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16

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Hit with the Letter

« on: November 03, 2011, 01:39:27 PM »

Thanks for the welcome and reply. I continued to read this forum and watched the videos since last night.

I'm still unsure of what to do, and I know it's only me that can make the final decision.

1. From what I've gather, I should contact Getty and tell them that the image was completely removed. And in that letter (it seems from what others have written into GI) I can also purpose a lower payment. $200 to $250. However, that will get me no where from the response that others have gotten.
2. I would then stop further communications and then ask Oscar for his help. Which I still have questions about...
My main concern is that the programs seems like it's delaying the inevitable payment to getty. Have people in this program had GI completely drop the issue? Does GI come back with a lower demand and if so, will it still add up to the original $900 they are asking for (Oscar's $200 fee + adjusted demand)? I only ask these questions because I can't pay that $900 fee that is being demanding and in my financial state, I don't see it happening in the future either.

But in the situation that my past client wants to ignore them all together... would we get a final demand letter and then be harassed buy the collections agency? Then the possibility of a law suit would could afterwards? Because even if I go with Oscar's route, the possibility of a lawsuit seems to still be there. My biggest thing is that I don't want to be looking over my shoulder for the next however many years for that GI lawsuit. It's stressing me out even though I understand the situation much better than I did yesterday morning. The worst thing about the lawsuit is that they can raise the cost even more and if I can't afford $900... logic would say I can't pay even more.

17

Getty Images Letter Forum / Hit with the Letter

« on: November 02, 2011, 09:12:08 PM »

Hello Forum,

Firstly, thank you for creating such a helpful community. I appreciate the time and effort that everyone puts forth here. In any case, a past client of mine just received the Getty Letter today through snail-mail (they claimed that they have attempted to contact her twice before-which isn't true). I felt awful about the entire situation and I told her to direct any of their information to me. After reading the forum, it doesn't seem like I can absorb the issue with GI from her. In any case, I deleted the image from the site and have also requested Archive.org to delete old caches.

GI is demanding around $900 for this one image. Which is pricey... especially since it's a small image. The way in which I obtained this image is unfortunately, bad luck for me. I generally use free stock image sites and believe that this was placed on one of those sources. I think I'm retiring from websites altogether after this... such a headache.

What I want to do is make this become a non-issue for my client. So I believe that these are my only options:
1. Pay in full (which is outrageous) - No one wants to do this
2. Write a letter into GI on behave of my client asking for them to lower the cost - It seems that some people are able to get them to lower the demand to around $600. Has anyone been able to get it down lower? If so, how should this be approached?
3. Pay Oscar to write a letter. However, could anyone explain the $195 letter to me? I understand that Oscar writes in the first letter and will even write a 2nd letter should GI respond to his initially letter. This letter should indicate to GI that any further contact should be done directly with Oscar. However, I don't get what happens after this point on Oscar's end. GI will most likely continue to mail him and demand things, won't this communication go on for longer than 2 letters? Also, once I pay Oscar his fee, is it likely that this will only prolong the fee and I will eventually have to pay GI the full amount? Also, if this only prolongs the lawsuit, would they be able to try to sue for more money? I'm not legally savvy, and believe me, I've been trying to absorb as much as I can in the last 4 hours. Placing Oscar as my middleman, isn't it the same as ignoring the issue if GI comes back with more demands?

I'm sorry for my questions, but what was done as a favor is now causing me a lot of pain. And I wish I was in a more financially sound place to just throw money at the problem and make it go away. Thank you for any comments and your time in reading this.


Also... If I were to hire Oscar for my client, should I try method 2 first? Call or Email (probably this route to have proof) to lower the amount to like $200-$250?

BTW - According to this letter its their 3rd attempt and our "due" date for response is by the end of this week.

18

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Client Received Getty Letter

« on: November 02, 2011, 08:38:08 PM »

Have you come up with an action plan to approaching this?