ShutterstockReviews 532

I'm a writer and there are many times I need book covers for my ebooks. The artists are very good and often have a wide range of selection including animation.

Shutterstock customer care are excellent and when I had a problem they helped me work through my own error, they were on top of things

The variety of images are outstanding to say the least. I'm retired now, too bad I didn't work for Shutterstock.

Keep up the great work Shutterstock
Sincerely Author Rich Patriaco

They are tricking you into getting a free trial, which turns into an Annual subscription if you don't 'cancel properly'. They are not sending any communication via email, so I only found out that I was charged a few months later (1 transaction for 3 invoices). I contacted Customer support who told me in a very rude manner that they will charge another 40 eur for cancellation.

Don't be trapped into signing up for a free trial. If you forget to cancel, they charge for the month and then charge you $20 to cancel after the trial period has ended... scam.
There was nothing useful for me in the website to begin with.

Honestly just avoid this site if at all possible. The lock-in triggers immediately after your 'free trial' ends. Cancellation is made as tedious as possible and you have to then pay to cancel because of the 'value' you have received on their 'discount' plan. Basically they are thieves with graphics.

If you sign up for a month w/ 1 month free, the implied deal is that you get 2 months of access for $29. The fine print is that it's a yearly subscription THAT YOU CANNOT CANCEL. ($29/mo for another 11 months). The online account interface does not allow you to delete your credit card, and does not allow you to cancel -even if you agree to pay the "fee." You have to call during business hours and talk to a rep. If an hour on hold and 10 minutes of begging doesn't work, you have to cancel your credit card or contact your bank to dispute.

You have to read the small print when they entice you to try for free etc. it is a contract and if you want to unsuscribe they charge you a lot. Dont recomend it!

Auto renewed a subscription I didn't authorise. No email notification to tell me a renew date was coming up, to at least give me an option to opt out. Was brushed off via their online chat saying they'd get back to me with a resolution in the next 48 hours... crickets. Am now taking it up with Paypal to hopefully retrieve my stolen funds. Went to log into my account to download the files PayPal requested and apparently my account's been "suspended for security reasons". So dodgy! I keep all my receipts backed up so the journey continues, but WTF! From reading the below reviews, this is their common practice and they need to be shut down.

This website is a scam they promised me a free trial and they actually charged me 29$ upfront. Then promised me a refund and they never did

In 2020 and last night (Easter Sunday) they have attempted to charge my card on file for a membership, which I have never authorized. They were not friendly on the phone in 2020. Actually made it hard to get this sorted. This time I blocked it on paypal. I will avoid using them from here on out. There are plenty of reliable resources out there not trying to scam you.

I signed up for the free trial, got charged for one month, then I clicked off auto renewal. Next month, I think I should be done. I got charged again. I looked on the site and realized I had an annual plan. So I clicked cancel. Then they wanted me to pay $40 to cancel. I was angry but I paid it. Then I did some research. What they are doing is illegal in California, where I live. If you live in California and this happened to you, contact a lawyer, they will sue and you could get your money back plus $2500. I'm suing with taulersmith dot com. Join me to do a class action.

Beware of this site confusing statement to make you join the plan! It charge me second month only i awake, the [ FLEX 25 Annual Subscription, Monthly] is refer also to monthly! If like that better make a button off the monthly fee also. But not only the Annual renew button, I Confuse Pay once and get 1 year, 25photo, and will need only pay another year... so i though turn off auto renew button than done. The site didn;t asking me or alert me again in final to may sure customer is knowing,the plan actually will be monthly charge your card to maintain your account. I feel bad! We not recommend forever in my life... i see this as a SCAM! BEWARE!

Needed a quote for a commercial license on an editorial asset. It's been 3 months and I have talked to a dozen reps. Not one person has been helpful, I have no quote, and my issue priority has been "escalated" at least 30 times. At my current priority level, I expect I will be hearing from either the Pope or Jesus Christ himself.

Tricked into entering a free trial and got charged for the first month. I turned off auto-renewal but only informed by CS that the button is to stop renewing the plan at the end of the annual subscription, not the monthly charge of $29. Cancellation cannot proceed unless you pay $20, which reflects the benefit you receive for the first month of the subscription.

Shutterstock has awful business practices. From getting people into their account through the fine print. To their cancellation fees. I have been charged the last many months not using the service when I called to cancel. While on the phone. Was told I would be charged a certain percentage to be canceled. Seemed okay so I said sure. Then she said okay we canceled you and we charged you $88 to do that. I said excuse me? Since when has a cancellation charge ever been? Or since when has the cancellation charge even be more than the monthly charge itself of the service? That makes absolutely no sense. Horrible business practice. And anybody who wants to cancel their service should be able to without having to pay some stupid fee. And if they are paying some stupid fee, that needs to be disclosed 100% clearly and articulately before a person agrees to being charged. How the hell they are getting away with this I don't know. But this is scammy at its best. Joyce the person I spoke to could not give me her last name or a telephone number that I could respond back to and follow up to make sure that she was trying to see that I was unhappy with the her procedures and how they charged me $88. I told her how do you in good faith work for a company that does this? Attached is case number. She said somebody will follow through with my request for review. We will see. And I will have to come back here and update this.

Looks like I am just another person who did not think to look up reviews for a company they assumed was reputable until AFTER they were scammed by that company. I am currently disputing charges with my credit card after spending useless time contacting Shutterstock to dispute the charges to my card for a subscription plan I KNOW I cancelled before the end of the free trial. Do NOT do business with this company. Do NOT put your financial information into their system. We trust businesses to only charge us for services we have agreed to. Do we really need to diligently go through our credit card charges every day to make sure one of them did not slip one by us? Customer service was entirely unhelpful, regardless of the fact they can see I have not logged in nor downloaded any files since the end of the trial period.

Not to mention customer service was incredibly patronizing and just expects you to give up and go away in the end. With your money still in their pocket. Clearly this is an issue many people have with them.

They take your money you cannot cancel then when you cancel they automatically renew your membership and then you cannot cancel again THEY SHOULD BE INVESTIGATED

They are terrible and everything that is wrong with the world today

STAY AWAY

I found a charge from Shutterstock one YEAR from date of purchase. I made the purchase through PayPal (ZERO STARS!) and a year later, they charged me again. I made a complaint through PayPal and several days later they denied my refund BECAUSE I did not have the original receipt. A YEAR LATER! I never knew there were going to be any charges BEYOND the original purchase. I can see why so many people complain about ShutterStock & will find every way I can to make people aware.

Site cannot be trusted, it allows people to upload stock images from Unsplash or Pexels. That do not belong to the seller, they also own Bigstock so one company. As while trying to get them and Bigstock to remove an image Shutterstock replied to there`s as well, i sent proof of ownership but still took threats of legal action for them to remove them. So inturn they allow people to sell images that do not belong to them, to people that inturn sell on products without genuine rights to do so.

I would like to bring to your attention my recent experience with this company. I had the misfortune of being overcharged for their subscription, and when I reached out to the customer service team to inquire about the discrepancy, I was met with poor communication and a lack of resolution.

Upon discovering that I was charged more than the advertised price on the website (31$ every month), I immediately contacted the company via their chat support. However, instead of providing an explanation or addressing my concerns, the representative ended the chat without any further communication.

I was very disappointed with this experience as a customer and felt misled by the company's advertising practices. I was also very disappointed with the lack of customer service provided by the representative on the chat.

I post this comment in other facebook group and other customers said that they had the same issue with them and when they wanted to downgrade to lower plan the agents offer them highr price than what they already pay.

I hope that this company will make an effort to improve their customer service and ensure that their advertising is accurate. I would advise you to be very careful in dealing with this company, and make sure you double check the prices before any transactions to avoid future issues and disappointments.

BTW, Interesting why they not allowed reviews, posts or upload photos to their Facebook page.