Shutterstock
Reviews and Complaints

The company, which makes everything complicated to get a filedownload, is altough charging you for renewal with the renewal option turned off. They turn it on on their own and charge several days before the end of the paid period. On the 4th of March I ordered a 30 days period with 750 downloads in this time and turned of the auto renewal opiton immediatly after first payment. I was recharged on 1st of April for a new period of 30 days. This is fraud!

Date : 29.03.2017

Oman,

Phone: +[protected]
My name is Anup it was found that OMR 88.853 has been debited from my BANK MUSCATcredit card on 29th March 2017, I was not using this card from long since and also not purchased any thing from ShutterStock, I need this amount to be credited back to my card at the earliest to avoid any further complication.
Here you go with my card details.

Debited by : STK*SHUTTERSTOCK, INC.
No authorization given.
Card : [protected]

I need a immediate reply for this mail. I am available at [protected]@yahoo.co.in

Anup Balakrishnan

I purchased 2 stock photos from shutter stock last year & now they charged my credit card again for "another year of service" - I never signed up for anything yearly, I only purchased a few photos. Apparently they put everyone on AutoRenewal & recharge you each year! Seriously! This is absolute fraud! All I wanted was a few photos for a website... not a headache year after year being scammed by these people!

I will never do business with them EVER AGAIN... and neither should anyone else! it's absolute fraud!

I was signed up for this scam and I when I contacted them I told them that I was not interested in their service and did not want to renew my account. Shutterstock assured me that they will not renew my account and that I have nothing to worry about but that was just a scam. Next month I got a charge on my card for an auto renewal of my subscription. I was so angry and demanded all of my money back and even threatened them with the police, but they were so ignorant and simply did not care. They said there was no way they could refund me. What a joke of a company! Don't deal with them if you don't want to be robbed!

Do not deal with Shutterstock they are real thieves and they use this well known automatic renewal scam! I used their service only once and next month they charged me again. I tried to get my money back but they refused and said that was impossible. But they promised they will not charge me again, but later I got another charge from them and when I contacted Shutterstock they said it was a renewal fee! Avoid this scam!

In September 2014, I purchased 2 images for my freelance work.

In 2015, I noticed a charge on my credit card. I didn't realized that Auto Renewal is on as a default as soon as I make a purchase. So I made sure that the Auto Renewal was turn off on my account.

Today (September 2016), I saw the charge again on my credit card. When I called in they said there was actually a few steps to turn off the Auto Renewal. I had to answer their surveys to make it effective.

They said they are going to give me refund, but as I am in Canada, I will still be charged for the currency rate.

1. Auto Renewal should NOT be default setting
2. Turning off Auto Renewal should be one step (no trick!)
3. I never received any emails about the renewal

When purchasing credits on Shutterstock for either images or video clips they automatically opt customers in to auto renew so they are continuously billed until they go into their account and turn auto-renew off.

I wanted 10 video clips which I paid for and downloaded. When I looked at my bank statement I had been billed $528 twice. The reason I was given was my account had got to zero credits and therefore triggered automatic re-billing.

The checked auto renew button is deliberately small and discrete at the bottom of the checkout screen and very easy to miss.

When I spoke to customer support they agreed to reimburse the money and when I asked if a lot of people requested a refund he said 'quite a few do'. When I suggested the practise of automatically opting customers in was at best misleading and at worst completely dishonest, he gave a practised answer of 'Shutterstock is trying to make our customer's lives easier and most customers like the convenience of auto renew'.

The honest and transparent practise would be to ask customers if they want to turn on auto renew at checkout. This would be no less convenient for customers, and would avoid thousands of customers being charged significant amounts without realising they had opted in to continuous billing.

Our bank account was charged £130 and we had not placed any orders. Neither my wife nor I are customers of this company. I rang immediately after I discovered this to tell them - the day after the fraudulent deduction. The man who answered said he had raised 'an account', which would be passed to their billing department. They would then ring me the next day. This has not happened - no-one has contacted us.

He suggested this was simply a typical online fraud from someone accessing my wife's card details. However, no other fraudulent payments have been made against this.

So the facts are that £130 of Shutterstock products ONLY have been fraudulently charged against this card, and they are not contacting to us to explain why or reimburse us.

I had no idea that there was a deadline to download something! No one said anything about that!
I have purchased an image from Shutterstock but I was in a hurry and decided that I'll download when I return home.
When I came back from work and immediately went online and tried to download the picture. Only then I was told about the deadline and since I missed it I was no longer able to download anything!
Contacted customer service and they refused to refund my money and said that it was fault. Terrible service!

I signed on to Shutterstock last night to check some images and I always do that as my profession requires. This morning I found out I bought their images and they charged me 49.00 US for nothing. This is simply outrageous. I didn't buy anything (no images, no plan) because I don't need to. When I buy I use my cc, and yesterday, they had my cc number from my past transactions and charged me which is not right. Guys, be careful in signing on in Shutterstock. You can be charged illegally and then become frustrated. They are real crooks.

My name is Praseetha S P, it was found that $49 has been debited from my HSBC credit card on 6th May, I was not using this card from long since and also not purchased any thing from ShutterStock, I need this amount to be credited back to my card at the earliest to avoid any further complication.
Here you go with my card details.
Card No- [protected]
Amount- $49
Transaction No- 001635

I need a immediate reply for this mail. I am available at aathi.[protected]@gmail.com

I purchased a 1 month shutterstock account (costing $200) because they are one of the biggest stock photo sellers out there, and it seemed alot more economical than IStockphoto which is currently very expensive. Don't get me wrong, they are a great value if you don't mind:

1. Quite a few 'error' situations that arise - some of the photos I tried to download were 'not available' or just plain errored out when I'd attempt to download them. It also sucked up one of my daily points that I was allocated for my 25 downloads a day. When I contacted them about the problem photos, they told me they could 'load them fine and it must just be me'... doubtful.

2. One day after my first complaint about the above, they shut down my account and everytime I tried to download photos a huge FBI warning screenshot came up. The treated me like a CRIMINAL for no reason. I called them and asked what the hell was going on. They said they got a charge back notice from my bank WHICH THEY DID NOT. They never gave me a reason for this 'error' and said 'oops, our mistake' then switched me back on. They also said this happens occasionally on 'various' accounts. What kind of crackheads do they have working for them!?

3. I had ordered a backup CD set before I closed my account (I really had it with their poor customer service). The CD set was supposed to be shipped within 7 days of the end of the 1 month account period ending. 7 days went by, then more days... I emailed them and asked them where my CDs went to! (Almost a month later). They did not give me an explanation and said we will 'reprint' you a set. 7 days later I did get my CD set and 2 of the CDs were severely damaged! (to the point of being unreadable) and it wasn't from shipping either, it was from the poor discs they used that the substrate was flaking off! I called them back on the problem on 3/28/08 and spoke to 'Patrick' who refused to let me speak to a manager and said they can 'reprint' me a set taking another 7 days. I told him this was UNACCEPTABLE and I'd like a refund and my CDs shipped to me FedEx or something. So we'll wait and see if they actually intend to CARE about me as a customer... I seriously doubt it by their track record.

I would think twice before doing business with this weak a*s company.