artists_beware | Patreon - Patrons who are manipulating their pledges

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advice for artists

Patreon - Patrons who are manipulating their pledges

Hi,

I signed up for patreon two months ago. And in short: I have overall monthly income around 600$. But I end up with around 400. I have it set as per two weeks. So I give them pledges twice a month while they are charged once a month but doubled.

So I receive much less money that it's said on the main page. It happens not only because people are declining transactions but mostly because they're pledging, after they do, they have access to whole patreon gallery (I don't know why they have access to whole gallery not only since they joined?) they download everything and change their pledge to minimum - if they are gentelman, if not, they withdraw their subsribtion right away after downloading stuff and dissapear. Until the next month, when they do the same thing. So basically they get everything for free when other people pay for their pledges.

So my questions are:
1.How do I ban patreon (Not delete but pernamently ban them from the list) and how do I ban patreons who are not my patrons anymore. (because they subscribe for 5 minutes and it's hard to catch them, and I want to avoid they do it again)

2.You too are informed via e-mails about everything, that you got message, that you got a new patreon, that this patreon changed their pledge, that your patreon just came back from the toilet BUT you are not informed that and who just withdraw their subscribtion? I have people who dissapear all of sudden and are manipulating their presence to avoid payment and I'd have to work as an policeofficer to catch them all. That makes no sense

3. Can I rearrange my pledges so the new patreons are getting acces to the gallery only from the day they joined?

I'm asking here because I couldn't find the answers on patreon site. I hope I will find some answers here.

In the end I wanted to share an opinion that manipulating on patreon with pledging is highly pathetic. I put a lot of affort in drawing all the stuff that I normally charge 100$ per piece. I ask for 5 dollars and people STILL tries to manipulate as hell just not to give me a damn dollar for the whole month of my work. Or are deeply offended that I am not giving them stuff for free because they can't affort to spend 2$ per month. The toilet paper costs 2$. Its discouraging because I can't even judge how much will I earn monthly.

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The short answer is no, there's nothing you can do about it. Patreon has zero protections in this regard. People can jump in, get full access, and take off with all of your content all in a matter of minutes. I have personally emailed Patreon about this, and they told me they were going to get a ban feature rolling but it's been a while since then.

Due to this huge loophole, I have decided to pull my Patreon entirely. It's too much of a headache and I'm doing far more work than what I end up paid for. Also, that doesn't even take into consideration Patreon and Strype's fees which are astronomical when combined. I don't mind paying a fee for a service, but not when the service allows for such rampant abuse.

I really hope they go a step farther and implement a feature where the person CANNOT access content until their pledge is processed. I don't know what they can do about chargebacks, since that's on the side of the bank or credit card, but if the money is actually taken out of their account instead of them being able to cancel right before the withdrawal, I think it would cut down on this sort of fraud.

And I wouldn't be adverse to a big Beware post with a blacklist of pledge-dodgers. So that people know to block them as soon as they pledge so they don't get any free stuff.

Edited 2015-02-21 16:43 (UTC)

The thing about that though is that would require A_B to make a post involving people's emails and most likely real names. We don't allow these items in the community as it is due to LJ's restrictions on harassment.

Yeah, that's true. I was thinking usernames but those are super easy to change between accounts. I don't get why this is such a problem with Patreon and not other sites. I don't hear of this sort of stuff nearly as much with Kickstarter, for example, and you can offer digital content with pledge levels. I guess the big question is, why is it so easy for people to do chargebacks? Is it because Patreon basically a donation site with 'goodies' given for donating, so credit cards consider it okay to process a chargeback?

This isn't a chargeback, though. I don't think we even know how Patreon handles chargebacks as they do the billing and you get a pay out minus fees. If anyone would do a chargeback, it would hit Patreon and not the artist.

The issue is that content is available at sign up, and it's very easy to edit it or to remove it entirely.

It's not a chargeback. No one is getting charged in the first place.

When you sign up to be a Patron on Patreon, and you pledge $X to a user, you are automatically allowed "in" on that level of the user's content. Obviously this is an issue for digital content, because then I could download whatever I want of the digital content, and change my pledge back to $0 or a lower amount, while keeping the content I downloaded. Patrons are only charged once per month. So if I did this before I was charged-- free stuff!!

This isn't an issue with Kickstarter, because people pledge, get their money taken at the end of the campaign, and THEN get emailed or sent the reward (be it digital or physical).

I haven't used Patreon, so I only have a vague idea of how it works (make a pledge, pledge is charged to your card on X day, you can cancel pledge any time up until X day). It seems a bit strange that patreons can access the content before they physically pay. It seems like it would be easier and safer for artists if the content goes 'live' the day when pledges go through.

In that case, no one is able to get free stuff. It's sad that you have to treat everyone like they're going to steal, but it seems like there's more than just a few bad apples, particularly in the original poster's case where $600 worth of pledges turned into $400 of actual money.

Well, part of the way people use patreon is not really as a sales site to buy a product, but as a way to support an artist as the artist creates work and shares it. One support level that myself and many other artists use is just a general "you get to see all the neat behind the scenes stuff". This is a slow trickle of creativity over the course of a month that patrons enjoy seeing.

Even just posting new content only after the first of the month (when patrons get charged) wouldn't really help? If someone were to sign up any time after the first of the month they could still see all of the content uploaded up until that point. It doesn't just go away. Though, an artist could indeed pull/delete their content after a certain time. Or just email content directly. That would be sort of a headache for strictly visual artists just making stuff to share, though. And goes against the flow of the whole concept of "support me and you get to see what I am working on constantly!".

Of course not everyone uses Patreon in this way. I am also lucky that I have had very few incidents of people not honoring their pledge or pulling it after getting to see the goodies. But it is very easy to abuse, should someone wish to do so. If I provided high value digital content (Like a musician might in a digital download of music, or someone that makes an involved digital file like a tutorial, or maybe high res art, .PSDs, etc..) I would likely just make sure that I sent it direct to patrons via email or dropbox. But I am mostly sharing a stream of "behind the scenes process, WIPS, etc" and it would be a huge hassle and an immense time sink to email all of my patrons each time. Not to mention it might be annoying for some of them to get several emails a week!

"And I wouldn't be adverse to a big Beware post with a blacklist of pledge-dodgers." - That is actually very good idea indeed. I was thinking of doing such thing on my deviantart page but if I do it there, people will find out that they can actually still from patreon, so maybe.. don't tell them. I could do it also on patreon page but I'm afraid since I will be the only one doing such thing, people might get angry that I act like a police. Even if it's right. Nowadays people want everything for free.
But it is an idea after all. Thank you very much

Celestinaketzia made a good point that in order for a blacklist to be effective, you'd have to post real names and emails, since usernames are too easily changed and aren't a reliable way to catch people committing fraud. And posting personal info like that would be against the rules of the community (not to mention dangerous to the people being blacklisted). I wish there was an easy fix to all of this, but it sounds like until Patreon fixes its own system and finds a way to really crack down on people pulling out last second and still getting all their goodies, it's a problem that's going to stick around. :(

Additionally, most people seem to use only their real name on Patreon (in my limited experience).

I'm curious, do you still pay for the fees of any backer that backs out of it? :/

No. Whatever clears they take a cut of prior to sending it to your bank. So if you get $100 worth of pledges it comes out to about $93ish to your bank.

in my case it takes 10% exactly. So out of 100 I get 90.

That's good to know! Thank you. c:

Thank you. Although I was hoping for different answer :) more optimistic..
I asked because one of the known patreon artist made something like " if you want previous reward then you can pick it" - so I thought we have possiility to block rewards. Because it is kind of sad perspective to delete the content after for example 10 days. Or a month. It's just like.. working in a zoo.

Yeah, unfortunately I couldn't give you a nice answer. It's turned what was supposed to be a fun personal project into a gigantic headache. Patreon is a great idea in theory, but if we have to treat Patrons like they're two seconds from stealing everything from us then it's not really all that fun to deal with.

I suppose if you ran it like Nambroth does as just extras, it'd definitely work a lot better. Mine was a paid series though that had content made monthly for it.

I've worked in a zoo and have never deleted any animals :3

I deal with the same issue, best advice I can give to you is only release content after people's money clear.

People pledge and stop pledging on both of my Patreon accounts, the only thing I can do now is just deal with it until Patren devs do something about this bs

I see. But what if someone joins on 5th for example (So when the money should be all collected) and I will add new content then so that guy will simply get it for free if they withdraw on time?

So much complications!..

Use dropbox to post new content to those that paid.

Just joined patreon and stumbled on this problem.
So yeah, starting last month, I changed service to PM to certain legit patrons.

Less fun, but it's better than handling some patronbots or hit-and-run-patrons.

I know at least one person with a Patreon who simply manually emails every subscriber their content once Patreon confirms their pledges have cleared. Probably annoying, but I think it's the best way I've heard of to prevent this problem.

That does sound like the only effective solution so far.

The "correct" solution is double-verification.

I'll give you an quick example. On one of the recent Kickstarter rewards, the artist used a service called SendOwl, to ensure that the people who paid for digital downloads were unable to just share the links around like with what happens with dropbox and such.

How you do this manually, is a few minutes before you go post a patreon-only item, you create a (salted)-hash list of the emails or other identity-specific information that get that reward, and just throw it in a .htpasswd list that applies only to the link you're going to give out.
so you might have something like www.example.com/patreonrewards/20150221/filename.png

But the password list will only contain usernames that have paid for that tier. You can set the password to the same thing, or use the email address again. It's very easy to create such lists. When someone changes their reward tier, they don't retroactively get all the previous rewards this way too.

And by "salted" hash list, I mean usernames that look like this:
(keywordorrandomjunkhere)_username
just to make sure that one can't bruteforce the next reward tier based on knowledge of previous reward tiers.

But this is a large maintenance hassle, so I'd probably reserve it for things that are "digital download" tiers and not simply links to a livestream or content that will eventually be public.

Edited 2015-02-22 00:40 (UTC)

I've been struggling with this recently, also the restrictions on adult artwork; they say porn is banned but also that they allow work up to R-rating, which also includes sexual nudity but I guess not masturbation or outright intercourse?

But if I set my Patreon to NSFW I can't use Paypal to withdraw the money; there's another service, but it'll cost me 3 bucks to transfer it internationally and into my bank account, but then I'd want to save up some money before transferring it so it would be worth it, but I'm worried about leaving my money with Patreon. Especially since people can get a refund willy-nilly; are there no requirements for getting a refund from Patreon?

I was considering doing like a hardcopy portfolio reward tier, but I wouldn't want people to just grab their money back after I ship the physical items. :/

It seems like Patreon doesn't yet have suitable protections in place for the creators. Which is weird, because that's the people they are making money off, by taking a percentage. You'd think they would want to do everything to protect their cash cows. The fact they don't even have a ban function from the get go is mind-boggling.

Howdy!

I've spokeon to Patreon directly about the NSFW rule. It only applies to real people. Drawn porn is fine.

Score! :D
Porn everywhere! :D

Thanks for letting me know :3

Thanks for finding out and saying so. It would be nice if Patreon would clarify their rule about that then.

Wait what?

It means some prawny doujins is fine? o_o;

Yes.

"I was considering doing like a hardcopy portfolio reward tier, but I wouldn't want people to just grab their money back after I ship the physical items. :/"

I also offer physical reward items. I fulfill them the month after the pledges have been processed so that I already have the money in my bank account. I am not aware of a way for someone to do a chargeback once it hits that point, but I may simply be lucky and have awesome patrons? :(

From what I can see, Patreon offers case-by-case refunds to supporters who ask for them. I haven't seen any criteria for what would make for a successful refund request, but the FAQ does say "Patrons will sometimes request a refund, which we will sometimes grant. In these cases, the refunded amount is deducted from the next transfer of funds."

I hope it never happens to you, I'm assuming you already keep receipts and such from shipping things out.

I see. Thanks for the information! I can see where it might cause some folks problems if someone did do a chargeback or refund situation. I keep mailing receipts for the two larger rewards I ship every month, though given who the two individuals are I'd be amazed if they tried to harm me in that way! For the postcards I do not, but I could afford to 'eat' the cost if someone really flipped out and wanted a refund. All of my patrons so far have been really awesome people. I am very fortunate. I feel like my patrons are a small, core group of collectors/fans that want to support me, and I know many of them. It could probably be a different situation if I were, for example, a popular furry artist and attracted a lot of people who just want rewards. I will keep an eye on it in the future for problems, but for now it's working out for me and, fingers crossed, I hope it continues to do so. :)

I hope things stay good for you! I've been fortunate that only a few people have tried to take me for a ride, but I like to think I don't give people much opportunity to try. So I read TOS' and FAQs.

I’m also a Patreon creator (http://patreon.com/davidstorrs), and a web developer. My business partner and I are frustrated enough with Patreon that we’re building an alternative. We’d like to make sure it solves the issues you’ve raised so, if you have a minute, I’d really appreciate your feedback.

We think the site should have:

* No percentage taken from your pledges
* Charge patrons immediately to avoid in-and-out “pledge-dodgers”
* Content management for all your content, past and present
* Specify when things should become visible (a.k.a. a publishing queue)
- ...to whom
- ...and for how long
* Ban abusive or exploitative patrons

As far as creators go, our current plan is that early adopters would receive as much storage as they need (within reason!), and future creators would get 1GB of storage for $9.99/month

Does this sound like a service you would use? Are there any other features you’d like? Feel free to PM if you'd rather discuss it in private.

Howdy!

If you'd like feedback on your idea you are welcome to make an advice/ discussion post to the community. Provided it's not a blatant advertisement, and an honest bid for feedback.

is there a way for people to make chargeback requests after it goes through? i haven't heard of that..

I don't think so. Patreon charges them, so if they chargebacked it would hit Patreon instead.

yeah that's what i thought, ty!

From reading the Patreon FAQ, someone can request a refund and they'll get it back from Patreon if it's not in your balance. Then they'll deduct the amount from your NEXT pledges.

The FAQ for supporters says "However, refunds are NOT available for money that has already been transferred to a Creator for past creations or past months." but then they tell the creators "Patrons will sometimes request a refund, which we will sometimes grant. In these cases, the refunded amount is deducted from the next transfer of funds." so they might grant refunds on a case by case basis and then take the refund out of your future pledges.

Oh man, thanks for that!

Glad I'm leaving Patreon, then. I wouldn't want to get hit by "fraudulent" charges because Patreon doesn't want to eat the cost.

Is it possible to post pictures off the patreon site in a pw protected album and drop the password to people individually after money has been withdrawn?
Different albums for different tiers and link one or all of them depending on who is paying what.
You'd have the change the passwords monthly...
It's a lot more work but would keep people from paying nothing for skimming everything.
As for posting updates to patreon you could have a generic "New posts in albums!" and every month mass email out passwords.

Nevermind that is all entirely too much work, Just keep mailing Patreon that they need a block feature :Y

Dropbox pro now has the option of password protecting your folders

I got up this morning and I saw a Patreon mail, "Pamela has pledged $2.00". So I went to my profile (patreon.com/solarstormstudio) to thank Pamela for pledging.

There was no one there by the name of Pamela.

So this "Pamela" jumped in, stole my artwork and then jumped back out.

This is the sad state of art these days. Sickening.

I'm gonna have to do some manual work every month from now on ... sigh.

It just happened to me tonight.

This certain person did the same thing just to read my comics, seemingly and jumped out.

.......... he missed two or three newest pages that I send privately to legit patrons.

Shame.

Edited 2015-09-24 18:03 (UTC)

The answer is simple - you don't post rewards to your feed, you send them in a zip file to the patrons email address and only put preview images in the feed. Some of the most successful artists on Patreon do it that way and it's the only way that I know of to make sure only those who pay get the reward - and obviously you send out all the rewards at the end of the month, once you can see who has paid and who hasn't.

I personally spoke to patreon creators/admins on several occassions regarding theft and even THEY suggesst posting your work privately to Patrons that paid.

As of December 2015, anyone who pledges is immediately charged then and there. However, if they use Paypal and you post NSFW stuff (your account should be marked as such), Patreon BLOCKS the charge on their end as Paypal has the NSFW rule enabled. Not sure if it's still super strict but it's a thing regardless.

The best way to see if a Patron is legit is to check their email by emailing them. If it bounces back, it's a scam. Secondly, Patreon lets you see if they pledged to other people and how often. If you're their only pledge, ditch them. They might be legit, but if they are, they'll probably pledge again.

Patreon is surprisingly buggy and unprotected, so save yourself the issues of posting publicly. If you DO, crop the image somehow so anything that may be stolen isn't too badly lost. I made the mistake of posting my entire webcomic and it got stolen, so a word of warning.

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Patreon - Patrons who are manipulating their pledges

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Would you be interested in an alternative?

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Same Thing Happened To Me Today

Re: Same Thing Happened To Me Today

Don't post to your feed then

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Re: Exploitative Platform of Artist Continues?