How to receive anonymous payments?

[FreyaGersemi]

I would rather not have my name and any other personal information out there. Is there a way to receive payments and not reveal any personal information? I know that I could set up an LLC in a state like Delaware (which does NOT make an LLC's information public), but that seems like a lot of work for not a ton of money coming in.

Has anyone successfully set up anonymous (to the public) payment options?

 

[onehitwanda]

I suspect Anti-Money-Laundering laws will make this next to impossible to do. Short of setting up a company there's no easy way that I'm aware of that permits this, unless you're into the machinations of cryptocurrency.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

You have some flexibility with apps such as PayPal, Zelle, and Venmo where you can have a public profile that disguises your identity from users, but the app would know who you are. I've set profiles up for things like class reunion ticket sales that way.

 

[AlexBailey]

You can share gift card information in PMs anonymously.

Amazon, eBay, even Visa gift cards can be bought by someone who then sends you the numbers and pins.

 

[Writer61]

Institutions will probably want to know who you are (Know Your Customer) but you should be able to hide your details from the public.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I suspect Anti-Money-Laundering laws will make this next to impossible to do. Short of setting up a company there's no easy way that I'm aware of that permits this, unless you're into the machinations of cryptocurrency.

Anti-money-laundering will require OP's identity to be visible to the service provider and to the government (with a subpoena) but needn't make it visible to the customer.

FWIW, cryptocurrency is not as anonymous as many people think. In some ways it's much less anonymous than old-fashioned banking because it depends on having a publicly accessible history of transactions which can give away a lot of info even without a name attached.

For instance, if I use a Bitcoin wallet to take payments from people, they need to know my wallet ID. If I then use some of that money to buy pizza from my crypto-friendly local pizza parlour, then anybody who knows my wallet ID can figure out where I'm ordering my pizza, etc. etc.

https://www.wired.com/story/27-year-old-codebreaker-busted-myth-bitcoins-anonymity/

 

[filthytrancendence]

CashApp is the most anonymous of the available services, in my experience. CashApp will know who you are, especially if you withdraw money to a bank account, but it is not difficult to obfuscate your public-facing profile. At least to the extent that anything like that is obfuscatable at this point in history.

 

[FreyaGersemi]

You can share gift card information in PMs anonymously.

Oh! That's a good one!

 

[FreyaGersemi]

I don't mind sharing my info with my bank (of course) or the IRS (again, of course) or with a third party (PayPal, etc), I would just rather not have my actual name out there for anyone who reads my erotic fiction to have access to. I've gotten some kind of creepy PMs and you just never know...

 

[Bazzle]

I don't mind sharing my info with my bank (of course) or the IRS (again, of course) or with a third party (PayPal, etc), I would just rather not have my actual name out there for anyone who reads my erotic fiction to have access to. I've gotten some kind of creepy PMs and you just never know...

You mean....your not a Freya?

 

[MillieDynamite]

Having a publisher would help, but you're still not entirely anonymous. They must report the amount they pay you to the IRS and provide you with a tax form to file for the earnings. The same is true if you post at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or D2D yourself. D2D is the most invasive. If someone follows the money, they figure out who you are. PayPal is somewhat anonymous, but I'm not sure if you receive payment through them, the client paying you can find out what your real name is.

I don't mind sharing my info with my bank (of course) or the IRS (again, of course) or with a third party (PayPal, etc), I would just rather not have my actual name out there for anyone who reads my erotic fiction to have access to. I've gotten some kind of creepy PMs and you just never know...

 

[HeyAll]

Substack and Subscribestar lets you collect money, people paying for your content.

Ko-fi is for crowd funding.

For those, no one knows anything about you, but you have to connect your bank to those sites.

 

[Writer61]

Patreon is another option.

 

[StillStunned]

Back in the day it used to be in small notes, in a plain brown envelope.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Substack and Subscribestar lets you collect money, people paying for your content.

Ko-fi is for crowd funding.

For those, no one knows anything about you, but you have to connect your bank to those sites.

Patreon is another option.

Many payment providers are unfriendly to adult content. If you use one of those services for content that breaches their rules, you might get away with it for a while, but you risk having your account suddenly closed and all money in that account confiscated. Always, always check their terms of service before using them for this kind of thing.

Substack's content rules say: "We don’t allow porn or sexually exploitative content on Substack, including any visual depictions of sexual acts for the sole purpose of sexual gratification. We do allow depictions of nudity for artistic, journalistic, or related purposes, as well as erotic literature, however, we have a strict no nudity policy for profile images."

That sounds good, but then they also say: "Substack’s payments are processed through Stripe, which excludes certain types of businesses from using their service. Please refer to the Stripe Service Agreement (see the US agreement here) and Stripe’s restricted businesses for more information about restricted business categories and practices."

And according to that "restricted businesses" link, Stripe prohibits: "Adult content and services", including "Pornography and other mature audience content (including literature, imagery, and other media) depicting nudity or explicit sexual acts". So is it allowed, or not? I dunno.

https://substack.com/content
https://stripe.com/restricted-businesses

SubscribeStar says: "We may, but have no obligation, to monitor, edit or remove content that we determine in our sole discretion are unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, inappropriate, pornographic, obscene or otherwise objectionable or violates any party’s intellectual property or these Terms of Service." Also: "You may not use a false e-mail address, name/nickname, or brand, or pretend to be someone other than yourself". It's not clear to me whether a pen name would constitute a "false name"; probably depends on who happens to be staffing their Trust and Safety desk on any given day.

https://www.subscribestar.com/tos#prohibited-content

Ko-Fi clearly bans use for "Adult or sexually explicit content including but not limited to: • Pornography, nudity and any other obscene content; • Literature, imagery (including illustrative), videos, links to external sites or content containing such material" etc.

https://more.ko-fi.com/terms

Patreon does permit adult content. However, they're more restrictive than Literotica, with a requirement that consent be umambiguously demonstrated and bans on NC-type content and most incest:

https://www.patreon.com/en-GB/policy/guidelines#sexually-gratifying-works

 

[Carnevil9]

I'd go with PayPal. All you need is an email address, which could be generated just for that purpose and not connected to you in any other way.

It might be convenient to connect it to your bank account, but nobody would see that except your bank. And if you want to accumulate the funds and spend them through PayPal, you don't even need to do that.

 

[FreyaGersemi]

I'd go with PayPal. All you need is an email address, which could be generated just for that purpose and not connected to you in any other way.

Here's what Google tells me:

"PayPal is not anonymous. With a personal account they will see at least your name and email.
If you go to the trouble of creating/registering a real business (exact requirements depend on the laws where you live), they would see the business name and address."

 

[FreyaGersemi]

For future readers, it seems that gift cards emailed would be the way to go. All you need to provide is an email address. The sender can send you the gift card info (verification numbers or whatever) and you can redeem them online. At least for me, Amazon gift cards would be pretty much the same as cash. I can always order things that I would be ordering anyway (clothes, books, Brita replacement filters, gifts for birthdays/holidays, batteries -- whatever).

It seems that gift cards would still protect some personal information.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

WHAT are these payments intended for? What service?

 

[Mastered_again]

WHAT are these payments intended for? What service?

Glory holes are anonymous. But the pay is not fungible.

 

[FreyaGersemi]

WHAT are these payments intended for? What service?

Erotic literature.

 

[ChloeTzang]

You can set up a paypal account under a pseudonym and then xfer to a bank account - I have a business bank account which I xfer into - it's a very bland business name and from there I can take out cash and deposit it where I want - once it's withdrawn and cash it's not easily traceable. I don't try to pull fast ones with tax tho, it's all taxable income so I just include it.

 

[alohadave]

Here's what Google tells me:

"PayPal is not anonymous. With a personal account they will see at least your name and email.
If you go to the trouble of creating/registering a real business (exact requirements depend on the laws where you live), they would see the business name and address."

PayPal is also known for not wanting SOB on their service.

 

[HeyAll]

Many payment providers are unfriendly to adult content. If you use one of those services for content that breaches their rules, you might get away with it for a while, but you risk having your account suddenly closed and all money in that account confiscated. Always, always check their terms of service before using them for this kind of thing.

Substack's content rules say: "We don’t allow porn or sexually exploitative content on Substack, including any visual depictions of sexual acts for the sole purpose of sexual gratification. We do allow depictions of nudity for artistic, journalistic, or related purposes, as well as erotic literature, however, we have a strict no nudity policy for profile images."

That sounds good, but then they also say: "Substack’s payments are processed through Stripe, which excludes certain types of businesses from using their service. Please refer to the Stripe Service Agreement (see the US agreement here) and Stripe’s restricted businesses for more information about restricted business categories and practices."

And according to that "restricted businesses" link, Stripe prohibits: "Adult content and services", including "Pornography and other mature audience content (including literature, imagery, and other media) depicting nudity or explicit sexual acts". So is it allowed, or not? I dunno.

https://substack.com/content
https://stripe.com/restricted-businesses

SubscribeStar says: "We may, but have no obligation, to monitor, edit or remove content that we determine in our sole discretion are unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, inappropriate, pornographic, obscene or otherwise objectionable or violates any party’s intellectual property or these Terms of Service." Also: "You may not use a false e-mail address, name/nickname, or brand, or pretend to be someone other than yourself". It's not clear to me whether a pen name would constitute a "false name"; probably depends on who happens to be staffing their Trust and Safety desk on any given day.

https://www.subscribestar.com/tos#prohibited-content

Ko-Fi clearly bans use for "Adult or sexually explicit content including but not limited to: • Pornography, nudity and any other obscene content; • Literature, imagery (including illustrative), videos, links to external sites or content containing such material" etc.

https://more.ko-fi.com/terms

Patreon does permit adult content. However, they're more restrictive than Literotica, with a requirement that consent be umambiguously demonstrated and bans on NC-type content and most incest:

https://www.patreon.com/en-GB/policy/guidelines#sexually-gratifying-works

Important point.

I've researched this

Stripe (the payment processor, the middle man to your bank) doesn't allow sex/porn

But they don't make that determination, they leave that to Substack, which allows basically the same stories as Lit, including incest. Substack has a broad interpretation of porn, but don't post pics, any erotica is fine. Same with Subscribestar which allows incest and sex art.

Ko-fi doesn't know what you do. Just dont write porn on your profile.