[aspenmayer]

Probably some kind of interpretation of AML obligations. One could setup their own Patreon and pay themselves via cards in ways that banks, payment processors, and possibly law enforcement would rather you didn’t.

I come across this a lot when trying to pay for things with Cash App or Coinbase Card, as they are both classed as prepaid cards for reasons I don’t understand.

[walterbell]

It would be interesting to see real-world numbers on the prevalence of money laundering via $1-$10 monthly payments to Patreon, compared to other online vendors who accept legally-permitted prepaid card payments. Most prepaid cards are limited to relatively small amounts anyway, precisely to make them less usable for money laundering.

Meanwhile, https://wallstreetonparade.com/2020/09/3-count-felon-jpmorga...

> secret documents leaked from FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a unit of the U.S. Treasury. The documents “show that five global banks — JPMorgan, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York Mellon — kept profiting from powerful and dangerous players even after U.S. authorities fined these financial institutions for earlier failures to stem flows of dirty money.”

In comparison to 7 figure flows, Patreon restrictions on already-limited prepaid cards are AML theater.

[aspenmayer]

I love this conversation. If anything, I feel like I’m late to this party, and I’m not even trying to do anything that isn’t expressly allowed.

To your point about small amounts, I think that is also monetizable with fake/stolen accounts cashing in on referral and promotional “free money,” combined with widespread flip/swap scams. I wonder if patio11 could enlighten us with some hard numbers on the dollar values of attempted fraudulent purchases. I suspect that actual card swipe fraud to be high dollar items sent to dead drops, and low dollar fraud utilizing unauthorized access to others’ accounts and money transfer apps, and so-called “friendly fraud.”

On a related note, scam rap is so lit right now. I’ll just leave this right here. Teejayx6 really gets the subculture, and as a child who grew up learning how to hack in the wild 90s, he speaks truth. He may have created the subgenre, but raps about ill-gotten gains are as old as soul music.

> I just made a fake GoFundMe someone send donations

https://genius.com/Teejayx6-gofundme-lyrics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teejayx6