Clyde D.

I have been an image contributor since 2008 and I have to say that over the past 5 years the site has been on a steady decline. Contributor services are the absolute worst. If a contributor has a problem forget it, there isn't a direct phone line to call. Contributors can only open a support ticket online and it may take several weeks to finally get a response. Bottom line, they do not take care of the content suppliers. They do not listen to contributor or buyer concerns. Inspectors are highly inconsistent. If you need a 2nd opinion from "Scout" GOOD LUCK! You will be waiting a very long time to get it. My wait time for one image recently was so long that when they finally responded to my ticket, I was told "I am sorry but the photo is no longer available for us to review". Unsatisfactory!

As an exclusive contributor unfortunately I cannot recommend this site to contributors or to buyers, that's just how bad that it's become. There are other sites that have far better prices and they actually take care of their exclusive contributors and listen to buyer and contributor concerns. If you are thinking of becoming an exclusive contributor, do yourself a huge favor and make sure that you do your research and then research some more. There isn't any incentive to being an exclusive contributor here now. The grass definitely isn't greener. Payouts are becoming less and less and we do not have the ability to get more images to their parent site in order to make more money from our work. It's become impossible to move up in pay level because the redeemed credit targets is broken. They've actually had to grandfather contributors to maintain their current pay level for at least 3 or 4 years consecutively. They'll tell you that they are doing contributors a favor by grandfathering but in reality that way of doing things isn't working and they will not change it. The majority of sales generated now are through subscriptions and partner programs, all of which do not generate credits toward contributor redeemed credit targets because the only way to increase your redeemed credit totals is if a buyer purchases images with credits!

I'm happy that I don't have to rely on the income to survive as it has become very very low... it's a joke actually. Even though I'm still an exclusive contributor who's invested a lot into this company, I'm to the point where I don't even care if this ship finally sinks completely. Call me sick, but I'd actually get some sort of enjoyment from it.

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There are also rumors on the discussion boards that some of the Forum Moderators and file inspectors (who are also contributors) have access to individual contributor account pay balance info... I don't have words for this.