Istock by Getty images Bait and Switch, total scam, crooks and scammers Calgary Alberta

I was setting up a new website for my small business and wanted to purchase a few images for my new website. I signed up with Istock by Getty images and paid the basic $41 fee which is supposed to give you up to 10 images per month. I needed about 4-6 images so I signed up and then immediately set the account to NOT auto-renew after the first month.

Bait & Switch:

It turns out that virtually all of the thousands of images you have access to after paying your $41 are "editorial use only" meaning that you cannot use them for commercial purposes UNLESS you pay an additional per image very high $fee$ for an expanded license.

Scammers:

I immediately sent them an email using their customer contact feature advising them of my situation and asking for my money back. They claim they will contact you within 24 hours but they never responded to my email.

I also immediately set the account to NOT auto renew so that I would not be charged ongoing monthly fees. This morning I discovered that my credit card was charged a new $41 monthly fee. I immediately called their customer service number but of course they are closed for the weekend.

I try to avoid making these types of online purchases because a lot of dishonest companies claim they will not continue to charge you monthly fees if you cancel the service but then charge you fees for months playing the odds that many people give up and agree to eat several months of fees in order to finally get the future charges stopped.

Istock by Getty Images appears to be one of those types of scamming companies.

RECOMMENDATION: DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH ISTOCK IMAGES BY GETTY IMAGES.

They continue to charge you even though you set your account to NOT auto renew and then they ignore and fail to respond to your efforts to contact them.