Patron Fraud
Added 2017-08-01 16:58:57 +0000 UTCHey everyone! I just wanted to drop a line about some troubling stuff going on with my Patreon for the past two months. I've gotten quite a few new patrons who at the end of the month have been marked by Patreon as "fraud". Last month I think I had maybe 5 fraudulent patrons who signed up to my Patreon, this month it was 3.
After doing a little bit of poking around on Google, it seems I'm not the only person who's been having this issue. As of right now, it's not really something that's causing a big problem for me (well, you know other than being kind of a bummer thinking I have more patrons or that I'll have some extra support this month). I don't have any way of knowing if the patrons are fraudulent until cards are charged at the end of the month and I'm not really sure what the end game is for these scammers, but at any rate... I've taken the action of blocking any patron who comes up marked as fraud. If this ever were to happen with my long term patrons or those of you who I know and talk to fairly regularly, I would give you a heads up before choosing to block you, so don't be worried about that. :)
Anyway, because of this I just wanted to let y'all know that there is a possibility that if this starts becoming an issue, I may need to switch to the "charge up front" payment method. This won't be a huge change for you, it just means you'll be charged at the beginning of the month for the month it actually is. Right now, for example you get charged for the month of July on August 1st. However, if I make the switch, I'm not sure if there will be a back to back charge like July (being at the end of the month) and August (being charged at the beginning of the month) would result in 2 charges. You'd still be paying the same monthly amount but the first 2 charges would probably happen right next to each other. This is mostly why I'm hesitant to change the payment schedule, but If I do decide to change it in the future, I will let you know well in advance.
Anyway, I hope you are all having a great day anyway! Thanks so much for your continued support! ^_^
