors it would be corrected in a heartbeat.
Consider this your punishment for taking part in a subscription site. ;)
Amen sister! It's starting to feel like that.... :-\
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You do not believe we will be paid our money for the last fortnight then? ???
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You do not believe we will be paid our money for the last fortnight then? ???
I certainly hope they will pay us eventually, but so far there is no ETA on when - could be much more than a fortnight - and without even a record of sales how are we supposed to know what we are owed?
My point wasn't that they won't eventually pay us, but that if they were losing their money instead of sitting on ours it would be a much higher priority to fix it.
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I am an engineer and I do some very basic programming when needed (we have a staff for serious programming). I've seen things go wrong when someone uses an old source code file, not the latest, for editing, but I guess serious programmers have solved this by now. And in my own very little programs, I NEVER made it available before testing everything again (not only changes).
Exactly! I am certain that if the programming error resulted in them paying out unearned royalties to contributors it would be corrected in a heartbeat.
Absolutely... because someone somewhere is paid to notice these accounting issues. Just like somebody had to of noticed something like this occuring. This is a major error even if it is a low earning sub site (division) >:(
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Here is another possiblity. It wasn't the 'the developer tasked with this aspect of development ' that was on vacation, but 'the developer' period. I don't know how large the staff is in these companies, but how many full time developers do you need? If I am out, programming doesn't happen. Of course, I wouldn't release new code before leaving for vacation.
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Here's an interesting scenario, I wonder how seriously they'll take this problem when people start noticing their images being used that they haven't had any recorded sales for and subsequently start contacting the companies that are using the images asking them if they purchased the image.
I'm sure after a few customers complain about being 'accused' of image theft JI will take this problem a lot more seriously!
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Good point Richard.
And/or if a significant number of people start opting out of subscriptions as I plan to do tomorrow if this isn't fixed.
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There will be an StockXpert site outage tonight at 9pm ET. We will be rolling out a major upgrade of the StockXpert application code base and database systems. This has been a huge undertaking that required a lot of dev time, but it's something that has to be done and has taken priority over other items. So in short, I don't think the reporting bug will be fixed by tomorrow, but I know it is one of the next items on the to-do list.
Thanks,
-Steve
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That proves it was never high priority. I just turned off subs until it going to be fixed.
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There will be an StockXpert site outage tonight at 9pm ET. We will be rolling out a major upgrade of the StockXpert application code base and database systems. This has been a huge undertaking that required a lot of dev time, but it's something that has to be done and has taken priority over other items. So in short, I don't think the reporting bug will be fixed by tomorrow, but I know it is one of the next items on the to-do list.
Thanks,
-Steve
That statement and "This bug was only discovered last week. Unfortnately the developer tasked with this aspect of development was out all last week. He is back now. This is a high priority for us, and he is in the process of identifying the problem." don't exactly jibe.
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There will be an StockXpert site outage tonight at 9pm ET. We will be rolling out a major upgrade of the StockXpert application code base and database systems. This has been a huge undertaking that required a lot of dev time, but it's something that has to be done and has taken priority over other items. So in short, I don't think the reporting bug will be fixed by tomorrow, but I know it is one of the next items on the to-do list.
Thanks,
-Steve
Well, I appreciate the update, Steve, but you guys (or the people you work for) don't seem to get that failing to report and pay your contributors for weeks of downloads is not just a minor bug.
It's a big deal. I am shocked that JI is refusing to address this, especially coming so soon on the heels of the disasterous way that the photos.com/ JIU rollout was handled. This is a serioius violation of your contract with your contributors.
I refuse to allow Jupiter Images to profit from the sale of my images without paying me for them. It's been two weeks and counting. That is too long.
I just opted out of subscriptions.
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I just opted out of subscriptions.
Me too.. That is a really stupid way to treat your supply chain.. This is not Minor, I havn't seen anything for more than half a month.. This is a business and if you are selling subscriptions and making money and your suppliers are not being paid for their part in the roll and you cannot account for their downloads, that is nothing more than theft in my book.. Bugs are acceptable, but letting them sit around and especially with such a big bugand not making it a priority is unacceptable..
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I opted out as well, with ALL my 150 images!!!!
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Steve,
Nothing personal against you because I appreciate you may just be the messenger but your latest reply just goes to show how contributors are thought of within JI, and as a result I've also opted out of subscriptions and Partner Licensing.
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Hi everyone,
I enquired again about the fix for the Photos.com+ reporting bug. It will actually be rolled out with tonight's upgrade.
Sorry for any inconvenience or confusion on my part about this.
Thanks,
-Steve
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That proves it was never high priority. I just turned off subs until it going to be fixed.
What happens if we turn off subs and our pictures stay on photos.com?
anyone know how long it will take for them to come down (or if they will)?
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Looks like StockXpert is having some problems with this fix, I can't login :D
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Now I can log in but I haven't still nothing from photos.com..
But views are explode...
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I can log-in too and I have even had one photos.com sale. But nothing for the last two weeks! And I can see some mistake in earnings - unless it is a bonus from SX for the bug!
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Still Nothing showing up for two weeks from photos.com. What's going on with the fix?
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I had one today.
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I've had 10 today but the backdated ones aren't showing up yet.
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I've had 10 today but the backdated ones aren't showing up yet.
Me too. I had several today, but still no credit for the back ones.
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I'm in the same boat - sales, but the payment history seems to be lagging. Hopefully the upgrade will catch up with this.
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What a mess... I have photos.com sales logged for today, I'm opted out of subs.
Cashing out is no longer an option because of balances being incorrect.... largely.
I think they need to shut down to fix this... people are reporting odd problems all over.
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I had downloads finaly logged today and some that showed from previous.. But what I am concerned with and wondering about is I see a photos.com pay per download for .30 - what's up with that? Aren't the pay per downloads supposed to be more than the subscription prices?
I am starting worry, plus I have opted out of subs yesterday, shouldn't be getting subs today..
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Hmm...it says I have 8 Photos.com sales today, but two of them are XL, so something is wrong there. On top of that, the total Photos.com number still says 2 while JIU has gone from 2 to 10. Looks like the numbers are going in the wrong places.
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something else is different. did you notice that the results form the popularity-search is nearly equal to the "download-decreasing" search? i just checket it out with the key-words "car" and "autumn"... ??? >:( ;)
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Yes I'm seeing the same with 3 out of 10 photos.com sales are XL. But I also have an XL sale showing in credit sales.
They have one hell of a mess to sort out, somebody must be tearing their hair out.
Hmm...it says I have 8 Photos.com sales today, but two of them are XL, so something is wrong there. On top of that, the total Photos.com number still says 2 while JIU has gone from 2 to 10. Looks like the numbers are going in the wrong places.
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I just assumed that 2 sales from two weeks are gone but I will wait with enabling subs until it seems to be under control...
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And current earnings is competely out of whack, so you can't collect money even if you wanted to.
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Me too. I had several today, but still no credit for the back ones.
I had one show up today... $0.30 for an XXL 3900x5700 background image. Methinks that my inquiry to Mr. Steve will take a while to look into what with all the other things going on ;)
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jsolie,
Check your account balance summary. My sale went from a pay per download to a Jupiterunlimited subscription. No change in money, just description. So, Hurrah, I Still only made .30!!
What I want to know is... For all those of you with extra money in your accounts, WHO DOES THAT MONEY REALLY BELONG TO, AND WILL IT EVER GET STRAIGHTENED OUT???
I'm not too hopeful, and at this point, I'm ready to pull out completely. What a fiasco this became!
Gebbie
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It's a shame to see the Photos/JI sale stats not fixed retrogradely. It looks like two weeks of downloads haven't been logged at all... and I have a strange feeling they never will.
p.s.: Moreover from what I hear around, there hasn't been one PPD sale from the "extensions" StockXpert introduced with P/JI collections. Only subs, only subs...
p.p.s.: Steve, can you make sure ALL our sales will eventually show up in our balance?
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had a bunch in September along with some Jupiter sales... but this month, only one Photo.com so far ... 8)=tom
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Still Nothing showing up from photos.com.
I have many views but I haven't any sale in this month...
Very strange!
Similar experience!???
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Yes. As well as none of the past sales at photos.com showing up, I haven't had any sales posted in 6-7 days. Haven't had a drought like that in 3-4 months. Normally, I would think ebb and flow, but with the site acknowledging that sales are not being reported, I don't have faith in any of it working.
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Steve has reported the bugs fix has rolled out. I'm not sure what this means, but still no earnings are being reported. How many weeks/months is our money going to be tied up?
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This is really annoying and I am getting angry. Not only are there still no sales for the first half of October, but I have had hardly any sales at all recently! No bookmarks are working, no links, no nothing! Not even the link from this site. StockMon is not able to access the site any more either. I wonder whether this is happening at the buyers end too. If yes, it is a disaster!
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I have had very few sales with them this month. Nothing at the beginning of the month, and about 4 sales in total for this month. Very different from last month, when I had a sale about every other day. Since there are so many of us who are experiencing this and it is such a sudden drop, I can't image that it's the quality of our images.
I guess there could be a problem with tracking our sales (sales not showing up), or a problem that is causing customers so many problems that they are hardly buying anything. I believe that StockXpert would not intentionally cheat their contributors out of the money they have earned, but it could be a glitch in the software. If not, there must be something that is discouraging the customers from buying images.
I hope everything will get back to normal soon. I haven't been with StockXpert for a very long time yet, and was just starting to like them.
Inge
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My sales halved at the beginning of August, and now halved again in October. Not even going to make a payout this month. No retroactive sub sales for the first part of the month either.
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I hope everything will get back to normal soon. I haven't been with StockXpert for a very long time yet, and was just starting to like them.
Inge
Me, too! I started there in June after lots of thought & did excellent. Now it's bottomed out, I'm not comfortable allowing subs anymore & don't currently (but I still have sales from JI... I guess it takes time for the opt out process to cycle).
I still have hope that this will clear up but and feel loads better being opted out of subs. If it ends up with absolutely no sales then I will just not submit anymore.
Grrr!
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I've been with them for over 2 years and this is the most unprofessional and apathetic activity I have seen on this or any other site in the 3+ years I have been doing this. For 3 weeks they have kept and not reported our income and are being completely unresponsive about this, the most critical problem they could possibly have, while throwing out a lot of smoke and mirrors about bug fixes.
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Steve has responded several times on their forum and here. It is taking a long time to fix but as long as they have kept a record of all my sales on photos.com I am not too concerned.
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I wouldn't be concerned either if he was keeping us updated with accruate information. He is responding frequently re bug fixes from the new rollout, but on the missing money:
First he said the guy that could fix it was out and would now give it his attention.
Next he said, the big rollout was taking eveyone's attention and it would have to wait.
Then he said that the rollout would fix this problem, which it didn't.
I haven't heard anything about this specific problem since then.
This is a problem that has had a lot of people's attention for almost 3 weeks. Spending time addressing whether someone's avatar is showing up or the sort order of images should take a back seat to this one.
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The code and QA for the roll out was completed before the lead developer was out for the week. The roll out was planned for when he got back. The bug was brought to our attention during the week he was out.
He came back, and they roll out the upgrade on Thursday and included the Photos.com/JIU reporting bug fix. It appears the fix fixed the problem going forward, but perhaps didn't return missing earnings from the first two weeks. This is a separate issue that they are working on. Obviously we didn't expect all these bugs with the upgrade rollout, so some of them had to be dealt with immediately.
Are people now receiving JIU+ and Photos.com Plus downloads since the fix? Please let me know if anyone has received Photos.com Plus or JIU+ downloads since last Thursday's roll out.
Thanks,
-Steve
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I have had any downloads reported since the 13th. Haven't gone that long without a sale since May
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In fact I can see only one JIU sale... I do not think it is working properly Steve. I used to have them every day.
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I am seeing some JIU+ sales now but still none for Photos.com. Had them most days up too 2end October.
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I am seeing some JIU+ sales now but still none for Photos.com. Had them most days up too 2end October.
same here
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My last recorded sales with Photos.com were on October 2nd.
Since then, NOTHING, even after site upgrade. Before October 2nd I was getting 6 sales on average.
For JI: sales stopped after October 2nd, but came back after October 17th.
I have the feeling we are being ripped off: almost 1 month of unrecorded sale at Photos.com, that's a hell a lot of money and looks like Jupiter Image will never pay us, since obviously they don't even have records in their own system.
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I have no Photos.com sales at all for Oct registered. I have 2 JI sales in early Oct & then a couple on the 17th & 21st of Oct. Odd... since I opted out of subs last week.
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No photos.com records since October 1.. JUI only October 17 & 21
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Same here, 17th and 21st, I just assumed that I didn't get any on 18th 19th and 20th but maybe there is a pattern here.
Nothing at all from photos.com
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Well i've got JUI sales for 17,18,20 & 21 so i'm guessing those are being registered as they should be. But I am getting slightly annoyed with the lack of photos.com sales... this is closing in on 3 weeks without sales showing up in the statistics which is IMO taking a bit to long. I just hope it won't take much longer to have this bug fixed.
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I've had 5 photos.com sales today (also some on the 1st and 2nd) and a few JUI on the 17th and 19th
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I had 5 photos.com today also, but nothing else since the 2nd, and no regular SX sales since the 13th.
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I have 21 photos.com downloads today. I wonder if some of these are the missing download from other days this month, as I don't normally get that many in one day.
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Still nothing!!! :( >:(
Only explosion of views, but sales stayed in september! :o
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14 here from photos.com
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1 here today from photos.com
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I have 21 photos.com downloads today. I wonder if some of these are the missing download from other days this month, as I don't normally get that many in one day.
I noticed the same thing. I am glad they are back to recording them, and I had an unusually large number too. Hope all is finally straightened out there.
Still waiting on that payout request from the 15th though...
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I have 21 photos.com downloads today. I wonder if some of these are the missing download from other days this month, as I don't normally get that many in one day.
I noticed the same thing. I am glad they are back to recording them, and I had an unusually large number too. Hope all is finally straightened out there.
Still waiting on that payout request from the 15th though...
I also had a couple of Photos.com today... hmm... hopefully we will find out what this is. I had a low amount which would be inconsistent with last month's sales total. But who knows...
Oh no... payment delays,too? >:(
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Same here.
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Yeah, several today, but not enough to make up for the 3 weeks missing sales. It would be very suspect if my worst month since January just happened to coincide with this bug. If you lump in the sales that showed up today, how is your month looking compared to October?
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October is well behind September but I suppose there is the possibility that photos.com buyers bought lots more last month and sales are leveling out this month, a bit like the effect when we upload a big batch to SS.
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Yes, but now sales have picked back up again, so the slowdown coincides with the bug. We haven't heard from Steve on this. Has the problem been fixed and has all missing sales been reported to all contributors?
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Yes, but now sales have picked back up again, so the slowdown coincides with the bug. We haven't heard from Steve on this. Has the problem been fixed and has all missing sales been reported to all contributors?
Yes! Good question!
Is problem fixed for everyone, or just "part of solution" is visible for the biggest portfolios!?
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Still no answer here or on SX. I have been in contact with someone on the SS board who bought one of my images on photos.com which I don't have credit for, so the problem is definitely not fixed.
Steve?
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I have still not received and credit for, or record of, any sales on photos.com or JI for that two week period. Don't know of anyone who has.
And from the large amount of DL's that are coming in on photos.com since stats resumed, it looks like collectively a lot of money is owed to contributors.
On an up note, at least they finally resumed payouts today.
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photos.com and JI sales are visible in my account but I assume just the latest one so I don't know about the previous sales.
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I haven't received any sales for the missing weeks.... i started getting sales there again even though i opted out, but definately not the amount to make up for the missing time. I got sales there everyday so i know my totals don't add up. I didn't get a day where the downloads made up for the missing royalties... in my years working with microstock this is the most unprofessional BS i've encountered. StockXpert used to be one of my favorite top sites.... not anymore!!! I can understand a couple of days, maybe even a week, but for not this long. We as contributors are what makes these sites money, we should definately be a little higher on the priority list. It's almost the end of October... and this started at the beginning of it.... >:( Booooooooooooooooooooooooo StockXpert
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Since it will be their problem soon, maybe we should all send a note to Getty about our missing money.
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Since it will be their problem soon, maybe we should all send a note to Getty about our missing money.
Yep!
Still nothing, but only views, lot of...
if it continue to be strange, I will delete the entire portfolio here...
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Not a lot for me so far - I think 1 or 2.
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My reponse today on SX to another vague and uninformative post about our missing money. I think we are going to have to get more vocal - they don't seem to want to volunteer any information. Worst case scenario - what if they keep stalling us until the purchase by Getty goes through?
I understand that - I am a programmer as well. I'm not sure what you mean when you say two different systems. If you mean photos.com and SX, it was working for weeks and suddenly stopped. What changed?
If you mean the new updated site, it seems to be working now.
Since it is a one time problem that is in the past on an old system, after this amount of time, I would have expected a manual fix.
The thing that is making this a bigger problem than it needs to be is SX not communicating. This problem was first reported by a contributer not SX, and every update since then has been slow in coming and not very informative. If your bank couldn't tell you how much money you had in your account, how long would you do business there? This should have been your first priority and has long past the time for patience and understanding.
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Of course!
We can wait a long time, if someone tells us how long!?
Nothing from Steve!
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This from Steve in a different thread on SX. It's a shame we have to hunt for information and that the information changes with each post.
"They are also working on the Photos.com Plus/JIU+ reporting issue for the first two weeks in Oct. They are generating a report that details the total impact and then they will have a better idea of how to distribute the earnings owed."
Better Idea of how to distribute the money???? How about pay it to the people that earned it? This is the scariest post I have seen yet.
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Don't be scared. It just means they need to determine how much is exactly owed to whom.
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Thanks Steve. It's very reassuring you guys are working on this. Any idea when we can expect our back royalties?
BTW, slightly off topic, the payouts seem to be coming on time again. Very much appreciated :)
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OK, thanks for staying on top of it.
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I don't seem to be getting any photos.com or jupiter images subscriptions again. Perhaps it is just a drought, anyone else seeing sales there today?
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I don't seem to be getting any photos.com or jupiter images subscriptions again. Perhaps it is just a drought, anyone else seeing sales there today?
I have a couple of JI sales but no Photos.com. Sales seem to have turned back to molasses lately as opposed to the corn syrup flow I had early in the month ;D Hopefully you understand my lame jokes!
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I don't seem to be getting any photos.com or jupiter images subscriptions again. Perhaps it is just a drought, anyone else seeing sales there today?
Still nothing...
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They're around but slow. One at each of the sites today.
I don't seem to be getting any photos.com or jupiter images subscriptions again. Perhaps it is just a drought, anyone else seeing sales there today?
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37 photos.com sales last week and zero so far this week. Very strange.
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You're right. No photos.com since Saturday. More unreported sales? Any update on this getting straightened out, Steve?
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I am getting some photos.com sales, but not many and not every day. I didn't have any between the 2nd and the 17th of October, and since the 17th I have at least one sale almost every day...
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Three sales from Photos.com so far.
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You're right. No photos.com since Saturday. More unreported sales? Any update on this getting straightened out, Steve?
Seriously, this is very worrying. I would be fine if I knew I just wasn't getting any photos.com sales, but with 4,000 pictures online it seems unlikely. Particularly when the problems from earlier in the month haven't been explained or rectified.
What's up???!!!
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Just had another look and I made a mistake. I've had nothing on photos.com since 27th.
They're around but slow. One at each of the sites today.
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You are lucky!
I 've had nothing from September... >:(
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I had opted back in when photos.com sales started showing up again and it looked like this was being dealt with.
However with no word from admin on this and photos.com sales not recording again, I am opting out and staying opted out until this is well and truly fixed.
I realize that photos.com will keep selling my images for, what, 90 days? But apparently I wasn't going to be compensated for those sales anyway.
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I had opted back into subs as well...I'm out again & not willing to go back until this is truly resolved. I don't get >:(
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You guys are too inpatient :-) I do not think they can handle this mess so I disabled subs and I am going to wait. My sales on StockXpert are very low anyway so I will keep uploading and see if they can fix all their problems.
BTW. They just got acquired so my guess is that employees are more worrying about being fired than fixing bugs :-)
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I'm gonna assume you're joking with your impatience remark? Three weeks of unreported sales with no royalties paid and you don't see a problem? That has to be a joke.
Okay, how about this - if we allow one site to get away with not reporting our sales and not paying us for them, then other sites will take note.
This will cease to be a viable income source for anyone if the sites are not held accountable for accurate reporting and payment to their contributors.
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Hey... I haven't had any sales recorded for Photos.com since the 25th either. Well that bites!
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I'm gonna assume you're joking with your impatience remark? Three weeks of unreported sales with no royalties paid and you don't see a problem? That has to be a joke.
Okay, how about this - if we allow one site to get away with not reporting our sales and not paying us for them, then other sites will take note.
This will cease to be a viable income source for anyone if the sites are not held accountable for accurate reporting and payment to their contributors.
I have to agree that stopping payments to people who have earned them and not explaining why or when it will change, or if or when back payments will be made is not a good precedent.
Consider:
-The disastrous and ongoing "Worst Match" nightmare at IS (my sales are down 70% there, and I have stopped uploading for the foreseeable future).
-The days of submitted images which were lost at SS, with no proposed fixes for thousands of now-dead images which will never be able to overcome having been buried in nowhere land.
-The missing payments to StockXpert submitters.
And in each of these cases, the management response to the valid concerns of contributors in all of these cases has been poor to non-existent.
what is going on? And no doubt, on top of the above factors, the economic downturn and uncertainties are hurting too, although it is impossible to know how much. I was looking forward to October sales, which should be the best month of the year.
Are the good times gone forever? :-\
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What I was talking about is turning it on/off withing a 2 week from when problem has been first officially reported. It is completely different subject when you ask how they going to compensate for not recorded sales. I guess their system is totally broken but since they did not loose money they will put low priority on this bug. Even after latest updates it's not fixed so at this point of time they have no control on subs and only logical thing is to stay away from this option.
PS. I might be stoic on this subject cause I am not relying on income from microstock to survive. My sales are very low so I lost a little. Hopefully economy will take off and microstock sales will follow.
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Imagine a bank that couldn't tell you how much money you had for a month. They have aggravated the problem by not communicating. I don't think this is Steve's fault, but someone further up the ladder. If you go back here and on their board and read each msg that addresses this particular problem, the message has been vague and contradictory. Messages regarding all other bugs have been addressed quickly and directly.
The problem with the patience attitude, and I have seen this on many sites when major bugs hit, is this is a business. They are making money - a lot of money- off of our efforts. If any other business you do business with has these sorts of problems, you don't pat them on the back for doing the best they can. For some reason, we treat these agencies differently.
Steve, you need to get this escalated and get us some answers.
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What I was talking about is turning it on/off withing a 2 week from when problem has been first officially reported. It is completely different subject when you ask how they going to compensate for not recorded sales. I guess their system is totally broken but since they did not loose money they will put low priority on this bug. Even after latest updates it's not fixed so at this point of time they have no control on subs and only logical thing is to stay away from this option.
PS. I might be stoic on this subject cause I am not relying on income from microstock to survive. My sales are very low so I lost a little. Hopefully economy will take off and microstock sales will follow.
You are right turning on & off frequently is pointless. Sounds to me as though you may have already decided move onto other things anyway & wait until the next economy upswing to dedicate more of yourself to this business anyway? So it would take a larger train wreck to affect you. As far as myself, I am not willing to wait, this is my business and when I see my hours (essentially the same as downloads) just not being accounted for I will not sit by and not express my indignation. I don't care if it is only a 1/2 hour, it is mine and I want accountability for it.
I am surprised at the lack of outcry from other contributors. My only guess is that others haven't noticed yet or just expect this type of service from StockXpert.
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FYI... New StockXpert post from Steve:
Oct 30, 2008 3:58 PM | posted by skapsinow
Hi guys,
I'm truly sorry for the delay in getting these photos.com earnings issues fixed. I'm not sure what else to say at this point. It is our every intention to pay you, and I know for a fact the dev team is working on it. They have assured me once again that no contributor sales data has been lost. I just don't have a concrete date I can point to for the fixes.
And I reported the potentially new sales reporting bug yesterday.
-Steve
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Thanks a lot for posting that NYT. I am baffled by the lack of outcry too. You and I are on the same page on this for sure. :)
And dbvirago's analogy to banks is perfect. Look what happened when we left them to their own devices!
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JI definitely hired the Fotolia V2 team. ;D
Regards,
Adelaide
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I do not think banks are good example now :-) Couple weeks ago we figured out that they were gambling with our money.
Here we just have badly tested integration with Photos.com. It might be that they should spent more time testing before they put this system online.
To make analogy to banking/investing again, I hope your are not putting your all "investments" into StockXpert right now :-) For me it was #3 earner till last month but it looks like it went down to 5th position this month. I guess this is a result of this glitch :-)
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As FT also showed us, the number of people complaining doesn't necessarily get things done. Maybe it's where we are complaining. As far as I can tell, Steve is the only employee of SX, Jupiter, or for that matter Getty who sees these forums. Another few days, and I start escalating this until I find someone who can and will fix it. If SX wants this sale to go through, an email to the right person at Getty will get someone's attention.
The developers working on it is no longer working for me. If, as we have been told, the sales have been tracked, that data is in a database. Why can't that database be tied to our accounts so we get paid? Actually, the data should be in two databases, one at photos.com and one at sX. Even some sort of manual kluge shouldn't take a month. This isn't being given a priority. We're going to have to fix that
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I don't mind waiting for them to fix this, as long as they are recording all the photos.com sales. I am more annoyed with istock messing around with the best match, as that is going to cost me money this month.
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I do not think banks are good example now :-) Couple weeks ago we figured out that they were gambling with our money.
Here we just have badly tested integration with Photos.com. It might be that they should spent more time testing before they put this system online.
To make analogy to banking/investing again, I hope your are not putting your all "investments" into StockXpert right now :-) For me it was #3 earner till last month but it looks like it went down to 5th position this month. I guess this is a result of this glitch :-)
Well, as you have already made it clear this is pocket money for you, not your FT living, I guess you are not in a position to continue throwing snarky comments at folks for whom this is a primary source of income. Throwing in smiley emoticons doesn't change the fact that you are discounting people's legitimate concerns.
Is StockXpert my only "investment"? No, but it has been a significant portion of my income for over a year, and more importantly, their incompetence represents the loss of several hundred dollars from my bottom line this month.
If you extrapolate that over their entire contributor base who has not been paid for photos.com sales for most of the month we are talking about many thousands of dollars.
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I agree, that is hurting my pocket so much more.
I don't mind waiting for them to fix this, as long as they are recording all the photos.com sales. I am more annoyed with istock messing around with the best match, as that is going to cost me money this month.
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I agree, that is hurting my pocket so much more.
I don't mind waiting for them to fix this, as long as they are recording all the photos.com sales. I am more annoyed with istock messing around with the best match, as that is going to cost me money this month.
Sorry, I guess I missed the part how we have to choose one or the other. The fact that istock is messing with their best match doesn't in any way justify StockXpert failing to record or pay us for photos.com sales.
Can we not expect to be treated fairly by BOTH (better yet ALL) agencies?
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I agree, that is hurting my pocket so much more.
I don't mind waiting for them to fix this, as long as they are recording all the photos.com sales. I am more annoyed with istock messing around with the best match, as that is going to cost me money this month.
Sorry, I guess I missed the part how we have to choose one or the other. The fact that istock is messing with their best match doesn't in any way justify StockXpert failing to record or pay us for photos.com sales.
Can we not expect to be treated fairly by BOTH (better yet ALL) agencies?
Absolutely Lisa!
I also agree with dbvirago, this should be escalated.
Question.. how do you know they are recording our sales?? How can StockXpert be recording our sales yet it's just not linked over to the photog's accounting page? Just "trust"? When we get nothing but a hang in there other issues were more pressing?
The problems with IS & FT are valid and so is this. This however is the place to deal with StockXpert problems!
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Steve, We need an official notification about this problem to our e-mails ... Thanks!!!
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This morning, November 1, I have first photos.com sub sale, after October without any sale or change on balance..
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They've started to record again for me today also.
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But I want some kind of proof, did I have any sale in October, or not!?
I need mail from StockXpert about "saldo" in October...
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I do not like it at all. It is November and I still do not know anything about the "lost" sales in the first half of October. Did they record the sales at all? If not, they should double the earnings for the second half of October - at the very least - to compensate us.
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Here is the text of a letter I just received from StockXpert explaining the photos.com payment issue. I assume everyone else got one too.
Thanks to StockXpert for finally offering this explanation and rectifying the situation. :)
If you are a contributor who participates in the Photos.com and JIUnlimited Plus programs, this e-mail explains the anomalies that occurred with your Photos.com earnings during the first two weeks of October, and from October 22nd to the present. Furthermore, this only applies to Photos.com Plus earnings. Your JIUnlimited Plus earnings were not affected.
If you do not participate in the Photos.com or JIUnlimited Plus programs, this e-mail does not apply to you.
A software bug was discovered during the second week in October that prevented Photos.com Plus earnings from displaying in your Stockxpert report. This bug was fixed on October 22 and only affected earnings between October 3rd and October 21st.
At the same time as the bug fix, we implemented Jupiterimages’ 14-day return policy to all Photos.com Plus images. The return policy allows customers who purchase single images (also known as pay-per-download or PPD) to return the image for a full refund within 14 days of purchase. This policy was already in place for Stockxpert high-resolution PPD images on Photos.com, but we had to implement it for all images to accommodate PPD purchases for all image sizes on Photos.com, including Photos.com Plus subscription sales. So, instead of reporting these earnings to contributors at the time of download and then deducting the earnings for a refund, we held off reporting earnings until the 14 days had expired.
On October 22nd you received the missing earnings for Photos.com sales between October 3rd and October 8th. These earnings are reported in the Photos.com line item for October 22 in your Stockxpert report. All Photos.com earnings from October 8 onward were subject to the 14-day delay. For example, missing Photos.com earnings on October 9 were actually reported on October 23. Missing Photos.com earnings on October 10 were reported on October 24, and so forth.
After analyzing the sales and refund data, we've determined that refunds on Photos.com Plus are rare. So, on November 4, we will be changing the 14-day delay in reporting Photos.com Plus earnings to 1 day, regardless of image resolution. On November 5, you will receive all Photos.com Plus earnings from October 21 to November 4 and going forward, you will see Photos.com earnings for a given day on the very next day. In fairness, if there is a return, the purchase will be deducted from your account when it comes in.
To confirm, since JIUnlimited works the same way as Stockxpert subscriptions (i.e. $0.30 for all resolutions), the 14-day delay issue did not apply. It only occurred with Photos.com Plus earnings.
On a separate but related note, a small handful of contributors received $0.30 instead of 30% for some PPD sales on Photos.com since the August launch of Photos.com Plus. Contributors who are affected by this bug will see in the Photos.com line items of their report that downloaded images with a long dimension of 3,300 pixels or greater received $0.30. We produced and verified a report of all affected contributors and we will correct earnings on November 4th, which will appear in affected accounts on November 5th. The bug causing this problem has been identified and will be fixed by mid-next week. After the bug has been fixed, we will run a final report from November 4th to the date of the bug fix and pay out any final PPD earnings affected by this issue.
We're truly sorry for the inconvenience this has caused and we apologize for not communicating this information more clearly and sooner. October was a difficult month at Stockxpert as we had a major new release, the bugs related to payments were complex and a couple of key developers were out. We now believe that all issues have been resolved and by November 5th all payments will be current. If you believe you are still experiencing payment issues, please let us know right away.
As usual, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. Thank you for your patience as we worked through these issues.
Regards,
The Stockxpert Team
[email protected]
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At this writing, when I tried to check balance, I get server scripting errors. So it looks like they may be fumbling with tallies on the server. Maybe sme lost nubers will make an appearance.
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Wow - about ten sales have just appeared!!! But when I want to check them on my balance page, I always get the error message too.
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sentence from StockXpert message:
Your JIUnlimited Plus earnings were not affected.
Really? I have no JI+ sales in first two weeks. Before almost every day..
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I have 3 subscription sales on today date, is it missing sale or that is new!?
Also, error on balance link...
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3 sub sales today!
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Here is the text of a letter I just received from StockXpert explaining the photos.com payment issue. I assume everyone else got one too.
Thanks to StockXpert for finally offering this explanation and rectifying the situation. :)
Thanks for posting this letter, I didn't get it!
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I have a huge surge on Photos.com download today, way more than usual. Perhaps those are the missing sales?
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Looks like it, I haven't had 52 photos.com sales in a day before :)
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I have a huge surge on Photos.com download today, way more than usual. Perhaps those are the missing sales?
I think so too. There is no way all the photos.com sales showing for today actually happened today.
Glad they finally got this sorted out, but sorry it took so long.