I wanna sign up for Patreon. Reason is, to give money to some podcasters, musicians, OSS authors. Ppl I think are doing good things. That’s how they accept donations.

But was there a privacy clusterfuck? Of course there was!

In October 2015, the site was the target of a large cyber-attack, with almost 15 gigabytes of password data, donation records, and source code taken and published. The breach exposed more than 2.3 million unique e-mail addresses and millions of private messages. Following the attack, some patrons received extortion emails …

I tried to signup privately. I only want to give money to ppl. Well if you use a VPN you get a total cloudfare gauntlet. Every page load, prove you are human! You can sign up with a masked card and a VPN, but they insta-ban you. Before you can sign-in even once, acct is locked.

Has anyone signed up in a kinda private way? How?

I can’t “just use this one cryptocurrency bro” b/c the creators I want to give money to only are on Patreon.

FFS. I’m trying to give money away! I don’t have to, but I belive we should support ppl doing good things for the world. Can’t even do that privtaely I guess.

  • BladeFederation@piefed.socialEnglish
    7·
    1 day ago

    Might be unpopular in this sub, but I don’t think that’s that big of a deal. Sites get hacked sometimes. It happens, especially 11 years ago, especially on a site that stores financial info.

    I think your problem is not the masked card, but the VPN. i could be wrong, but I bet if you don’t use a VPN, it will probably let you use a service like Privacy.com. There is very little way to detect it. Unless Patreon is selling your data, them having your IP once or twice for logging in isn’t the biggest issue. And their privacy policy states that they never sell any data to third parties for any reason, and do not share any data besides:

    • Creator Access: When you subscribe, your full name, email address, and shipping details (if applicable for physical rewards) are shared with the creator you support.
    • Service Providers: Data is shared with payment processors, fraud prevention partners, and third-party apps chosen by creators to fulfill membership services.
    • Legal Compliance: Information may be disclosed to law enforcement or in the event of a company merger or sale, as required by law or valid legal process.

    Up to you if you believe them, but Patreon tends to be uncontroversial as far as payment systems go.

    It is also pretty common to have your site behind Cloudflare since Ai became a thing, especially for VPNs.

    I’'m not saying any of this SHOULD be normal, or that you NEED to accept it. If your limit is being able to use a VPN, you do you. But if I were in your position and wanted to donate, I would just do it. Privacy is never perfect. If you believe strongly in independent financial support, I think that’s reasonable, especially if you end up being able to use a masked card without a VPN. You may also consider contacting the creators. Hard to ignore “hey I want to give you free money please”

    • FineCoatMummy@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      3·
      1 day ago

      Unless Patreon is selling your data, them having your IP once or twice for logging in isn’t the biggest issue

      That is something worth thinking about.

      I would probably be OK with that, if I can also avoid using my real name. And maybe I can? I haven’t tried that combo (masked card + real IP + fake name).

      • BladeFederation@piefed.socialEnglish
        1·
        1 day ago

        Yes, that combo is usually how I get masked cards to work. You might try using a different device too if that doesn’t work; it could be possible that your device info was flagged.