VERY BAD EXPERIENCE
In order to explain what happened to me, here ist the lastmail I sent them today:
Angelo Calvino
collectionsreportagefotostock.com
Alfonso Gutiérrez
Dear Sirs,
After sending several e-mails to Mr. Alfonso Gutierrez asking a sales report (last payment Invoice 01-2021 issued in January 2021 of € 178,79)
Since then I did not receive any report regarding my sales during 2 years and 6 months, without disturbing you, being aware of your problems arised during Covid period.
Due to fact that my first email has been sent on June 23rd 2023 and the last (directly to Mr. Gutierrez) on July 28th without any reply.
If I don't receive a satisfactory answer within the next two weeks, I will not bother you any more in a direct way.
Looking forward to hearing from you asap
Regards
Angelo Calvino
Copy to:
Cámara de Comercio Italiana para España
C. De Cristóbal Bordiú, 54,******* Madrid, Spagna

The only person who now communicates (if you can call that communication) on behalf of this company is Alfonso Gutierrez - the "CEO" and probably the only employee left. As a photographer, if you want your royalties to be paid, you have to write directly to him and send him an invoice, but you won't get paid anyway even if you fulfilled all their invoice requirements. Instead, you will be either ignored, or, if you send several reminders after months of non-payment, you will be insulted, called mentally ill, and will have to deal with his arrogant and toxic behaviour, still without getting paid.
Mr. Gutierrez is really good at insulting people and bragging about his supposed 50-year-experience in the stock business, but that's about it.
If you send him a reminder after months of non-payment, he starts pretending that there are mistakes in your invoice, and if you clearly and unequivocally prove him that the mistake is on his side, he tries to ridicule you for "wasting a lot of time" and "time apparently not valuing much in your country". Then, if you send him another reminder almost 5 months after you've sent him the invoice that exactly corresponded to his proforma invoice and fulfilled all his invoice requirements (and re-sent it 4 times), he writes you "if you want to be paid, it is simple - send an summary of what you think we are owing you", and terminates the e-mail by phrases like "Get better, Mum!" or "enjoy the day, and please keep trying". You re-send him a correct invoice including all collection report numbers etc. for the n-th time... and he just laughs in your face without paying anything.
Reading people's comments here and in the internet, it becomes clear how many other people he already ripped off apart from me - no wonder that he turned off comments on both his instagram and facebook page - I can imagine the kind and quantity of comments he would get. But apart from switching off comments, he doesn't really care - he calls photographers he ripped off "barking dogs", and openly treats them like vermin.

He also pretends to have a long experience in IT, but he's apparently using an accounting system from prehistoric times without even basic controls like matching bank payments to invoices and collection reports, judging by the fact that he does not have correct information about which collection reports have already been paid and which ones haven't.

When you are fed up with this parody to stock agency and want to delete your portfolio, it turns out that deleting your images from within your account is impossible. He answers you that you have to terminate the contract first ("understand, or it is too complex for you?"), and when you write him that you want to terminate the contract and want him to remove your images from his site, he just ignores you again.
Unfortunately, the contract states that this company can retain your images for the "Term", which is initially 3 years, and at the end of this period the contract is automatically renewed for yet another year and then again and again, unless you give a 90-day written notice. Which means that not only my royalties earned in 2022 have not been paid by the end of 5/2023, but he will continue to use and sell my images without paying me for another almost year (at best) even if I give a written notice right now.

I sincerely hope that buyers and agents will learn about how this company treats photographers, so that they don't continue buying from someone who rips off the authors of images and steals their money, laughing in their face.

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.