PayPal, Square and big banking's war on the sex industry

[CorinneCooper]

Yes. Happened in October.

 

[JanelleHardy]

Now I'm worried about my bank...

 

[Guy]

Now I'm worried about my bank...

Is it Chase?

 

[JanelleHardy]

Chase?

No... but I could see them pulling something like this...

 

[Guy]

No... but I could see them pulling something like this...

Why? Are the people that own it religious?

 

[JanelleHardy]

Why? Are the people that own it religious?

Some are it's a credit union....

 

[Guy]

Some are it's a credit union....

Whats the name of the credit union?

 

[JanelleHardy]

Whats the name of the credit union?

I'd prefer not to share that.... but I'll look into it for my bank.

 

[Guy]

I'd prefer not to share that.... but I'll look into it for my bank.

Oh. I was asking because I wanted to find an online copy of the account agreement to see if it had a clause against sex work

 

[Always_Tim]

Oh. I was asking because I wanted to find an online copy of the account agreement to see if it had a clause against sex work

Many credit unions are based in a very small geographic region (often with only one or two branches) so it's probably best that she do her own research.

 

[CorinneCooper]

Credit Union-- you are most likely safe. The only banks that I've heard of there being any issues with are Chase, and rumors of Bank of America.

 

[HiGirlsRHot]

Anyone looking for a bank should seriously consider Charles Schwab Bank. It's free, no minimum balances, they reimburse ATM fee anywhere in the world and no foreign transaction fee. Free checks, free bill pay, and with mobile deposit I haven't had a need to mail anything to a bank in years, and set foot in one in over a decade. They even pay (a tiny interest) on your checking balance. It is linked to Charles Schwab brokerage account which is a great way to start saving money for life after camming.

 

[Guy]

Credit Union-- you are most likely safe. The only banks that I've heard of there being any issues with are Chase, and rumors of Bank of America.

Where did you hear about Bank of America having issues with sex workers?

 

[CorinneCooper]

Personal anecdotes from friends in the industry.

 

[HaileyJade]

Where did you hear about Bank of America having issues with sex workers?

I wonder what BoA's exact policy is!

 

[Zoomer]

I dont buy the chargeback and fraud arguments that those companies make. You could very easily do fraudulent chargebacks against Netflix because its streaming is not tangible, yet both PayPal and American Express allow transactions for that service. Companies that are hostile to the adult industry claim that it is "high risk" because of husbands and boyfriends doing fraudulent chargebacks against porn sites after their significant other sees payments for porn on their billing statement. That claim is unfounded. Studies show that most women do not consider watching porn to be cheating.

Does Netflix offer you the opportunity to make money via Netflix? Say... I have stolen credit card details and use that to purchase shows, does the producer of said shows get the money and is anyone allowed to be the producer?

It's been a while, but there were many a thread here about financial fraud / money laundering and Eastern Europe/Russia. I've been sceptical, but never once believed "chargebacks by guilty boyfriends" is remotely representative of the reasons why stuff like this occurs. For example, why is Romania banned from MFC for buying tokens? Could it possibly be the large number of stolen credit card details available and fraudulent purchases with those, followed by legitimate charge backs as the owners/originator banks realise (after payments made to certain individuals).

There's bound to be more complexity around this than a quick surface scan reveals. Banks want to make money, and by and large there's little reason to ban performers as it's not public knowledge who is banking with whom.

 

[LuckySmiles]

@Zoomer this is a good point. (and also, not easy for me to switch banks)

I don't know the full reasons behind their motivations but there's always got to be more to the story. Companies of this magnitude overwhelmingly tend towards putting profit ahead of personal morality. I'm not saying it's fair. But I'm doubting the sexual aspect of the business transactions alone, have as much bearing on these decisions as people think.

 

[HiGirlsRHot]

Does Netflix offer you the opportunity to make money via Netflix? Say... I have stolen credit card details and use that to purchase shows, does the producer of said shows get the money and is anyone allowed to be the producer?

It's been a while, but there were many a thread here about financial fraud / money laundering and Eastern Europe/Russia. I've been sceptical, but never once believed "chargebacks by guilty boyfriends" is remotely representative of the reasons why stuff like this occurs. For example, why is Romania banned from MFC for buying tokens? Could it possibly be the large number of stolen credit card details available and fraudulent purchases with those, followed by legitimate charge backs as the owners/originator banks realise (after payments made to certain individuals).

There's bound to be more complexity around this than a quick surface scan reveals. Banks want to make money, and by and large there's little reason to ban performers as it's not public knowledge who is banking with whom.

I agree.
The bankers I know aren't particularly prudish and certainly not religious.
The founders of Paypal certainly aren't prudes and have a strong libertarian bent.

It is is easy to rant that society has it out for sex workers, and there is some truth that but I suspect the reality is is mostly because there is a boatload more fraud and deceptive practices associated with the porn industry than others. I think I've had twice the chargebacks and rip-offs associated with porn (sadly including camgirls) than everything else I've purchased in my life combined.

In response to a model's Google Wallet being closed, I took a look at the Google's Shopping restricted product list. Now while some banned products were possibly "morality" related e.g. drugs and gambling stuff, some such as selling your MMPORG character or equipment are almost certainly a result high rates of fraud.

 

[CrazyCatLady]

This also makes me wonder how many Cam models have been able to obtain mortgages with only their camming income.

 

[Guy]

I agree.
The bankers I know aren't particularly prudish and certainly not religious.
The founders of Paypal certainly aren't prudes and have a strong libertarian bent.

It is is easy to rant that society has it out for sex workers, and there is some truth that but I suspect the reality is is mostly because there is a boatload more fraud and deceptive practices associated with the porn industry than others. I think I've had twice the chargebacks and rip-offs associated with porn (sadly including camgirls) than everything else I've purchased in my life combined.

In response to a model's Google Wallet being closed, I took a look at the Google's Shopping restricted product list. Now while some banned products were possibly "morality" related e.g. drugs and gambling stuff, some such as selling your MMPORG character or equipment are almost certainly a result high rates of fraud.

I looked online and I could not find any statistics that show the adult industry has more chargebacks and fraud than other industries. its just way too much of a coincidence that those companies are hostile to something that has a lot of social stigma.

 

[LuckySmiles]

This also makes me wonder how many Cam models have been able to obtain mortgages with only their camming income.

In theory it should be no more difficult than any other self employed person(which isn't easy to begin with.) Given the age of most workers and nature of the business, it's likely to have many without perfect tax payment records and/or poor credit history. Likely a bigger part of a problem.

Entertainers and small business owners are already a great risk to lenders. The most financially responsible, with long-term consistent success would probably have few issues. Even those with blemishes on their reports could likely squeak through with enough money down.

 

[LaceyRoyce]

I'm looking at moving my ass out of chase finally, does anyone know if USAA will have an issue with what I do? It's military and I know they can be difficult sometimes... but they've been fantastic for duke.

 

[HiGirlsRHot]

I looked online and I could not find any statistics that show the adult industry has more chargebacks and fraud than other industries. its just way too much of a coincidence that those companies are hostile to something that has a lot of social stigma.

Dude you need to work on your Google Fu or perhaps spend more than 5 minutes looking.
NY Times
A story of how chargebacks lead to internet porn firms going broke while ripping off people
5-15% chargeback here
Another porn sites with a 10% rate and criminal charges.

Now lets put this in context
This rather lengthy report from JP Morgan requires some math to make a proper comparison, since it discusses all credit card fraud (at >1%) rather than just chargebacks but it appears overall the charge-back number is between .2-.4% or roughly 1/5th the rate of porn site. It is also worth pointing out as the NY Times article points out banks and Paypal only stopped working with porn industry in the early 2000s after dealing with chargebacks, and so it isn't a social stigma.

It is just about making money and it appears in the porn world you need to charge well over 10% to have a chance of being profitable. It sucks, but that is reality.[/QUOTE]

 

[HiGirlsRHot]

I'm looking at moving my ass out of chase finally, does anyone know if USAA will have an issue with what I do? It's military and I know they can be difficult sometimes... but they've been fantastic for duke.

USAA has an awesome reputation. I have a friend that goes to USAA's blogger conference every year, I'll ask him if he has ever heard anything.

 

[CrazyCatLady]

Dude you need to work on your Google Fu or perhaps spend more than 5 minutes looking.
NY Times
A story of how chargebacks lead to internet porn firms going broke while ripping off people
5-15% chargeback here
Another porn sites with a 10% rate and criminal charges.

Now lets put this in context
This rather lengthy report from JP Morgan requires some math to make a proper comparison, since it discusses all credit card fraud (at >1%) rather than just chargebacks but it appears overall the charge-back number is between .2-.4% or roughly 1/5th the rate of porn site. It is also worth pointing out as the NY Times article points out banks and Paypal only stopped working with porn industry in the early 2000s after dealing with chargebacks, and so it isn't a social stigma.

It is just about making money and it appears in the porn world you need to charge well over 10% to have a chance of being profitable. It sucks, but that is reality.

[/QUOTE]
I would agree this is true. I however am still failing to see what shutting down the accounts of girls working in this industry accomplishes. In fact...unless I'm missing something this actually goes along with what I said...which is that they should prevent men from making these charges on porn sites using their bank and close their account. Instead of closing the performers account. Charge backs are done at company level. No one comes into our bank accounts and takes money back after we are paid. It is taken out of our pay prior to being sent to us. So since the fraud is with the men making the charges anyways they are the risk...not us performers.

Do I want that to happen? Of course not...but this is one of the many reasons I feel this is a sexist move.

 

[LuckySmiles]

@CrazyCatLady Since the laws allow the IRS is to seize bank account funds and property for unpaid back taxes, one possibility is they're closing the accounts assessed as high risk of seizure before it happens. Also would make sense why some workers are reporting no problems with this, could be they're the one's assessed as low risk.

 

[Jesse0328]

It is just about making money and it appears in the porn world you need to charge well over 10% to have a chance of being profitable. It sucks, but that is reality.

Just to give people a real life example:

The two big payment processors that I know of for the adult industry are CCBill and Epoch.

1. CCBill's merchant fees range between 10.8 to14.5% on credit card transactions - https://www.ccbill.com/online-merchants/pricing.php

2. Epoch has a tiered model ranging from 15% to below 13% depending on sales - https://www.epoch.com/business_service

For non-adult, small business processing:

1. Square for instance charges only 2.75% for a card present transaction, or 3.5% + $.15 for a manual entry. - https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5068-what-are-square-s-fees

2. PayPal charges in most instances 2.9% + $.30 for domestic U.S. processing. - https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees

 

[HiGirlsRHot]

I would agree this is true. I however am still failing to see what shutting down the accounts of girls working in this industry accomplishes. In fact...unless I'm missing something this actually goes along with what I said...which is that they should prevent men from making these charges on porn sites using their bank and close their account. Instead of closing the performers account. Charge backs are done at company level. No one comes into our bank accounts and takes money back after we are paid. It is taken out of our pay prior to being sent to us. So since the fraud is with the men making the charges anyways they are the risk...not us performers.

Do I want that to happen? Of course not...but this is one of the many reasons I feel this is a sexist move.[/QUOTE]

I'll admit the relationship between who is scamming whom can be unclear. The guy getting several hours of exclusive time on a camsite, using a fraudulent credit card is clearly a criminal not the poor camgirl.
On the other hand, if I agree to pay a sex worker $100 for a custom video and pay using PayPal or GoogleWallet and then never get the video when I go back to Google or PayPal and demand a refund. There is a good chance Google or PayPal will never get their money back cause the sex worker, or shady camsite will have taken the money and run.
Now is it fair that sins of a few impact lots of innocent sex workers just trying to make a living? No, but life isn't fair. But it doesn't make their actions sexist, just business.

 

[Badj3u]

People are such Hypocrites....The idea of servicing someone sexually and getting a fee in return is the oldest Profession in the World yet everybody seems to look down on it...... but YET it's still around and Growing stronger than ever...... These CEO's in these company probably be on porn-sites while having their Hypocritically meeting about shutting these porn stars and adult company bank account lol..... Life is Funny

 

[LuckySmiles]

Just for the record in terms of bank accounts, (I don't have to explain this, but I will) I've gotten one of those notices before from the IRS before that essentially says "hey lady, you still owe us some dollars, if you don't pay us back soon we're coming to get you. " If I hadn't paid it and found my bank account closed, I'd assume that had more to do with it than where my money came from....

So I'm not trying to paint myself as some perfect financially responsible wizard over here lol. (Obv Far from it) But I have also worked in the investment banking industry if that makes anything I say more or less valid.

I don't think the barriers people are facing have as much to do with the sex part of the work, it seems to be the variety of risks associated in the biz. I'm not sure the answer but If there was a special bank created to cater to Sex workers seems the fees would be astronomical compared to others, and no one would probably want to use it anyway. Seems the focus should be on ways to make aspects of the business more streamlined, workers more accountable and financially aware, rather than like boycotts.