Patreon, VPN and account deactivation

[lewdman89]

Hello all! I recently decided I would like to stop being a freeloader and start supporting a couple of my favorite creators. So I go to Patreon and register an account (never had one), and the moment I go to confirm my email address I get another email saying they detected "suspicious activity" and they are deactivating my account. As a note, I use a VPN to bypass some of my country's stupid censorship and restrictions, and because I like being anonymous, especially when dealing with nsfw stuff.

So I searched and it turns out Patreon does not like its users using VPNs for some reason. All the posts I could find around the net suggested registering and using an account without a VPN. This of course, is not going to happen. Patreon, and any site, have no business being snoops and try to force me to show them my real location, connection or anything else. Its just completely unnecessary for the only reason I want to use their stupidly strict site: to give them money so that my favorite creators can take a cut. But I digress.

What I wanted to ask by making this thread is one, does everyone who uses Patreon to support creators with monthly payments do so without a VPN? (I find that hard to believe) and two, if not then how can I go about creating an account and subscribe to a creator without getting marked for "suspicious activity"?


In case anyone wonders I did write a ticket to their support about the issue and I received a clearly ai-generated answer that asked me to give them my personal details (including the number of any credit cards I have used or would like to use!) to "confirm the integrity of the account", as if my newly-created account had any previous transactions they could compare that info to! I have never felt so insulted by a company's support, and I did let them know of my displeasure in a reply email which of course did not contain any of the info the bot supposedly named "Ripley" had asked me for.

 

[Catapo]

To be honest I don't know whether it is possible or not to somehow use a VPN for Patreon, so I can't give you an answer.

I just really wanted to respond to this because It seems to be very common that people are concerned about their anonimity in regards to NSFW stuff.

Patreon, and any site, have no business being snoops and try to force me to show them my real location, connection or anything

It literally IS their business. Patreon ultimately has to collect money from some people and transfer it to other people, and in order to do that your real information needs to be available.

In order to take your money Patreon needs to know about your bank account, and the bank knows who you are and where you are, if you are using something like Paypal then Paypal knows about you and your bank and Patreon knows about your Paypal account.
Patreon also needs to know the same information and more regarding the place where and to whom the money goes to (because taxes, laws, regulations or whatever else)

So yeah, unfortunately when transferring money legally there is never such a thing as anonimity.

 

[Hagatagar]

Also Patreon had to deal with a bunch of money laundering in the past, so they are extra careful.

 

[nocturnalillusions]

I had heard about that VPN restriction but had no idea it was this hardcore, damn

 

[lewdman89]

To be honest I don't know whether it is possible or not to somehow use a VPN for Patreon, so I can't give you an answer.

I just really wanted to respond to this because It seems to be very common that people are concerned about their anonimity in regards to NSFW stuff.


It literally IS their business. Patreon ultimately has to collect money from some people and transfer it to other people, and in order to do that your real information needs to be available.

In order to take your money Patreon needs to know about your bank account, and the bank knows who you are and where you are, if you are using something like Paypal then Paypal knows about you and your bank and Patreon knows about your Paypal account.
Patreon also needs to know the same information and more regarding the place where and to whom the money goes to (because taxes, laws, regulations or whatever else)

So yeah, unfortunately when transferring money legally there is never such a thing as anonimity.

While I understand what you mean I do not really agree. Yes the money has to come from somewhere, but for example I can use PayPal semi-anonymously, with a VPN no problem, even fund my account with a virtual credit card or some other way not directly connected to me (I mean other than a credit card from a bank from my country), and I still have money in my account and I can still use PayPal to pay for things online.

Petreon's business is to make sure they get the money I am supposed to give, not check if I am the same person that loaded the money in the PayPal account or the virtual card I use. For them they only need to check with the PayPal account or card's host to see if there is money in it. Everything else (my real name, my country, my internet provider) is completely unnecessary for this transaction. At that point Patreon is simply making arbitrary requests for personal info I do not wish to give them, and frankly I am very reluctant to use their services if they really want to know so much about me, especially when so many other legal sites that accept payments do so without the same information that is supposedly so important to Patreon.

As for anonymity when it comes to legal payments, there are degrees to it, its not an on and off switch. Also let's not be so hasty to defend the practices of multimillion dollar companies, at the end of the day privacy is our right. I wish there were other sites or ways to support creators, other than Patreon, who let's not forget has so many other questionable or outright unfair policies and restrictions, especially towards creators of nsfw content.