I have no words to describe my anger.

I'm just soo disappointed, these returned sales are way too absurd.

IMHO, a lot of words about the refund policy, by the way other agencies do this disgrace. BUT why refund a multi-user license. If someone buy it and download a file, is frankly clear that the same file was viewed by other users; they used the license bought, so why refund it? The customer can say that the picture was a wrong download and don't use the file... but the license..

Isn't this the same thing Alamy does all the time?  After the customer uses the image for a couple of months, and no longer needs it, the sale is "cancelled" for a small charge.   The photographer gets nothing.    Let's call this what it is: renting photos without the right to do so.

On Alamy, a sale can be 'cancelled' for a period of weeks if not months - I'm trying to find their official policy statement (if there still is one).

I had a weird one where the file was returned before it was purchased. It ended up being a case where the it was purchased a while ago but then the company switched accounts or something and they had to buy and refund it to move the file or something like that. I asked them what was up and they explained it. Still, refunds are painful to get. I am guessing very few result in fraud. But in stocks case I guess the refunds are after fraud.

I had a refund of a file that sold for $165 ($87 my commission) after almost 30 days with Alamy- I wanted to quite the business...

I get your point click_click but when I buy somethings I can't ask for a refund after few week. If something went wrong it's not our fail. If I buy a pair of jeans of wrong size and come back the day after they change it. But after a month... Seeing the post, the picture and the license were sold on february 28. Also, with subscription, discount promotion etc, who usually buy a certain amount of pictures may face a loss of fifty dollars. Keep the picture and go ahead.

Alberto, I understand your point very well but listen to this:

I'm German and moved to the US 10 years ago. I was surprised to see what can be returned here.

Almost every business allows returns here. You want to hear crazy return stories? Here they are.

- In her student years my wife worked as customer service employee at a large supermarket dealing amongst other things with... returns. The supermarket's policy was, and check this out, "Make the customer happy" - therefore they allowed returns. For example, customers came after Thanksgiving into the store with a bag of bones (turkey bones) and requested a refund because the turkey was "too dry". They received a refund (bear in mind that a 12+ lb turkey is not very cheap either).
So they ate the turkey (all of it) and still received a refund - just so they would return to the store again for more shopping in the future.

- A friend of mine went to the pharmacy with a prescription to have their medicine filled (in the US the pills are counted according to your prescription and then refilled into a plastic bottle for you, I didn't know that when I first came to the US...). The (transparent) bottle is then placed into a paper bag (usually) and the prescription is stapled onto the bag, hence you cannot see the bottle. Once at home he realized that these pills were the size of horse pills (well large pills) that he was unable to swallow and returned that back to the pharmacy (which by state law isn't even allowed to accept as a return!!!!).

- Macy's, one of the largest retailers in the US accepts returns within 2 years time. You can buy a nice shirt, wear it 3-4 times and return it after a year again for the full purchase price. You can buy a spaghetti pot for cooking - cook with it for 6 months and then return for all your moolah back in your account. Have a small, dirty apartment and no storage space? No problem buy a vacuum cleaner at Macy's, clean your house and take it back to Macy's for your money back.

I've seen people return stuff you would lose your mind!!! Especially for me as a European where it's mostly: Once you walk out of the door of the store you're pretty much stuck with what you purchased.

Customer Service here in the US has a whole different meaning!

Now how these costs for the goods that were returned were handled internally - I do not know.

And for sure I hate returned images as much as anyone of us. I'm just trying to shed some light on the return habits of another country to help people understand.

... Perhaps some more clear statement rules, about refund by agencies is appreciated.

You are right, but, as an agency, what are you supposed to do? As long as the client signs a form that the downloaded image will never be used that's all they can do.

And if they have a long standing customer that needs to return an image, simply say no you can't? Sometimes you have to give them back a little.

In cases of credit card fraud for example, I think we the contributors should be paid in full as those images WILL be used and/or end up on file sharing sites anyway - so at least we get some compensation.

I think the issue who should absorb the cost of returns - If I take a shirt back I would be surprised if the manufacturer would be billed the retailer would absorb the cost?