iStockphoto Large Credit Packs Removed

Over the Christmas weekend, iStockphoto was the victim of a large scale (as reported in the forums) credit card (most likely) based fraud.  Large numbers of credits were being spent on high priced, large sized Vetta and Agency files, in large numbers.  Enough that a noticeable and unusual pattern of sales were being reported in the forums.  The unusual sales were easy to pick out from contributors’ sales reports, as the per credit price paid was a flat $1 for all the downloads.  This price equated to the 5,000 credit pack available at the time, which gave a discount to $1/credit.  Steps were taken to stop the activity.

As a measure to thwart the criminal, all of the large credit packs were removed from the credit pack purchase page, leaving those packs of 120 credits and below.  This still didn’t stop the thief, as the buying pattern still emerged in the download listings, but it apparently slowed the person down a bit.  At this point, the buying spree seems to have ended or been thwarted, as no reports are currently surfacing.

I’m reporting this, as there is some confusion as to whether there has been a price hike, because some pages on the site that used to say “as low as $.95 / credit” are automatically adjusted to reflect the largest credit pack, so they now say “as low as $1.4 / credit”.  If you have a need for a large, discounted credit pack, you should contact support via the online ticket system as reported by an administrator here.

I don’t know yet when the credit packages will be available again, however we are answering the customers questions as quickly as we can and assisting them as they require.

So, if you are having to step through extra hoops to purchase credits at iStockphoto, please understand it is because of the dealings with this fraud, and hopefully things will be back to normal soon.