Shutterstock

Shutterstock auto renews your image download package without confirming that you want to purchase anything. Their customer service is so unhelpful. I have been a customer for 10 years and I won't be using Shutterstock anymore because of their poor standards of service and how they trap you into their services.

Additionally, if you try to use their chat service and escalate your issue, do not expect to hear back from them.

Misleading advertising!! They lead you to believe that you can get 10 free images when they really sign you up for a 1 year membership at over $300!! Then charge you to cancel! This is a freaking scam!! They should be ashamed of themselves!!

I signed up for a membership and thought it was a one time purchase. I started receiving a monthly bill and asked Shutterstock to pls cancel my account and advised I made a mistake. Shutterstock does not allow u to cancel online. You must put ur request in writing. They have been corresponding with me dragging it on every month and now I've been billed from April through November and I haven't used the site which they can clearly see. I just wanted to cancel and recieve a credit for the unused months. Willing to pay for the 3 photos I did download. So frustrating.

In my position I require often the use of services like Shutterstock where I purchase, images, icons, vectors for my design/artwork and advertising. In July I decided I would pay for a month to be able to purchase 50 images that month. I read the agreement, but clearly not thorough enough, because there is an section under "Additional" stating Shutterstock has the right to auto-renew. I work as a professional in this industry and I find this sketchy business ethics. Working with companies like Mailchimp, Google Advertising, they are fully transparent on payment, how much it is, and when the payment comes out of your account. They send emails twice a month in regards to billing. Shutterstock does this silently, no email on your billing status, when renewal is coming up, how many images still left to download that month. As soon as I realized these practices I have turned off Auto-renewal. I will never ever use Shutterstock again, and will do everything I can do discredit them in my industry. There are many similar services out there with similar services, but ethical practice and honest.

I am a private practitioner in an office and subscribed to TEN IMAGES. Never did I realize that it was a "365-day Subscription, Standard License with 10 Downloads per Month" to be billed until September 11th 2020?!? I called to cancel and was told that there would be a "cancellation fee"? Their exact words: "You're currently subscribed to an annual plan, which offers a discounted monthly price. Cancellation of an annual plan early may incur an early termination fee. To cancel, please contact our support team." I tried to go to the delete billing information and there is a button to delete but it won't allow and states to reach out to Customer Support. I tried the option to CANCEL MY ACCOUNT and this was the pop up "We cannot delete accounts that have active plans or licensed content. For additional information, please contact our support team."
This is absolutely ridiculous and unprofessional. I am reaching out to my credit card company on Monday. I AM DONE.

I had £6,000 (over $7,500) stolen from my bank account in the UK from Shutterstock! After many emails and telephone calls, they admitted that the money taken from my account was not authorised and agreed to refund me which they did 4 days later! However, the amount they paid back was £200 less than what they stole from me, I have since spoken to my bank about this! I tried many times to connect with Shutterstock but only ended up getting put through to Indian call centres! In the end, I posted comments on Facebook to make others aware that the Shutterstock website / system is not safe as many others had suffered the same fraud issues with them! Shutterstock removed all my posts and blocked me contacting them on social media and sent me an email saying they would not speak to me again on the matter! Only this morning I receive an email stating that yet again Shutterstock had unauthorised access so I logged in to delete my account once and for all to stop further money being stolen but the website will not allow me to delete my account, leaving me open to further fraud and theft of my money! I sent an email requesting they delete my account, I only purchase occasional images and I am not signed up to any plans or recurring payments so I cannot see why they cannot delete my account as I have requested! My requests have gone ignored as have my requests to speak to a senior manager who is actually at Shutterstock!

I purchased a one-time two image download on 8/*/19 for $. On Oct. *** there was a charge for $1699 on my credit card and then a subsequent $1699 credit. Two days later, on Oct ., there were two charges of $1699 each and I immediately connected with both my credit card company to file a dispute and with Shutterstock to file a dispute. After much useless and unrelated detail about how my account was set to auto-renew (which I never set up because, again, I purchased a package that was for a ONE-TIME two image download), they finally came back and told me that I downloaded 15 images on 10/. This is absolutely false. I did not download any images since my August ONE-TIME purchase. Interestingly, when I first got on their website on the *** when I got notification from my cc company of the charge, the only two downloads were still my two ONE-TIME beach scene downloads. It wasn't until the next day that the alleged 15 downloads showed up on my profile. Either they are fabricating data or someone has hacked into their system. I've asked them to tell me where the images were downloaded to and the precise time of those downloads and they have yet to respond. My credit card company is providing me with an affidavit that I will take to my local police department so I can file an official complaint with them as well.

I had 9 images left on my account after 364 days of purchase. Due to the difference in time zone, shutterstock removed access before midnight on my last day of usage. I contacted tech support to extend it (until end of day would have been fine) to download the remaining images I had purchased before midnight my time. As of yet I have not been able to get the images I paid for.

Shutterstock has fraudulently charged our bank account for three years every month for $199 without consent. This totals $6,567, which is more than a quarter of most American people's salaries a year. Shutterstock has only refunded 12 charges out of 33! We only purchase a one time transaction for 40 images. We are a pest control company, not a web development company. 350 images per month is outrageous and not plausible. Why would a pest control company subscribe to a 350 image monthly subscription? You can even access our log in history. Customer service even confirmed our company has only logged in once. It didn't cost your company anything for this "fraudulent" subscription because our company didn't even log in or use its services. Shutterstock was debiting out of our account to obtain free money for services not used or consented use.

Shakedown artists.
I had been a fan and user of this service for YEARS. Not long ago, they started sending increasingly threatening emails, claiming we needed a different, more expensive license than what they advertised on their home page.
They wanted additional fees for every image we had downloaded and claimed we were violating their ToS. Again, we bought the service they promoted on their home page. But after using that for a while, they said that service is for personal use only...who buys stock imagery for personal use?
It's clearly become a shakedown and a scam. Do not use. Do not trust. You will probably see some good reviews from people who, like myself, had a good run with them. Then, they'll start the scam.

During a Pixabay free image search I was redirected to Shutterstock. I continued to view images and selected several (5) to download. At one point, an image came up with an associated fee. I did not download. Then Shutterstock told me I could pay 9.99 to continue to download. I left and continued my image search through Google. At no time did any of the images I downloaded state there was an associated fee, there was no shopping cart, and no checkout process. I was shocked to check my bank account and find five $29 charges. I emailed and was told they verified I had downloaded the images so I was charged. They would graciously refund a single $29 charge. I escelated my complaint and got the exact same response, almost verbatim. Apparently, 3 years ago I had created an account and ordered 1 image. I had totally forgotten. They kept all my information. The note on my bank statement and email said "account autorenew issue" or something like that. This makes me think it has happened before. There is no way I would have paid $29 each for those images when there are so many free available and this was a personal, fun project.

I signed up for what I thought was a one month use last October. When I looked at my credit card and found out I was being billed monthly, I tried to cancel. I found out that I had an auto renew annual account and would be charged 20$ for each month I had the service (or actually not used at all) or $220 to cancel before 10/*/19.

I have been contacting this company multiple times since July *** 2019 until now. The problem started when I received an email stating that the monthly charge could not go through because the card on file was not good. So I updated the card information and waited a few hours for the charge to automatically go through. It did not go through so I manually made the monthly payment. A few days later I noticed that I got charged 2 times, once by the automated system and the other time by my manual payment. I called to have the later charged reversed and leave the automated charge there. Once the reversal took place I could no longer download pictures, even though I had the automated charge there that would have covered me until 8//19. I have been calling since this happened and have been given the run around and always being told that it takes 24 hrs for resolution. On 8//19 I could not take it any longer and threaten that I would report them to the Revdex.com and tell about my experience on social media. All of a sudden a rep called me and what I thought was a resolution turned out to be another charge. I had to call today(8//19) to try and get it resolved only to be told the same 24hr turnaround time again. This is frustrating because I have been almost 1 month without being able to download pictures for my business. I would advise anyone to be very careful with using this company. All I want is my refund and I am done using them!

Today I reached out to the customer service department. I spoke to Mina who was short with her responses. I was calling in about an issue that was preventing me from downloading the remaining photos of my subscription. Apparently shutterstock has an undisclosed policy when setting up service that states that you have to use the purchased downloads by the end of the month or you lose them. I being someone that is not in the business of giving away money, wanted to get a refund and/or have the downloads credited back to my account. The conversation did go back and forth, and I could tell she was getting annoyed, but I fail to understand how something I purchased can just go away. She laughed at me over the phone and told me "I can cancel your account" my intent was to continue with service, after her second laugh, I strongly said "How Dare you laugh at me?" I then asked to speak to a Manager. She responded by telling me that she could not continue the conversation if I kept yelling at her. At this point I didn't want to speak to her, I wanted to speak to the Manager and kept asking her repeatedly to transfer me. She ended the call. I called back and spoke to the manager who was also short, and I could tell he had already been swayed by Mina as his responses were also short. He told me that if I disputed this charge with my credit card company, his team was really good at spinning it around and that it would get declined by my bank, further adding that he's worked for a bank before. As a "courtesy" he refunded me the new month's billing amount (this was NOT a courtesy, in fact their written policy online states that so long as its within 14 days, I am entitled to a refund).

I started my business back in 2017. I purchased some images through Shutterstock to get my website going. They are tricky... they are one of those companies that you sign up and there is an "auto renew" setting that is a default. I didn't cancel the auto renew not realizing it was on. We've all been there. And, usually I reach out to companies and they have a solution I am satisfied with. Maybe it isn't a full value or refund but it is at least half and they are at least understanding. After all, an automatic auto renew feature is basically taking advantage of people. I haven't gone on Shutterstock since so in 2018 I had $50 worth of credits that "expired." I turned off the auto renew right aways and reached out to see if I could get my credits back that I paid for and didn't use. I was clearly told "there is nothing that can be done." And, multiple times in the conversation. I am not kidding... "NOTHING can be done, sorry." And, then was offered a 10% off my order code. What! Shutterstock is a HUGE billion dollar company. I find it extremely difficult to believe that a multi-billion company can't work with someone over $50. I would have stay a client if they just would have offered something much closer to the value of what I paid. I didn't even ask for my money back. I get that I had responsibility in this too. I just wanted some credits to use that I RIGHTFULLY paid for. It was suppose to be for 5 credits... make me happy give me like 3 back or something! When I was told, "There was nothing that could be done." I responded with, "I find that hard to believe. It's called customer service. And, as a business owner myself I know that "something" is always an option." That is when the 10% off came up... 10%, really Shutterstock. If we continue to let these HUGE companies take advantage by having auto renew default settings and not working with clients it is only going to get worse. They need to take some of the responsibility but Shutterstock didn't take any responsibility at all. I truly wonder how much of their multi-billion dollar company are funds from people that don't even realize they have auto renew packages and have never said anything or filed a complaint. I am taking one for the team and standing up for everyone but I do think it is important. Come on Shutterstock, it's $50. It is important to me that I get something valued at what I paid for. Work with me.

I purchased a two photo plan in May of 2018. The plan auto renewed with no email notifications. I didn't know the plan renewed until I was reviewing my credit card bill. When calling ShutterStock the poor english speaking representative was of no help and my refund was denied.

Hello there,

Hopefully there is something that can be done more with this. So, an employee of mine subscribed to Shutterstock services about a year ago. And we have never really gotten the full chance to use it. Our subscription allowed us to download 10 photos a month, we may have used it only the first month, and the rest, we did not download any photos. I have forgotten about the subscription, until this week when I am going through my bills and cancelling services I no longer need.

I called Shutterstock to cancel my services and asked for a refund. Understandably, they are willing to cancel and refund me, but it is only for the last month which is $49.99. The thing is, for the past 10 months, I have been paying for the service we have not used. So I was wondering if it is possible to get refunded for the months we did not use the service, which is basically the whole 10 months.

Please let us know if you need other details or information.

A few months ago, I purchased a plan from Shutterstock that included ten downloads for USD 29. I thought that this was a one time deal, but it turns out that it was an annual plan. The advert that led me to buy this package was quite deceptive. It did not explain that this was a yearly plan, and the cancellation would cost 60 dollars. I decided not to make a big deal out of it as I use this kind of image downloads frequently, so I decided to stick to the plan.

More than a week ago, I decided to turn off the auto-renewal option so that I would not be obliged to continue another year. However, I realized there was not any possible way for me to turn it off. So, I sent an email to Shutterstock for asking for help.

They responded to my email stating that I could cancel the plan by paying the cancellation fee of USD60. I sent another email saying that I had never asked for cancellation; instead, my inquiry was about how to turn off the auto-renewal. This time, I got told that turning off the auto-renewal option is not be possible until the last month of the plan. Although I said to them that I may be traveling to areas that my internet connection may be limited, or simply since I am busy so I may even forget to turn it off, but they insisted to not to turn it off. They did not answer any of my questions, and I sense that they are dishonest, and I don't want to do business with an establishment like this.

Shutterstock's product is excellent and its new editing platform is extremely helpful. I am writing, however, to express my concern about Shutterstock's unethical executive leadership.
Recently, the Shutterstock changes its pricing scheme to include “gotcha” charges. After advertising a $99 fee to download 50 images, the automatically enroll customers in a year-long contract.
In order for a customer to prevent a monthly $99 charge, Shutterstock charges a one-time $26 “cancelation” fee. This is a sneaky, unethical business practice. The executives should upfront with their pricing. Allow customers to pay for the services they seek to receive, not spend employee’s time chasing customers after hidden charges.
As a result, it does not matter to customers about the quality of the product when the management is engaged in predatorial business practices.

Zero Stars.
I mean it's not a bad service, but gods forbid you subscribe and they latch onto you like leeches. You can only turn off auto-renew in the last month, and they will hit you with a $60 cancellation fee if you "cancel early."
So, mark your calendars everyone. Thieving bandits.