If none of their monthly plans makes economic sense for you, you can buy credits. They don't tell you that banked credits "expire" some time later. Out of the blue you will get an e-mail informing you. In other words, Bigstock just steals your money. Don't be a victim, there are plenty of alternatives.
Despite some negative claims on here, I am pleased to offer a second review to let you know 3-5 business days I will be refunded. Thank you BigStockPhoto and I hope others can proceed with confidence that you are fair!
Shane
Thank you for sharing your experience, Shane. We're happy to hear we were able to fairly resolve your issue. Have a great day!
Tricking people to giving them your details... using free trial tactics. And then charging your card automatically... terrible business and marketing practice
Hi Richmond,
Please reach out to us at support@bigstock.com so we can look into this further.
Between the field where you entered your credit card details and the button where you confirms the free subscription is the following information:
"Your Free Trial includes 35 free images. We will bill you $79 on August 8th, 2018 unless you cancel before then. After that, your plan will renew monthly. Cancel in your Account settings or by contacting our support team."
Here is the link to that page. Note - it is not visible if currently logged into a Bigstock account.
https://www.bigstockphoto.com/subscribe/payment/5aday30day_bonus2_7day_trial/
Here is the link to our policy pertaining to subscriptions and refunds:
https://help.bigstockphoto.com/help/articles/kbat04/Subscription-Plans?q=refund&l=en_US&fs=Search&pn=1#q
Thanks
Joseph T (customer care "advocate") was snarky beyond belief. Cancellation online is challenged 3 times - yes, I am sure i want to cancel. Do not assume clicking to cancel the autobill at the first or second menu is sufficient - it is not. Also, if you call them, it is not adequate to explain the situation... you must use the magic word "refund". I will never do business or refer business to any company that plays these semantic games.
We're sorry to hear about your frustrating experience. Please send us the email associated with your Bigstock account in a private message and we will review the situation.
The free 7 day trial period is a scam, deceptive, and misleading! They tell you that you can cancel any time (which is true) and that they will only charge you after your trial period is over (this is a lie). They will charge you 3 days before your trial period is over. Their dishonesty is very disturbing.
When I found out that my credit card was charged before my trial period was over I tried to call them on the phone. When I called the number, it answered after I listened to a long recording about bigstock and then all I heard was static and some people in the background, then the phone just hung up. I then proceed to go to their live chat. I did get someone there and they cancelled my account and said I would get refunded in 3 days. I would give them 1 star if they weren't going to refund me.
Just know that they have a misleading 7 day free trial offer and if you are not careful you will end up paying for a month even if you intend to cancel before the 7 day trial is over.
Too bad, I thought I liked bigstockphoto.com after trying them out for a couple days, but once I saw them being dishonest, I didn't want to have anything to do with them anymore.
Its funny because I am writing the review after cancelling. We didn't need their service and it was a breath of fresh air with them not trying to make money off of people with contracts and deceptive practices. I know the other reviews don't agree, but my chat experience with Dirk L was great and he went out of his way to help me solve my problem in a fair way.
Did a one month subscription and cancelled with no problem. Great selection, very reasonable cost and high resolution. If some of the idiots posting reviews would read the terms when they enroll, they might avoid problems.
Thank you very much for your kind words, Leslie. We love hearing how happy you are with Bigstock. Please contact us at support@bigstock.com if there's anything we can do to make your experience even better or if we may ever be of assistance.
I signed up to bigstock and bought some one off image but unknowingly they decided to put on a subscription plan which I have only accidently discovered while perusing my account that they have been charging me for the past 10 months a total cost of £468 while I have not used their images. I have just been on the telephone to them and they said they would refund for 3 months only. Can anyone signpost me on any lawyers or company that can assist me to get all my money back
We provide all of the pertinent information to our customers when we present them an offer. We want the information to be clear as we want our customers to understand exactly what they are signing up for, how much they will be charged and when they will be charged. It is important to us that we respect our customers and we ethically run Bigstock with that in mind. At the time of a free trial sign up the customer chooses a monthly plan that will continue after the trial ends unless they cancel before the trial ends. The trial sign up also explains that there is no charge at the beginning of the trial, when the subscription will renew and how much you will be charged. If you cancel the trial before it ends there is no charge and the subscription does not renew. This is also explained in detail in the Terms of Service which must be agreed to before starting the trial. Please contact us at support@bigstock.com if you have any additional questions.
Should've gone here first. Despite canceling 2 days before my trial was over, their policy is to charge your card 3 days before the trial is over.
EDIT:::::
Apparently they are going to refund my money. Will update this review when it goes through. Until then the 1-star stands.
UPDATE:::::
Refunded my money in full, pretty quickly after I emailed them. It was fully refunded 2 business days alter.
B. P., Thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to resolve your issue and for updating your comments and rating.
HELP! Big Stock Photo continuously charges me with a subscription plan that I do not even know that I had. Please help me how to cancel subscription. They have been charging me since February and just noticed it in my billing now. I feel that I have been scammed because my account has 0 download records, and does not have a receipt for said $79 monthly subscription plan either. I regret registering for their free trial.
At the time of a free trial sign up the customer chooses a monthly plan that will continue after the trial ends unless they cancel before the trial ends. The trial sign up also explains that there is no charge at the beginning of the trial, when the subscription will renew and how much you will be charged. If you cancel the trial before it ends there is no charge and the subscription does not renew. This is also explained in detail in the Terms of Service which must be agreed to before starting the trial. Please contact us at support@bigstock.com and we will be happy to assist you further.
I just turned them into PCI compliance as I don't think they are meeting the standards. Do NOT sign up for their "Free" trial. I would not feel safe with them storing my credit card, and now I have to watch my account like a hawk.
My company had asked that I do a free trial to see whether they or their competitors were better. The free trial was so short so I had to cancel before I had a chance to use them. I signed up for another free trial and instead was billed $91 immediately. I immediately contacted them, having not used a single image, and told them of my mistake assuming they would refund me so I could continue the trial. Instead, they threw a bunch of legal jargon, told me I had to pay it and didn't want anything more to do with me. They just want your money and we are moving forward with the other company instead who are much nicer.
After the free trial and your agreement to $79 a month the honeymoon is over. They wouldn't give me a credit so I called Amex and charged back. I told them that I would do that if they couldn't find a resolution. They froze my account before this could be done. Terrible customer service. Do not fall into the trap we did. $158 for a total of about 15 pictures over two months and a complete waste of our time.
The halfway positive: I had made a mix up with 2 accounts and customer service made a partial refund in due time. That was ok.
But: there is no free trial if you are billed 3 days before renewal.
There is no e-mail confirmation of your subscription.
There is no e-mail information about neither upcoming or processed charges on your credit card.
Backoffice is not intuitive and made in my optionion in a misleading way so that you don't realize what you are subscribing to or if your cancelling passed through.
I had a 5 images/day subscription and missed a few days - these images are lost, they are neither refunded nor accumulated. What a SCAM!
Images are not well translated into German, search options are very limited and it takes a long time to find the required image.
Susie, we apologize if there was any confusion regarding the trial subscription. The trial entitles you to download 5 images per day and that does reset every day. When signing up for the trial it is explained when you will be charged and this information is also displayed in the My Account section. We'd like to clarify that we do not bill trial subscriptions until they have expired. You do get a full 7 days for free. Only paid subscriptions are billed three days in advance to avoid any interruption in service. Please contact us at support@bigstock.com if you have any additional questions.
I buy stock images on a few different sites and none of them expire your paid credits like Bigstock Photo does. It's infuriating! I don't have time to watch the calendar and make sure I use my credits before they expire. If I buy something, I should get something. I feel like they just took my money. I'll never buy on Bigstock again. Go to iStockphoto instead.
Upon signing up for a free trial my credit card was immediately charged £70. Six days in to the seven day free trial period, with my membership cancelled, I still have not received a reply from customer service about the billing error, or a refund to my credit card. BigStock is quite deceptive with its free trial process and I caution anyone considering the service.
I signed up for a free trial for both images and videos and canceled my auto-billing on their website by clicking "cancel auto-billing" however they charged me anyways. When I reached out to them they responded by saying I agreed to be charged per their terms of agreements. This is unfair as I tried to cancel and it didn't cancel also morally you would think the company would refund me as I have not downloaded any images or videos but TWO and that was the first day of the 7 day trial period however they stated they WILL NOT refund me my money. JUST AWFUL DON'T RECOMMEND THIS COMPANY AT ALL THEY ARE THEIVES!
Like so many others, I signed up for a free trial and was automatically enrolled in a subscription plan that cost $79/month for a year, without my knowledge or consent. Unfortunately, I did not notice this on my credit card statements until a year later (this month), so I have now been charged $948 for a few downloads in February 2017. BigStockPhoto did not have most of the quality photos I needed for my book project anyway, so I purchased the majority of them from two other stock photo services, without any problem. Stay away from BigStockPhoto!
Hi Janice,
We're very sorry that you feel that you were automatically enrolled in a subscription plan without your knowledge or consent. We do our best to notify users that they need to cancel the trial subscription prior to the end of the trial. We do this in the following ways:
Between the credit card entry field and the button where a user confirms the free subscription is the following information:
"Your Free Trial includes 35 free images. We will bill you $79 on March 13,2018 (the applicable date based on date of sign up) unless you cancel before then. After that, your plan will renew monthly. Cancel in your Account settings or by contacting our support team."
Here is the link to that page. Note - it is not visible if currently logged into a Bigstock account.
https://www.bigstockphoto.com/subscribe/payment/5aday30day_bonus2_7day_trial/
Please don't hesitate to reach out to our team at support@bigstockphoto.com with any questions!
A trial membership with Bigstock requires you to submit credit card information and later you will find out why. After one week, you are automatically charged $79 with the starting date as the first day of your trial membership! This is, at best, a devious company, and at worst, a scam. They send you notices of all the "FREE" things to encourage you to believe you are still in the trial period, while all the time, charging you a whopping $79 a month even when you do not look at the web site! It is time to put this company off the internet!
Hi EJ,
We're sorry that you feel that you were automatically enrolled in a subscription plan without your knowledge. We notify all users that they need to cancel the trial subscription prior to the end of the trial in the following way:
Between the credit card entry field and the button where a user confirms the free subscription is the following information:
"Your Free Trial includes 35 free images. We will bill you $79 on xxx date (the applicable date based on date of sign up) unless you cancel before then. After that, your plan will renew monthly. Cancel in your Account settings or by contacting our support team."
Here is the link to that page. Note - it is not visible if currently logged into a Bigstock account.
https://www.bigstockphoto.com/subscribe/payment/5aday30day_bonus2_7day_trial/
Please don't hesitate to reach out to our team at support@bigstockphoto.com with any questions!
Signed up for a month and canceled the auto renew on their site but months later I find that they are still charging me. Customer service was terrible and they would not refund me the money for several months where I clearly didn't use the service.
Hi Gilberto,
We would love to look into this further. Please reach out to support@bigstockphoto.com and put Attn: Jeff D. In the subject line. Apologies for the delayed reply.
Thanks
Overview
Big Stock Photo has a rating of 1.6 stars from 64 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers dissatisfied with Big Stock Photo most frequently mention free trial, credit card and customer service. Big Stock Photo ranks 56th among Stock Photos sites.
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Hi Jim, sorry for the late reply!
We do not obscure the fact that our image credits expire. In fact, we offer a 30 day grace period to extend the credits!
Please see our FAQ for all the details on our credit packs - https://goo.gl/mDouyR - and please don't hesitate to reach out to our team at support@bigstockphoto.com with any questions!