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Thought I had a couple of sales today until I looked closer--refunds of sales from May and July of 2020. Both were cleared about a month after sale, and subsequently paid to me.

 

As with the last time this happened, this has thrown me into a negative cleared balance. 

 

Oddly, the Usage detail in the sales history names the buyer company, which is the same for both sales/refunds and still seems to be in business. 

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26 minutes ago, Bill Kuta said:

Thought I had a couple of sales today until I looked closer--refunds of sales from May and July of 2020. Both were cleared about a month after sale, and subsequently paid to me.

 

As with the last time this happened, this has thrown me into a negative cleared balance. 

 

Oddly, the Usage detail in the sales history names the buyer company, which is the same for both sales/refunds and still seems to be in business. 


Had three of those refunds today.  It has nearly wiped out my gains for the month. 😡

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3 hours ago, David Pimborough said:

 

 

Not the only one I had a sale from July 2020 refunded April 8th 2021 this refund generosity is tiresome

my cleared balance is now negative for the first time :(

 

Same here!

Usage started July 2020, invoiced February 2021, never paid, refunded yesterday. 

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11 minutes ago, David Pimborough said:

 

Thats the way Alamy choose to do business I'm afraid.

 

I don't know of many businesses that allow business clients to seek refunds months after taking delivery of goods or services.

 

As to the 14 day cancellation thats required by law under distance selling regulations.

Ah so it’s what they say on paper but in reality they’ll do refunds beyond that

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It may also be that the customer has ceased to trade or ceased to pay suppliers.  Also some businesses have an accounting policy that if a debt is not paid within a period of time then it is written off.  In a business that has very small value sales it is not economically viable to go chasing bad debts.

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17 minutes ago, IanDavidson said:

It may also be that the customer has ceased to trade or ceased to pay suppliers.  Also some businesses have an accounting policy that if a debt is not paid within a period of time then it is written off.  In a business that has very small value sales it is not economically viable to go chasing bad debts.

That makes sense rather than it necessarily being a choice 

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23 minutes ago, IanDavidson said:

It may also be that the customer has ceased to trade or ceased to pay suppliers.  Also some businesses have an accounting policy that if a debt is not paid within a period of time then it is written off.  In a business that has very small value sales it is not economically viable to go chasing bad debts.

 

Understandable, however, given that it is Alamy that negotiates the sale with the end user, then it should be Alamy that takes the hit when it goes pear shaped, not us ...

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Yes, it looks like my refunds are being reversed as well.

 

But the main point, which some did not seem to pick up on, is that these were sales that were cleared last year, paid out to Alamy and to contributors. I know it's not the first time it's happened to anyone here, and not the first time to me. The other time this happened to me, the refund was not reversed.

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6 hours ago, Michael Ventura said:

Okay, well a turn of events this morning.  My three refunds from this buyer have all been reversed and rebilled at the same prices.

One of mine also - was $40

 

Kumar

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Sounds like Alamy put their foot (feet) down after finding out how long ago the images were licensed.

 

Allan

 

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My two refunds were reversed, but I still have a negative cleared balance--an accounting effect of refunding a cleared-and-paid amount, even if it's subsequently reversed. So Alamy gets a little float with respect to my current clearings.

 

Something else is not quite right--the sales total for this month in Account Balance is more than what shows as Sales on the Dashboard. So I'll wait and see if it gets straightened out a bit more.

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If you have an image sale refunded, it's worth trying to find out whether whoever bought the image is still using it.
Last year I had a refund on Alamy for an image that was bought months prior, for quite a high amount actually. The image only sold once on Alamy, so it was easy to find it online. A website was using it and was crediting it back to Alamy.
I contacted Alamy about it, explaining that a customer got a refund for an image he has been and still was using. Sadly it took quite some time and bugging Alamy about it, but finally I got a reply that the customer had bought a wrong license and that I should  see a sale for the correct license by "the end of the month". Well, I didn't and it took more back and forth mails and, I think actually a couple of months, till I finally saw a (lower) sale again for that image.

No other agency has as many refunds for images as Alamy (actually I never had refunds on most other agencies, though I know they do occasionally happen). It's quite obvious that customers are using this to get back their money for images they used or still use, so it' s worth investigating.

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3 minutes ago, Michael Ventura said:

Looks like everyone's sales to this buyer have all been re-invoiced at the same price....so hopefully it is just a matter of waiting again for the funds to clear.

Mine still not re-invoiced. It was to a UK news group operating in Ireland. 

I actually reported this usage (from July 2020) in February and it was invoiced shortly after.

Anyway, I've already contacted Alamy sales dept. 

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Hi All

 

Apologies for the inconvenience with the refund of sales that you have already been paid for.

 

This is due to an invoicing error and they will be re-billed at the same price.

 

Thanks,

Alamy

 

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When I had such a refund/resale last year, it took four months for the resale to clear.

 

To me, the question is whether any new monies are actually changing hands between Alamy and the buyer. If not, then it's just a notational change and I feel that the clearing should happen at the same time as the resale.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I see that the resales of the cleared-and-paid refunds that started this thread have cleared. The Cleared Dates were backdated to the date the refunds were posted. 

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I do not understand,  When I do commercial work, not much in the last year, I do not release images for reproduction until the invoice or fees

are paid?  I can not understand why Alamy can not do the same thing?  I've had commercial clients on deadline who have fired people in their

accounting departments because they did not move fast enough. 

 

Also when people looking for a specific image have contacted me for an image, I tell them I charge a research fee to find and scan the

image they are requesting and they need to pay that fee before I start looking for the image,  They pay the research fee, from $100 to $500

depending on.  They also end up paying at least $300 for a license for the image?

 

I also do not do REFUNDS once the client has approved the comp.

 

Chuck

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And today, a "Manual Credit" for each of the two cleared-and-paid-out-then-refunded-and-resold sales, amounting to my original commission. This has the effect of increasing my cleared balance by the amount of the manual credits (in Account Balance; doesn't show yet in the cleared balance on the Dashboard). The accounting has been interesting.

 

If you're just tuning in to this thread, please start at the beginning to see what kinds of refunds we're talking about.

Edited by Bill Kuta
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