Shutterstock

I bought a single lmage for a website and they charged me 30$ monthly without my consent. I just realized they had me subscribed (I did not subscribe!).

Absolute hijacking and unethical company. They should be closed. I hope they mess with the wrong person and get sued for their dark practices.

I had to nullify my card in order to get away from these thieves.

So easy to sign up but took me weeks to cancel my monthly billing! There is no easy way online to cancel, they make you call. Every time I called they said "Sorry, your breaking up, I can't hear you"... Every damn time!

So, to get around this instead of selecting 'cancel billing' when prompted on the phone, I selected other 'billing enquiries' and went straight to someone with no 'technical difficulties'. BUT, canceling has a $40AUD fee so watch out.

Such a big scam and very disappointed.

They were rejecting photos that were "unfocused" etc which was certainly not the case and there is no way to request further review. They rejected some of my best and sharpest photos while allowing some of my worst to slip through. I don't know who does the reviewing but I wasn't impressed.

Shutterstock is very sneaky and unethical. They offer a "no-commitment" free trail period which magically become 12 month commitments without directly telling you. Then they charge $40 to cancel the membership. They ripped me off and will not hesitate to rip you off too. Just look at the other reviews and you'll see that they have a history of doing this to others. As a contributor, they encourage you to upload photos and make you feel as if you're part of this grand community when, in reality, you only make 10 cents for every download. Take a minute to process this. 10 CENTS! Shutterstock, your practices are unethical and this needs to come to light. You are doing a disservice to your members and contributors.

If ShutterStock.com comes up in your search, don't stop; keep looking. I thought I was purchasing a one-time package. However, I was immediately double charged. Apparently, auto-enroll is the default setting. And that means when you make a purchase, you are immediately and automatically charged the same amount for a future purchase. And the images - even the top quality ones - are not that good.

The images that I had submitted as a contributor were stolen off of my contributor page. I would not recommend becoming a contributor. Your work and effort is not cared for by the individuals that operate the website. The images I submitted probably were taken and added to someone else contributor page is my guess. I was not ever paid for my efforts. I also I have the original images with time stamps and dates.

I purchased 3 clips of the same video. First was a web version which was terrible then an SD version which was just as crap as the web version. I then bought the HD version and still very little difference. They refused to refund me for the HD version but did for the other 2 clips. For a company that makes its living of footage you would expect it to be HD. They must have blind chimps working for them because this video was grainy and not sharp at all. They said it was withing their guidelines. Well maybe improve your bloody guidelines. Theiving scumbags. Do yourself a favour an do not buy anything from this site. No help and no customer service, just scripted responses.

MASSIVE SCAM. Business model is now designed to steal your money. Forget to cancel the free trial and you'll have to pay a penalty which is the whole "saving" of the yearly plan. You're better off to pay it out monthly and hope you'll use it, which I didn't. Tried to cancel again 2 months before the end of the plan as I wanted to make sure it wasn't going to renew - guess what, the cancellation fee was the same it never goes down! Even if you've paid 10 months out of 12 without using it, they hit you with the same penalty fee.

You also can't cancel through your account you have to contact them directly.

Ridiculous, expensive, should be against consumer law.

Thanks for nothing SHUTTERSCAM.

Whatever you do, do not sign up or download any image from this website.
I thought I was paying for 1 image, which was all I needed, and then the company started to charge me AUD31 every month for a service that I wasn't using.
I contacted the customer support help and they said they were going to be 'nice' and cancel my subscription without charging me the cancellation fee (attached email from them). One month later and they charged me again for the subscription. They have not cancelled my subscription as they promised.

The only way out of this cam was to cancel my credit card and report it to my bank.

If I could give this 0 stars I would. Like everyone else here I signed up for a free trial and, like an idiot, imputed my information without looking into it at all. Without asking or even letting me know they locked me into a year subscription plan. $31 (FOR 10 PHOTOS YOU CAN FIND ELSEWHERE! 10!) it sucked but I've made that mistake before. However due to memory issues I end up paying this for 3 months due to them defaulting to auto payments AND then when I reached out to cancel (less than 24 hours after the notification) they charged me an additional $43! I hadn't downloaded a single picture for months, since the free trial. This site is bull$#*!, over priced and unethical. Do yourself a favor and try literally anywhere else.

When purchasing a plan be extra carefully. They are not clear on the cancellation policy and lock you for the high payments for a year. In addition, even thought you have an annual plan, you can't use the remaining downloads in the following month.
So they have you as a monthly customer for downloads options, but for payment cancellation they treat you as an annual customer. They only do as they please.
Run from them. If I could, i would give 0 star!

They will charge you $180 to cancel after trial period. I was being billed almost $40 a month and never used their service! I only signed up to look at a photo and forgot to cancel. I didnt even use the photo. ALL MARKETING! Support your local designers on ETSY or their personal websites.

I chose the free trial and I realized that they were charging my credit card without even informing me! I didn't receive any email, nothing! Unacceptable, at least they stopped my subscription without charging me extra money.

I wanted a monthly free trial and they subscribed me to a year plan and now they are charging me over and over, also they turned on automatic renewal so even next year they will charge me for a no ending story.
They don't answer my calls either!
Absolute thieves!