Giving (and Getting) Credit(s)

iStockphoto.com has a buyer referral program.  When a member refers a new member, and that new member ends up buying credits, the original contributor gets $10.  Not a big deal, but someone did the favor of referring you (and likely gave you a free credit code), so it would be nice to make sure the original member got the bonus.  It is a bit convoluted though, so, let’s take a look at the process of signing up.

First thing, is to make sure your mentor member’s user id is in your referral cookie.  In case you didn’t know, a “cookie” is a bit of information your browser hangs onto that is supplied by a website.  In the following examples, I am using the Firefox browser.  I assume IE is pretty much the same.  When I go to “Tools->Options->Privacy->Show Cookies”, I get a list of all the cookies my browser holds.  In the image below, I’ve filtered on “istock” in the top bar, to show only my cookies coming from iStockphoto.

The cookie “istockreferral” shows the member that will get my credit when I sign up.  Content:  351711 .  That’s my userId, actually.  How did that get there?  Well, I cleared out all my cookies dealing with iStock, and then I went to http://www.istockphoto.com/sjlocke .  And the cookie was set.  I went to other user’s profiles after that, and my userId remained in that cookie.  So, the first profile you go to gets the referral.  If you want someone specific to get your referral, you need to clear out that cookie.  So:

Step 1: Use your browser’s preference box to clear out all iStockphoto cookies .

Step 2: Go to your favorite user’s profile page, like: http://www.istockphoto.com/sjlocke

Ok, now the cookie is set, so the right person gets the $10 bonus.

Now, you might have a 10 free credit code from an iStockphoto member’s MOO business card, the back of which looks like the card here:

To redeem that code, you first need an account.  So go to the signup page:

Step 3: Sign up for a new account here.

Once you click “sign up”, you’ll be presented with a user agreement to read and accept.  Having done that, you get a page with a “Thank You”, and some options, including an area for “Member Code”.  This is where you would enter your Moo card code.

Select your email preferences, enter the Moo code, and hit continue.

Step 4: Enter your Moo card code for 10 credits.

Then, go to the email you supplied, find your password, and comeback to iStockphoto and login with your username and password.  The 10 credits should be in your account.

Step 5: Login with your new username and password.

Say, however, you left that page without noticing the code box for the credits.  Next time you go back to the sign up page after logging in, you’ll be redirected to the front page of the site.  Instead, go here :

Step 4 (alternate) : Login with your new username and password.

Step 5 (alternate) : Go here to enter your Moo card code for 10 free credits.

Viola!  If you hover over “Account” at the top, you’ll see you now have 10 free Pay-As-You-Go credits.  You will need to fill out all the private profile  member information on the current page before you are allowed to run around and play.

Now, feel free to use those credits, but when you run out, you’ll need to purchase some more credits in the iStock store.  It is after you purchase these credits, that your mentor member (from up in Step 2) will get the $10 bonus.  Remember, just using the Moo code is not enough to link your account to your mentor member.  You need to follow Step 1 and 2.  I’m not going to go ahead and do this in my testing here, as I don’t want to get busted for trying to get free cash under my account, but I assume if the above steps are taken, it will work ok.

Step 6: Enter your private profile information.

Step 7: Shop with your free credits, and then purchase more in the iStockphoto store.

To conclude, hopefully, at this point, you will have a pocketful of purchased credits, and your mentor member will get their $10 bonus.

Whew!  BTW, if you need a 10 free credit referral code, just drop me an email.