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PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

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Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#401

Post by guan »

zajio1am wrote: post #150
spookthesunset wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of porn friendly payment providers. They just cost a lot of money relative to "normal" merchants because of a few simple reasons: 1) Chargebacks -- people chargeback the shit out of these kinds of transactions. Significant other sees the bill, gets pissed / confused about the charge / whatever and gets it charged back. 2) Fraud -- people use stolen CC's to pay for this kind of thing. 3) Porn operator…

> 1) Chargebacks -- people chargeback the shit out of these kinds of transactions. So perhaps offer a payment system without chargebacks? Direct bank transfers also do not offer chargebacks and people use them for payment for goods and services.

In the US, the most common ACH debit and credit transfers can be “returned,” which is similar to a chargeback. This is covered by Subpart A of Regulation E of the Federal Reserve. Only “wire transfers” such as Fedwire and SWIFT transfers, which consumers rarely make here, offer final, irrevocable* payments the way many other countries’ normal domestic transfer systems do.

* Meaning they can’t be undone through the payment system. Sometimes it’s possible to sue the recipient or recover the money in other ways.

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#402

Post by codexon »

kadoban wrote: post #387
codexon wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin (and all other cryptocoins) are just not usable for mass transactions. Buying anything with bitcoin takes over 10 minutes, often times over an hour for shops that are paranoid and require 3+ confirmations. During the peak bubble time, I remember buying something with bitcoin taking 2 hours!! This technical problem has not been solved and the "lightning network" just turns exchanges like Coinbase into a bank o…

That does not sound correct on the lightning network. I cannot find any reason it would allow someone to run off with your funds. Can you explain the attack?

In order to use the lightning network, you are making a smart contract on the normal slow bitcoin ledger with another party. You need to insert a pre-determined amount of money into this system to be able to spend it.

Most consumers will not want to do this because they don't know who they will be buying from and don't know how much they are going to spend. If they decide they want to buy from random website Z one day, making a lightning network connection between themselves and that website will be useless because establishing a lightning network connection needs to go on the regular slow block chain, so it'll take as long as a regular payment.

The only way it works is if a major exchange like Coinbase sets up lightning network agreements between other major exchanges. Then the user puts bitcoin into Coinbase and uses the Coinbase website to make lightning network payments on your behalf. This means you will probably put all your money into an exchange like Coinbase who can then run off with your money.

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#403

Post by Terretta »

phire wrote: post #397
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anyone explain how this even happens? Who could possibly threaten a bank over handling financial transactions for sex workers? And what could they possibly threaten the bank with? Even if it's some big business like Chick-fil-A... Presumably they only bank with one bank, and presumably the porn and sex work industry has more money at that bank than Chick-fil-A. How's this actually work? It's not making sense to m…

I doubt anyone is threatening banks on this based on moral grounds. I suspect it's just fraud, people using stolen credit cards and bank details to pay for porn (because porn can be delivered digitally) So these accounts disproportionately show up in the fraud department and the fraud department spends more time dealing with those accounts than the profit generated. Eventually, the bank or payment processor decides i…

SCENARIO

Usually it’s not stolen credit cards, usually it’s their card but they say it was stolen and try to do a charge back.

Hubby pays for porn.

Wife looks at bill.

Hubby denies it, must have been identity theft!

They demand a charge back since clearly card stolen by unknown porn hound, not innocent hubby.

CONSEQUENCES

Card processors and especially customers of card processors get their accounts flagged for too many returns / charge backs, which cost much more to handle than the original transaction fees compensate for. Rates go from a couple percent to 20%, making business models not work.

Banks that the processor deposited into when card swiped, have to risk manage how much money to hold back from the customer in case 2 months later all the deposits get sucked back out by charge backs. What happens if the bank customer had withdrawn their money?

BAD OUTCOME

Very hard problem, easier to just not deal with sectors that have extreme and unpredictable charge backs.

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#404

Post by jeffasinger »

jeltz wrote: post #357
x0x0 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it's moral choices and more fraud and dispute levels, ie the cost to service a customer.

I am not convinced it is just that. PayPal also refuses to do business with online gambling which is an industry with low fraud levels (in the early poker days they were high, but that was a long time ago). Thankfully there are a bunch pf credit card processors who know how good customers online casinos are and most banks are fine too, so that industry is not deplatformed.

Most of the online gambling operators in New Jersey take PayPal, though you usually have to use either a bank account linked with ACH or a balance you already have in PayPal.

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#405

Post by dragonwriter »

aazaa wrote: post #135

Financial deplatforming is a monster, long-term trend to watch over the next decades. Deplatforming happens with sex workers. It also happens in the US marijuana industry. It happens with perfectly legal political content. The number of ways in which someone, somewhere will be offended by products or services for sale is growing, driven by a rapidly improving worldwide communication network and delivery system, and b…

> It also happens in the US marijuana industry

The US marijuana industry is, under federal law, entirely criminal, so that's kind of understandable, even if the underlying law is arguably undesirable.

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#406

Post by bitwize »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #260
bcheung wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had several friends in the adult industry have their checking accounts closed at a several major banks as well. Traditional banking should definitely not be discriminating against fully legal activities.

Can anyone explain how this even happens? Who could possibly threaten a bank over handling financial transactions for sex workers? And what could they possibly threaten the bank with? Even if it's some big business like Chick-fil-A... Presumably they only bank with one bank, and presumably the porn and sex work industry has more money at that bank than Chick-fil-A. How's this actually work? It's not making sense to m…

> Who could possibly threaten a bank over handling financial transactions for sex workers?

The government. The sex work industry was targeted by the Obama administration under Operation Chokepoint. Banks that dealt with customers the administration didn't like were subject to greater scrutiny and regulatory action.

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#407

Post by hedvig »

short_sells_poo wrote: post #264
geomark wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the thing I find very disturbing. That an industry as highly regulated and essential to every day life as banking can pick and choose based on management's moral choices.

It's not a moral choice. It's a case of the business is not worth the hassle. KYC rules mean the bank is on the hook if they are found to harbor ill gotten gains and the sex industry had a some troubles in the past, while not producing enough volume on an individual level to make it worthwhile for a bank to overlook things.

>found to harbor ill gotten gains

Ah yeah like they were on the hook for laundering Mexican drug cartel money?

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#408

Post by kadoban »

codexon wrote: post #402
kadoban wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That does not sound correct on the lightning network. I cannot find any reason it would allow someone to run off with your funds. Can you explain the attack?

In order to use the lightning network, you are making a smart contract on the normal slow bitcoin ledger with another party. You need to insert a pre-determined amount of money into this system to be able to spend it. Most consumers will not want to do this because they don't know who they will be buying from and don't know how much they are going to spend. If they decide they want to buy from random website Z one da…

Okay, but the lightning network is not just "here's all my money, please don't run off". There's crypto around it, a multisig protocol designed to prevent exactly that, no?

If it was just some crap exchange, why would anyone be bothering, and especially why would it be taking so long?

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#409

Post by codexon »

fastball wrote: post #392
codexon wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin (and all other cryptocoins) are just not usable for mass transactions. Buying anything with bitcoin takes over 10 minutes, often times over an hour for shops that are paranoid and require 3+ confirmations. During the peak bubble time, I remember buying something with bitcoin taking 2 hours!! This technical problem has not been solved and the "lightning network" just turns exchanges like Coinbase into a bank o…

Ethereum is already a lot faster than that, and will probably get to Eth2.0 with sharding and PoS in the not too distant future. Then your ETH transactions will be blazing fast, secure, and cheap as chips. Of course, they've been saying all of that is not so far away for a couple years now, but we will see. I'm tentatively optimistic.

Ethereum is still on proof of work, so it has the same problem as bitcoin. If they made confirmations take 1 minute instead of 10 minutes, that just means their confirmations are 1/10th as reliable as Bitcoin's confirmations. Nothing was solved there.

And PoS has been "not so far away for a couple years now" because they keep finding problems with it.

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#410

Post by Spooky23 »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #260
bcheung wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had several friends in the adult industry have their checking accounts closed at a several major banks as well. Traditional banking should definitely not be discriminating against fully legal activities.

Can anyone explain how this even happens? Who could possibly threaten a bank over handling financial transactions for sex workers? And what could they possibly threaten the bank with? Even if it's some big business like Chick-fil-A... Presumably they only bank with one bank, and presumably the porn and sex work industry has more money at that bank than Chick-fil-A. How's this actually work? It's not making sense to m…

Look at the recent scandal with “Girls do Porn”. Some nasty people exploited and harmed women through dishonesty and grift.

Do you want your bank associated with that? Do you want to be sued because you benefited from the conduct or financed it?

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