Istockphoto Reviews 

I chatted with someone on their site and they said I can
cancel auto-renew and just buy for a month if I remember correctly. I cancelled/turned off auto-renewal (billed monthly) and they continued billing me!!! Now I can't get through to anyone!!!! What's more is I mistakenly bought a less expensive one under the subscription and asked to swap it out and then pay extra for the other one and they would not do a damn things. They refused to do ANYTHING! The bank already refunded me and put a stop payment on this BS.

Getty Images permanently banned my account, falsely accusing me of uploading AI content. They provided zero proof because there is none—I am a real photographer, and my work is 100% original.

Their "review" team is a joke. It's clearly outsourced to paranoid guys who wouldn't know real photography if it hit them in the face. They see proper lighting and sharp focus, panic like it's a UFO sighting, and smash the ban button. Their paranoia is so extreme they'd rather destroy a real artist's career than admit they're incompetent.

They ignored my appeals, offered no evidence, and kept my money. These clowns are running a scam, not a stock agency. Stay far away.

Wanted to buy a quick video and was shown that it was a one time payment of £7. Went to pay £7 but it's actually £8.50 with tax and then that only got me 1 credit and the video was 6 credits. No previous mention of a credit system on the website and 1 credit is now useless, no refunds either. Absolute scam never use this ever!!

AWFUL SCAMMERS. I was signing up to a monthly membership, It was not clear enough that it was an annual membership. Istock refuses to cancel. The worst of the worst. I hope this company collapses.

Clearly, I should have checked the reviews first. I thought I was paying for a monthly subscription but it was an annual that would be charged monthly.

To get out of it, they charged me an extra $20 and insisted that this is the only way to go.

I signed up to iStock believing I was purchasing a subscription that could be cancelled on a monthly basis. The pricing page prominently displayed a monthly cost and, at no point during the sign-up process, did I appreciate that I was committing myself to a full 12-month contract.

Only after signing up did I discover that I was apparently tied into a year-long agreement costing hundreds of pounds. I contacted customer services promptly to explain that this was not my understanding when I subscribed and requested cancellation. I was told that I would remain liable for the full term of the contract regardless.

What frustrates me most is not the cost itself but the way the subscription was presented. If a customer is committing to pay for an entire year, that fact should be made unmistakably clear and impossible to miss. Instead, the focus appeared to be on the monthly price, which gave me the impression that this was a flexible monthly subscription.

My experience has left me feeling misled, disappointed, and trapped in a subscription that I never intended to take out.

At least D. Turpin wore a mask.

Average photos are silly prices, plenty of better free ones out there. AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE

istock is a scam because even if you have a subscription you still have to pay for each video that you want. They are exploiting innocent people for their money, especially students who are on a budget and are now stuck on their fixed contract. Because they would not let me cancel my subscription and instead told me there is nothing they can do as they said that it was in the terms and conditions regarding their cancellation pollicy even though it was not. I tried cancelling my subscription, and they said that I had to email them to cancel it. They gave me a fake email address. I know this because I receited it back to the agent multiple time and the email bounced back. I called them twice and asked about cancelling my subscription. They claimed that my signal was bad even though it was not. They said that there was nothing they could do, and since I had to request a cancellation, they said it was denied and that I cannot change my subscription till May next year. Also, their attitude on the phone was atrocious and appalling. DO NOT USE THEM.

STAY AWAY!!! this is a complete waste of money and they TIE you in for a year! I nearly cried when I realised. It shouldn't be allowed to not have a cancellation policy, it's honestly a scam. Hope they shut down.

Chose 1 star because 0 wasn't an option. They will not verify your email so it's possible to sign up for free trial and then it roll over onto a non-refundable year subscription without you getting any notifications nor being able to cancel until the end of the current year billing cycle.

Absolutely crystal clear fraudulent business structure. Go figure when I call customer service they just answer and then it's some guy talking in the background. The goal is to trap you into this subscription for freaking stock photos.

Their prices.. It's crazy.
They are crazy high !

They are not upfront about the credits expiring. Terrible service.

BUYER BEWARE! This is setup to scam people. They trick you into thinking that you are buying one or two photos when in fact, they are signing you up for a subscription that you do not even know you're signing up for it's a complete scam. Then they take 200+ dollars out of your account every month and then tell you you can't stop them from taking the money out of your account until the end of your contract that you did not even know you signed then they send you this attachment basically telling you that if you want to cancel your account, you have to wait until the end of the year. And you must also go in at this time and you only have a small window to cancel after your year is up or else they automatically re-up you for another year while telling you that you have to keep the service.. They're also very rude and unprofessional is obviously a scam set up to burn people. Do not for any reason let them get away with this. You should contact your credit card company and dispute the charges and get all of your money back not just your last month that they stole from you. They're being very aggressive right now about stealing your money because AI now can create the images that they're charging for for free so they're trying to get every less penny they can before they go out of business.

If I could give iStock ZERO stars, I absolutely would. I have been a customer for well over a year and have made my payments $42.20 per month for that time, until some family medical issues came up and I was unable to update my new debit card. When I logged back into my account, all of my credits (200+) were gone. Despite the fact that I had paid for them and was looking to get my account back into good standing, all credits are permanently gone. I reached out for help and was basically told "tough luck." They trap you into staying by making sure you cannot use credits after ending your subscription.

Scam, desguised in photo stock, they mislead customers, showing $40/mothly and $4/download. But once you subscribed you got caught with nonsense upgrade to be able to download anything

They scam you into a longer subscription. Totally misleading.

Horrible customer service. They tell you that you have a certain date to use your subscription, but then it actually cancels on that date and allows no further downloads. The support team says they have no way of instilling credits without an active subscription for that specific file format. Anyone who has ever worked with software knows that is not the case; they just do not want to be considerate to their customers. If someone has paid for a subscription, they should be allowed to use fully that subscription. Charging $200 for another 10 video downloads is just absurd.

Any company that makes it difficult to cancel or close your account should not be allowed to trade.

Bombarded with spam emails with no unsubscribe option

WISH I had read the Trustpilot reviews - you just would not expect this from such a well established company. DO NOT USE these people. As per most of the other 1000 1 star reviews on here. We signed up to the free trial and read the small print that said there was also a months cooling off period. I signed up 16th Jan and then turned off autorenewal on 4th Feb as well as contacting them and asking them to cancel the subscription via their contact form. I had no reply and on the 16th Feb another payment of £228 was taken from our account.

When I queried this with them, their response was rude and basically told us that it was our fault for not reading the T&Cs.

I complained again and said there was a cooling off period. They said that I had contacted them at 09.04 on the 16th Feb so I was out of the cooling off period. I know I didn't as it was HT here and I was away on holiday.

They then said ok well still my fault as the months cooling off did not apply to the free trial subscriptions and it was our problem, as far as they were concerned they were closing the case.

I asked if at the very least we could reduce the subscription to the minimal sub as we are a start up and that causes our business to be at risk. They said no and matter is now resolved - i.e get lost.

We will end up paying £2736.00 instead of £228.00 / free trial this can be crimpling to many businesses out there.

DO NOT BE FOOLED BY THIS TERRIBBLE TERRIBLE COMPANY there are other much more customer focused organisations out there. They are obviously milking everyone for what they can get with the arrival of AI.