We're a small independent estate agency. We bought an image through Alamy's own checkout, on our own account, for a page on our website. The buy page asks whether you need an "Individual (Single user)" or "Team (More than one user)" licence. One person here used the image, so Individual seemed right.

Months later, Alamy's enforcement team told us Individual actually means something different — it turns on whether you're part of an organisation, "regardless of how many people are involved" — and that we had therefore infringed. The correct licence costs £80. They demanded five times that.

We accepted the error immediately, offered to pay the proper rate the same day, and pointed out that the wording on the buy page doesn't match the definition being enforced. The answer was that the multiplier is in the terms. When we offered double the licence fee as a compromise, we were asked to send our profit and loss statement to prove we couldn't afford it.

If you're buying for a business of any size, read the licence definitions in the terms rather than trusting the labels on the checkout page — they are not the same thing. Alamy recovered about £350 from us and lost a customer permanently. We won't be buying here again.