Shutterstock

Predatory payment plans. They hide a yearly subscription on your credit card. If you catch it, they only allow refund if you catch it which in 14 days. Horrible business practices, will never use their serves again

Shutterstock wrongfully billed my credit card for a yearly subscription that I never wanted. They refuse to refund me the money even though I have not used their service.

Shutterstock's approach to subscription services is shady at best. I needed a handful of images and do not need images regularly, so I followed a link from another website and purchased what I believed to be a one month subscription. The next day I discovered that what I'd signed up for--according to the website description was a one year subscription (being charged every month).
I contacted them, stating that I might have misunderstood the membership description and asked if there was a way out of it. There was a fairly timely reply from one of their reps who indicated that they could release me from the annual membership in return for a "small" fee. They asked for more information. I gave it to them and waited for a response.
None came. At all. I waited 24 hours and sent them another message with the same information included and the same request. This time I told them that if I didn't hear from them within a day or two, that I would cancel the credit card rather than pay an unwanted monthly fee.
Crickets.
Over the next four or so days, I tried three times more, sending the same message every time and repeating the warning.
I reluctantly reported the card as stolen and cancelled it. Twenty-four hours later a rep contacted me stating that if I'd just give them a new credit card number to work with, that all they'd charge me was $20.00 more for the images I'd already purchased. I found their timing interesting.
Did they really think I was going to trust them with my credit card information again?
Shutterstock has a nice library of images, but they are not worth the trouble. There are other companies out there whose policies are clearer and offer images that are just as good, if not better quality.

In June ***, I started a contract with Shutter Stock of $29/month for 10 pictures download. My downloads renew and billing should happen on the *** of every month. Since the following month (July), the billing changed randomly to any day after the ***. Because of this random billing/renew plan I lost 7 pictures download in February. I complained and the company said that it happened because some months have more than 30 days. It is a lie because since the first month.
Also, the contract was $29/month for one year. Suddenly, I receive a charge of an extra 4% in taxes. I complained. The excuse was that the TAX is VAT. I am not in Europe. The company said that I changed my location which is a lie. I am in Hawaii.

They intentionally mislead customers to sign up for an annual plan by making the monthly plans hard to find. When signing up, there is no indication of any penalties for cancelling the plan, so you are under the assumption that you can just turn off auto-renew. By doing this, customers that only wanted a monthly/one-time plan end up unknowingly committing to an annual one. When you contact them (which I did after 27 days), you are told that there is a penalty to cancel the plan. Somehow, I had signed up for 2 annual plans under the assumption that I was signing up for one time/monthly plans that could be cancelled at any time. Even though I had spent $240 in the previous month, they refused to cancel either plan without penalty and charged me $92 just to cancel both plans. They also charged me $99 for the 2nd month only 27 days into my membership, which is what initiated my contact with them.

In order to cancel your account you have to contact customer service, there's no way of doing it through your Account profile. They also charge enormous cancellation fees. I'm still not cancelled because they took money out of my account and the say they can't refund me until I pay the cancellation fee. I don't under why they just don't refund me the difference.

I signed up for a Shutterstock account 7 months ago intending to use it for a month. I was somehow converted to an annual subscription without my knowledge. I tried cancelling several times only to get a response that I cannot unsubscribe without paying the cancellation fee which turned out to be $20 for every month I had the service. Since this is the 7th month they are now charging $140 for a service I used 7 months ago. They're also saying the fee will increase by $20 if I wait until next month.

Fraud activity on my account. Charges total $398.00 ($199 December and $199 in March)
I've called several times. I've emailed several times.
Each call ends with Shutterstock representative saying a supervisor will contact me.

Fraudulent activity- hacked account.
Account hacker changed my user email then made purchases with my stored credit card number.
My user email to log in, no longer worked. Clicking reset your password didn't work because the system didn't recognize my email address.
The customer service agent told me the full email address that is now appearing on file, it was a bogus bizarre email address.
I couldn't log in for months- which is why I started calling- I couldn't print invoices for the $199 charged to my credit card statement.

I cancelled my credit card early March.

Shutterstock's practices around cancellation fees are extremely deceptive. Upon opening an account, there is very little information provided about cancellation fees, beyond a statement that says "If you need to cancel before your year is up, there may be a small fee assessed for cancellation."

After feeling frustrated that I could not directly cancel the auto-renew on my account, I called and was told that I would be charged a cancellation fee of $20 per month that I used their service, a total of $40! After much back and forth, I felt pressured by the representative to allow him to authorize the charge on my credit card. I was told that information about the cancelation fee was available in the Terms and Conditions when I signed up and that I would have had to dig into the footer of the page to locate it. I even requested a copy of said Terms and Conditions after the call and I did not find any information about this cancellation policy in the document, These practices are incredibly misleading and it is wrong for them to bully consumers into paying them ridiculous fees in order to cancel services.

Why does Shutterstock renew without notice? Its a Scam.
Why does Shutterstock renew without notice, then not send an invoice? Because its a scam. If you believe in your product you give subscribers the opportunity to renew or cancel.

The company is unresponsive during business hours. None of their phone lines are answered and their chat is offline. Does not respond to email or social media messages.

I purchased 350 images on a monthly basis. On the day that my license was to end, I was still within the time frame that the license was active and trying to download 4 remaining images. However, the downloads stopped working and instead sent me to a pricing page. I tried to call the contact number that was provided in order to receive technical support, but sat on the phone for 30 minutes before the line disconnected. I then messaged Facebook. I called again today and was on the phone for quite some time before it again disconnected. Finally, I was able to get someone through the messaging option in Facebook. I provided the images that showed that I had 1-day left in my subscription and 4 images remaining. The images also showed the date and time which were still within my active subscription. This is what I was told when I explained the problem

I have 10 credits for downloads every month (Image plan), the image plan subscription I have renews every 30 days. I had approximately 7 credits left and on the 29th day they renewed my subscription early, now they won't give me the credits that they literally stole from me.

Please beware of this company. We have been a customer for 5+ and we called to cancel the service, but they say we have to pay an "early" termination fee!!! We haven't use even half of the plan this month, so we requested an exception, because we are trying to cut some expenses. They were completely inflexible. Bad business practices. I don't want to have this company as my provider anymore.

talked me into a plan that is not being used and will not let me out of the so called agreement and will not release my bank card. No emails or notification is sent before they take money out of my account . As I stated and pleaded with them I do not use that service as before and I even tried seeing if they had a lesser plan .

This is a scam they're pulling over people. I signed up to buy 5 images. But they charged me twice because they said the auto renewal button was checked. But if it was an auto renewal then why was I charge immediately for next month?

So basically I bought 5 images for $50 but they immediately charged me $100. I called and they said that they could refund me but would not let me speak with a manager.

This is dishonest and very bad business practice tricking people to buy an auto renewal plan and charging them 2x for it on the spot.

Their billing is manipulative. They make the yearly subscription look like a monthly subscription. I tried to change month to month the same day. They did not answer phones or respond to the email.

I purchased two sets of five photos in Jan/Feb 2017 for $49 each, totaling $98. I was charged for four plans, my checking account being debited without my knowledge, no receipts sent, for $$196 and with automatic renewal placed on them. I was then debited for another two accounts in Feb 2018, again without my knowledge, no receipt sent to email, nothing. Because I was unaware of this purchase, I did not download any photos. Fortunately, when the company again debited my account in 2019, this time for one plan, I saw the debit on my bank account and contacted the company. I was given a "one-time courtesy refund" for the 2019 charge of $49. I was also able to download five photos that were due to expire in three days, thus utilizing one of the Feb 2018 plans. My problem with this company is that I paid for fourteen photos without ever receiving them due to the fact that Shutterstock employs automatic renewal without issuing any receipts. I was unaware of this policy when I started using its services. I contacted the company and was treated very poorly by a representative who would not allow me to speak to a superior. Another representative promised me a call back by a manager and the call did not come when promised.

I opened a photo account and submitted my photos to Shutterstock. I trusted Shutterstock with my original photos. Today I looked at my account and found 6 of my photos gone. Shutterstock took my photos and did not even pay me for them.
I am really upset.

I logged into my account on January 18, 2019 to purchase some stock photos. I selected 5 photos for $49. Just looked at my credit card statement I got charged $49 on January 18, 2019 & $49 on Janurary 19th, 2019. I called customer service the reason they give is that auto renewal was left on and it renewed the next day. Nice try Shutterstock trying to be sneaky and overcharge the customers. The site is not user friendly. Watch out for the "renewal feature"!!