AKM Images

[Brian Vuillemenot]

Hello,

I recently receive an unsolicited e-mail from someone from AKM Images who claimed that they had found my website through Yahoo, liked my work, and wanted to represent me as a stock agency. Their website was quite unimpressive, both in terms of the images displayed and the amateurish website setup. I did a Google search on them, and found a discussion thread from one of the other photography forums indicating that many other photographers had received similar e-mails. Apparently, it's some sort of scam, although I'm not quite sure what they have to gain by soliciting low res scans for initial submissions. Has anyone out there received these e-mails, done business with AKM Images, or know anything about them? Thanks!

[John_4185]

If you go here you will learn nothing, but it does include a picture of their house: forums.naturephotographers.net/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/91710414/m/9580079892 (http://forums.naturephotographers.net/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/91710414/m/9580079892)

(Scroll down)

The pictures on their site are not stunning but perhaps it represents a niche. Dunno. I see nothing from anyone credible indicating it is a scam.

[dan nguyen]

I didn't think it's a scam. My guess is they try to get more traffic on their site. More traffic means more $$ from advertisers or more commision from selling other's stuffs.....

[QT Luong]

I receive countless such invitations. It used to be that operating a stock agency required solid work and knowledge of the industry. Nowadays, anyone that can afford to hire a web programmer for a few weeks to a couple of months can open one with a fairly minimal amount of work. Most of them are just a waste of time.

[Ellis Vener]

My big concern is that they don't seem to have a way to do a keyword search for clients locating a specific image.
and that if you look atthe source code for a specific iamge there are no meta-tags to guide a search engine to a specific image.

Take a look at http://www.looksouth.com as an example of how a small agency can do a good job of implementing these necessary features.

[Bob Phipps]

Best way to check on a companies status is to find the state they operate out of, and contact the State Attorney General's office. They keep track of all businesses and registered complaints.

Best,
Bob