Paul M.

I have been a PRO level member for 2 years and won over 6K "awards", ALL being from other members, except for only 14 chosen as either challenge winner or "finalist", nothing more. My images are without question better than most of the "winners" I've seen in the challenges and the Viewbug contests, yet it seems the images are not even seen by the public. I believe Viewbug hides certain peoples images from the public while allowing their buddies to win all the "prizes", which are nearly ALL USED ITEMS that their staff wants to get rid of. The "prizes", if you are lucky enough to ever even have a chance at winning against literally THOUSANDS of other people from around the world, are so cheap that it is criminal that Viewbug even can call them a legitimate prize at all. Like I said, they are used items, mostly, and if they are new, and actually worth anything over $100 (very rarely), they reserved for their staff who enters the contests also with fake profiles they create it appears. I have noticed strange things going on the more I began to investigate "winners" that just seem to keep "winning" quite often with images that are quite literally less than mediocre at best. They are not just winning once, they have won multiple times these contests, and some of the challenges. It is quite odd to see the same person, that is supposedly not a staff member, winning on a regular basis. I also notice my images have hardly ANY "views",. Even though I enter 98% of all the challenges. The "contests" tend to be a deliberate tenancy for their staff to be able to win by using certain selected themes that they just so happen to have images for that 80% of the members would not have taken such pictures.
I for one find this site to me much more of a bait and switch, as I have contacted them many times about things that they either do not bother to respond, or give such a vague response to that it is not even worthy of them responding at all anyhow. It isn't until sites like this one, where people can openly say the truth about Viewbug in public, that suddenly Viewbug acts so polite and interested in helping you with your problem, but only in words for the public to see, not what they actually do once you return to their site.
I have had problems on several occasions with my challenges not being visible, and I contacted them each time that happened. They say "they will look into it", and nothing happens. This last time it happened, a strange thing happened that I cannot explain. I had just posted my challenge that said it "waiting for approval", but already two photographers had immediately posted photos to it, and it wasn't even approved to be public yet! That got me very suspicious, so I began to snoop into their profiles, and sure enough, they were both top "winners" of multiple contests, and not just a few, it was a LOT of contests and challenges they "won".
My challenge is still not viewable to the public when you search for it in the Challenges, yet a tiny handful of people are able to post pictures into it, strange, huh? It certainly is, considering ALL of them are past winners and suspiciously seem to have images that I've seen under different names as well as used in their "contests" that are not supposed to be staff members.
Sorry, there needs to be an investigation into Viewbug for FRAUD, because it appears more and more that this site is created to take your money, while the photographer staff and "judges" tend to make a living off all the Prime and PRO members. I'm about ready to pull the plug on them and see what is left after a real investigation is done.