Complaints

This profile includes complaints for Storyblocks's headquarters and its corporate-owned locations. To view all corporate locations, see Find Local Branches.

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  Storyblocks

  1515 N Courthouse Rd Ste 1000 Arlington, VA 22201-2939

  
• 

  Storyblocks

  2300 Wilson Blvd Ste 700 Arlington, VA 22201-5435

  

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:11/18/2023

  Type:Sales and Advertising Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I paid for this company's subscription royalty fee video service. I initially wanted to use the service for a month, however after forgetting to cancel, I ended up paying several months. I found out months later I was still paying for the service. I went to their website and canceled my subscription, but months later they continued to charge me, and I had to place a block on them. They are running a fraudulent operation.

  

  Business Response

  Date: 11/30/2023

  Hi *******, thanks for letting us know about this & we are sorry to hear there was any issue with your Storyblocks subscription and its renewals. It doesn't seem you ever cancelled your subscription with us, which is how it was able to continue renewing recently. We aren't able to bill a subscription renewal after its been cancelled, nor can it be renewed if the charge was blocked by your bank. It doesn't seem either of these things happened, which is how a recent renewal was possible. 
  
  I have cancelled your subscription and issued a full refund of the recent subscription renewal back to your payment method. The refund should arrive to you in the next 3-5 days. You should also be receiving a confirmation email shortly with details of the cancellation and refund.
  
  It doesn't seem you have reached out to the Support team about this issue yet, who would have been happy to help you with this and process a refund. If you have additional questions or needs, please contact the Support team at [email protected]  

• Initial Complaint

  Date:11/13/2023

  Type:Product Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Storyblocks has been charging a card on one of my checking accounts since May of 2022, or before, my bank will only allow me to research 18 months prior. The charges are $18 some months and $20 other months. Totaling hundreds of dollars. I did not authorize this sign-up, or charge. I am also unable to cancel this subscription as none of my email addresses were used to sign up for the account; therefore I cannot use the "forgot my password" option to gain access to this fraudulent account. I have placed several calls to the business and left messages with their "answering service" and never receive a return call. I have also messaged their online "help" chat and have never received a response back there either. Please help me first to stop the subscription and second, gather a refund of these fraudulent charges. I have included one snippet screenshot of the last several months' charges from my bank account.

  

  Business Response

  Date: 11/21/2023

  Hi ******, thank you for your message. It seems that you've been in contact with our Support team over the last couple of days, and they have helped in issuing a refund per your request. If you have additional questions about the refund that was issued, please continue the conversation with the Support representative who has been assisting you recently. Thank you. 

• Initial Complaint

  Date:10/09/2023

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I have repeatedly canceled Storyblocks. They have repeatedly charged me a $199 annual fee. I have not used their service for 5 years...and yet the billing continues. They've basically stolen nearly $1000 from me. And I just can't seem to get it to stop. This year I set an alert in my calendar to keep watch for the bogus billing. They're sneaky - they billed me a month and a few days later than the "subscription date" ...after I had stopped keeping close watch. But this time I saw that my ****, would require a new expiry. So I thought they wouldn't be able to charge me. But wait! Somehow they just updated that themselves and charged me anyway. This company is the worst sort of scam. I guess I'll have to cancel the credit card. But I am reporting them to the Sec of State, online everywhere and to ****.

  

  Business Response

  Date: 10/30/2023

  Hello *******, thank you for your message about this issue. It seems that you've already been in touch with our support team, who helped explain the situation with your account and assisted in issuing you your refund. They also helped you ensure your Storyblocks account was closed and all subscriptions cancelled. The refund our team issued on October 10 2023 should have arrived to your account by now, as refunds typically take 3-5 business/bank days to arrive once issued. 

  If there's any other questions or concerns you have about this, please don't hesitate to let us know at [email protected] 

• Initial Complaint

  Date:08/01/2023

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I was fraudulently billed on 7/8/2023 for a Storyblocks account for $324. I did not authorize these charges. I did not authorize Storyblocks to sign me up for a subscription payment plan and then to frauudlently charge me for $324 for an account and serve that I no longer need or want.

  

  Business Response

  Date: 08/01/2023

  Hi ******, we are sorry to hear that you had an issue with your recent Storyblocks subscription renewal. It seems that you spoke with our Support team earlier today, who worked with you cancel your subscription membership & issued a refund for your recent renewal. If there's any additional questions or concerns regarding your recent refund, please let the Support agent you've been working with know so they can assist.

  We apologize if there was any confusion about your subscription's recent billing. Storyblocks only offers subscription membership products, and our subscription memberships have an automatic renewal component if they're not cancelled. Since your subscription was not cancelled before your recent renewal date, this is how it was able to renew. It seems you were using our service as recently as June 2023, which should have been an indication to you that your subscription was still active if you were using our service to download assets. I share this to give you reassurance that the recent subscription renewal was not fraudulent in any way since you were recently actively using our service, which was only possible if the subscription was active. 

  Your refund should be arriving shortly, and your subscription is fully cancelled. If there's any additional questions or concerns regarding your recent refund, please let the Support agent you've been working with know so they can assist.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:01/10/2023

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I cancelled my subscription in early December after seeing that I was auto-charged for another month after not using the service for awhile. I attempted to get a refund, but their policy is not to refund a customer even when they haven't downloaded a single thing from their website in over a month. I called a representative to confirm that this was the policy and that my subscription was cancelled and they said that was accurate and that I wouldn't be charged anymore. I still had my account in case I wanted to use the service again at some point, and they said I could download items until January 8th when my monthly subscription would end. Well, I just woke up and saw that I'd been charged again for another monthly subscription as if I never cancelled my membership. I have multiple cancellation emails confirming that my account should not have been charged, but this shady, greedy corporation is trying to sneakily continue charging me. I logged into my account to see that suddenly, my account has been renewed and I'm scheduled to be auto-charged again in a month. I just called their support number and it took me to an answering service where I spoke with someone who doesn't even work for the company and requested they refund me. She said she will forward them the information and confirm that my subscription is cancelled. I also deleted my CC info from my account to ensure that this can't happen again. I think this is despicable behavior for such a longstanding company, but it happens all the time, unfortunately. I would advise all to stay away from this entity and use other stock services like ******* or ***** or ******. Storyblocks' search system is garbage anyway.

  

  Business Response

  Date: 02/01/2023

  Hello *********, thanks for letting us know about your experience and we're sorry to hear that there was an issue with your subscription. It seems that you recently worked with **** on our team, who helped issue the refund you requested and cleared up the confusion around your account's status. If you still have any lingering questions about your account, cancelled subscription or refund, please let us know at [email protected].

   

• Initial Complaint

  Date:08/16/2022

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Problem in STORYBLOCKS.COM website. I have purchased annual subscription plan and not able to view or download images and videos from the website. Need support

  

  Business Response

  Date: 08/23/2022

  Hi there,

  I am sorry to see you were having issues accessing the service recently. We had a technical system outage that prevented all customers from having access to core parts of our service for a period of several hours. Our engineering team resolved the issue as quickly as possible, and we contacted everyone who wrote in to our Support team to update them on progress and resolution of the issue.

  It looks like you were in touch with our Support team during this time using our chat and email system, and upon learning that the site issues were resolved, responded with a positive Customer Satisfaction Survey response. We're glad to see we could resolve that issue, but if there are any lingering issue beyond that - please let us know as soon as possible at [email protected] for further assistance.

  Christian 

• Initial Complaint

  Date:07/04/2022

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Canceled my subscription at the end of May so that they wouldn't bill me for June services. June they didn't charge me anything. Now July is here and they charged me 58.50 for a month's subscription when my account was clearly canceled. This is horrible service and I am demanding a refund. I have contacted my financial institution and is taking further action until this is resolved.

  

  Business Response

  Date: 07/18/2022

  Hi there, we are sorry to hear that your subscription renewed when you weren't intending it to. After reviewing our records, it looks like you have already spoken with our Customer Service team who helped issue you a refund and cancel your subscription. We are sorry if there was any confusion regarding the status of your subscription. Please let our Customer Service team know if there's anything else we can do to help with this matter.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:06/02/2022

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  There is no customer support phone or email. I signed up and paid for a monthly subscription, I am unable to login and access the account or request a refund or cancellation

  

  Business Response

  Date: 06/06/2022

  Hello,

  We're sorry to hear that you had a difficult experience contacting our Support team. While our Support team is small, we offer support six days a week, including partial nighttime coverage. After reviewing our records, there don't seem to be any emails from you sent to [email protected] from the email address provided, nor phone calls from the number you provided. However we're happy to help you with whatever account issues you are experiencing. Since our team is small, our on-site chat support and email support are prioritized over phones. Please use the chat widget on site to request support, or ensure [email protected] is the recipient for your email requesting support. 

  We hope to hear from you soon and resolve any account issues you may be experiencing! 

  Christian