Antonio M.

I recommend this search engine who unlike many others like google, focuses on real results (not commercial links) and privacy for the user

Aol or how do you get rid of them.

Aol used to be the google of its days back in time but they became. Well, what they became.

I had an email account with them and for months, I had no issues with them. But suddenly I started to have technical problems and issues with emails that I didn't received or were not sent, the site was down, the technical support as well...

I did the usual check on security, hacking, anti virus, change passwords etc. But it wasn't that. Until I realised that the real problem was aol!

I sent repeatedly request to their support and got always the same robotic and out of context answers.
Finally, I decided to get rid of this account and delete it. This is where the real problems started.

They do everything in order you can't cancel your account including:
- Having no article clearly explaining how do so in their help and support
- Having the "cancel" page constantly down to be sure you won't cancel
- Never ever answering your emails about cancellation

I finally found how to cancel my account through a third party web page and deleted it.

My conclusion, AOL is like smoking, don't start or stopping will be really hard. Never again!

Well, I tried to find something wrong here, but I don't find anything:-).

It is simply what users wanted since many years. A platform where you can tell the truth about some websites and online businesses. Not a sponsored and censored, full of vested interests commercial tool to help some hidden agenda, but a site where users have finally their say.

Thank you to exist.

Monster used to be the reference in term of job boards and career websites but it was years ago now.

They have become an unreliable aggregate of dubious and suspicious job "offers"

If you take time to look at it, and contact directly the companies who are supposedly recruiting, you will realise that the majority of their job "advertisements" are either outdated, online since years, or even fake.

Another thing than monster.com do is to multiply the same advert 5 to 6 times in order to make employers and job seekers think they have a lot of jobs on offer while they have few in reality (especially in 2014).

Besides having all these defaults, they also have a very deficient and limited search engine: it gives you results you don't ask for and you can't tune it a other job boards allow you to do. For example, if you want to have only job adds directly from employers and not form the employment firms publishing fake jobs to collect resumes, you just can't. Take indeed.com in comparison, where you can adjust these type of things in their search engine.

I think, monster.com is now too big to realise its own shortcomings and to change about it. It will take their competitors to overcome them before they react and start to stop taking employers and job seekers for idiots.

Agefotostock is a stock photography "agency" like many others online, the most famous being Getty image, Corbis, istock or Shutterstock.

Of course not a lot of people (and customers) have ever heard about Agefotostock while they have been there for longer than any other provider. They are known by a small number of photographers and some editors I suppose.

If yoy are a photographer and want to sell pictures with them, don't bother to go through their super lengthy and complicated upload and selection process (done by hand), you will only lose time as they won't sell any of your work.

They are poor at selling your work but very good at adding one administrative barrier after the other in term of signing a contract with them.
You need to download and sign a contract that you need to print and send by post to Barcelona in Spain (at your own cost of course).
The contract with clauses favouring only them and registered under Spanish laws binds you for no more than 3 YEARS!
If you want to cancel the contract... Too bad, you have to wait and write 90 days before the expiration (by post again) to cancel it, otherwise it renew itself automatically.

For information all other stock agencies have electronic and online contracts, don't bind you for longer than 6 months and you can cancel anytime.

Why is it different at Agefotostock? Besides an obvious outdated and archaic culture that you can see when visiting their website it is in fact a well calculated strategy to dispossess photographers from their work and deter them to leave this provider.

You realise it, when after having sold nothing, you want to remove some pictures of your online portfolio with them to sell them elsewhere.
While with any other provider, you can do it easily and by yourself, with Agefotostock you simply can't.
And when you ask the pitiful customer service if they can remove pictures of your choice from your portfolio, first they don't answer for weeks and then come back to you in a very disagreeable and nasty way with reference to the contract you signed and with a big no in your face.

Basically, because you have signed this contract, your can't do what you want with your pictures anymore.
It explains why such a complicated way of contracting with them and why they are the only ones still using hard copy and paper. To trick the photographers into a trap where they are stuck for 3 years at least and more as most contributors won't bother to send a cancellation letter by post to Spain.

If you are a buyer, the usual practices of this nice agency consist amongst others to sell pictures without model or property releases (exposing the customer to possible copyright violation and subsequent trial and loss of money).

I have also heard of photographers who found their picture on sale on their website while they never signed with them. Again, a good source of troubles for any would be buyer in term of future suing.

As a photographer you should also be careful about what they do with your work online and make sure to check regularly on image research sites (google) to see if they don't distribute your images without telling you.

They pretend they are there since a long time and still most of people have never heard about them even in the (small) photography world. There are certainly good reasons why. Good product, good companies and quality don't stay hidden for long.