Read on Twitter
couple of notes. 1) i’ll post my sources at the end. 2) i have no idea how long this will be. 3) i’ll add in advice where i can. 4) there are no perfect solutions to any of this but DECRIM is a great first step. you ready? i’m ready. let’s party. https://twitter.com/adrierising/status/1380985069096071169
7.1 millions us households (not individuals) have no access to financial institutions (unbanked). that may be because of geographical limitations, threat of wage garnishment, lack of traditional employment, or any other number of reasons.
21 million us households are “underbanked” or have a checking/savings account but still use payday loan services, pawnshops, etc. as their primary form of financial institution.
for all the obvious reasons, black, indigenous, and non-white latin/x people tend to be overrepresented in un/underbanked groups. also, people making $40k or less are almost 5X more likely to be un/underbanked than those making $45k or more annually.
of the almost 30 mil un/underbanked households in the us, more than half are unable to keep a minimum balance in a checking or savings account so they must choose between paying astronomical fees each month or not having an account.
if you’re following the voter registration legal debacles you know that getting a legal photo id presents a challenge for a lot of people. getting a driver’s license is expensive and time consuming. a passport can cost $100s of dollars. birth certificate or social security card?
you can go to the dmv and request a “state id” for $35. you’ll still need your birth cert or soc sec card. you’ll also need proof or your residence — a lease or utility bill perhaps. which means legal status, decent credit, and proof of income.
if you’re a sex worker, simply getting on a lease can be next to impossible. you can’t prove you make 3X the rent because you don’t have pay stubs or a bank account? maybe you’ll get luck and have 6 months of rent to pay upfront.
no? well good luck getting into a shelter. you could always couch surf or flat share with friends but a) that’s a felony post sesta/fosta and b) it still doesn’t solve the problem of you needing legal proof of your residence.
most of us don’t consider these things because an id, a lease, utility bills, etc are ubiquitous to us. but if you’re undoc, fleeing abuse, or a minor/older teen on their own you need connections, cash, and an informed community around you to close these knowledge gaps.
if you manage to get to a place where you can get your hands on photo id, proof of residence, and the cash to open an account — you may not be able to find a physical bank location to open an account.
between 2014 and 2018, banks closed 2k more physical locations than they opened in low & moderate income areas.
the only option for many people is online banking that requires you to read 100s of pages of legal jargon online — probably on a phone or tablet w/o a bank employee readily available to answer your questions. that matters because fees are the greatest source of revenue for banks.
no really. overdraft fees average $35/overdraft in the us and they frequently stack. (i have to use a graphic to explain this honestly.)
now you can opt out of being allowed to overdraft your account at a lot of banks but that’s not a failsafe. 1) if you have any bills or rent on autopay, it will come out of your account no matter what. it can and will overdraft your account.
2) some banks offer overdraft protections but it can cost anywhere from $5 to $20 per transaction on top of the overdraft itself. 3) you could link a second bank account to cover any overdrafts but that requires having access to more than one account.
kind of a tangent but when talking about ach withdrawals for auto bill pay/rent we have to also talk about the fees associated with doing so. a lot of times you will pay anywhere from $2 - $10 for the privilege of paying your bills
depending on where you live, you could be paying an extra $100 - $500 a year in fees...just to pay your bills.
i need to take a break but when i come back i will explain why banking in the us is so perilous specifically for sex workers.
i’m either very bad at making threads or twitter just sucks
should have explained this better earlier but a lot of landlords will also not rent to you if they know you’re a sex worker because deriving your income from the sex work of others is...a felony. it legally makes you a trafficker. https://twitter.com/adrierising/status/1381269107794964480
i’m going to try to make this part 10 tweets or less because i need to post it on IG as well. the simplest explanation for why banks target sex workers is because banks are risk adverse to a fault. https://twitter.com/adrierising/status/1381269121057370116
if you derive your income from a criminalised activity, you are a threat to a bank’s reputation, continue operation, and ability to generate revenue. notice that i said criminalised because legality means very little here. all sex workers are a risk for banks.
if you make money selling sex, sexual performances, or sexual gratification you present a very apparent danger to banks — especially post sesta/fosta. if you make a great deal of money doing those things and you have frequent high $ deposits, banks want nothing to do with you.
the threat of a federal trafficking investigation is enough to get most bank execs in a cold sweat honestly. and while they often cannot explicitly forbid you from being a customer bc of your “legal” occupation, they can draft vague morality clauses that give them cover.
how do you fly under the radar? small deposits spread out through the month, never more than $5-$6k in a 30 day period. you want to mimic a regular pay schedule as closely as possible. NEVER open a business account, always a personal account.
make regular deposits into a savings account. if it looks like you’re splitting your pay between checking and savings, not only do you generate interest, you also look like a responsible spender. open a credit card with your bank and use it regularly while paying off the balance.
credit cards and mortgages are two of the greatest, reoccurring revenue sources for banks. people that have them pay their bills and the fees generate billions in profit. what do you do if your account is closed? stay calm and be polite.
you will never get your account back, i’m sorry, but if you’re kind to the right people and you have a good relationship with your bank, you MAY, get your money back.
another break. will be back to talk about pay apps.
almost done, i promise and then i may never tweet again honestly. so with banking being such a shit show for sex workers, it’s not surprising that financial tech/fintech is so popular. by fintech, i mean pay apps & crytpo specifically. https://twitter.com/adrierising/status/1381278952044568577
i’ll talk about crypto first because there’s simply less options. i don’t like crypto for 2 reasons. 1) there’s no guarantee that you will get the money you earned. the rate changes from minute to minute and by the time you cash out, your $1k might be $800.
2) you need a bank account to cash out. crypto atms have become more common but we’re a v long way off from having one in every bodega. few retailers take crypto and the ones that do aren’t great at it. if your transaction glitches you have little recourse bc it’s anonymous.
that being said, if you have a bank account and you’re willing to take the loss, crypto is probably one of the best options for getting paid as a sex worker because it’s anonymous.
my second choice is less common, but if you have a burner phone, set up apple pay and get paid that way. your money is always with you and easy to transfer to a bank account. you can also eschew carrying a wallet if you prefer to keep the balance virtual.
the pay apps are more common and easier to use but that’s because they function a lot like banks with many of the same restrictions and few of the same legal protections like fdic insurance.
paypal is the absolute worst app to use in general, but especially as a sex worker. yes, you can get a debit and credit card and use paypal as a bank account BUT they have no protections for you as a seller/business owner if you get hit by a fraud claim or chargeback.
not only will they close/lock your account, they will simply reach into any linked bank accounts you have and take your money...repeatedly. they also explicitly forbid sex workers in their TOS so move very cautiously.
venmo, which is a sister company to paypal is also notoriously anti sex worker. the biggest way to get caught up on venmo is by using emojis or explicit notes. idc if you’re joking, don’t put “for drugs” or eggplant emojis in the note. they WILL flag your account.
and yes, venmo essentially functions as a bank account with routing and account numbers, debit cards, and credit cards — but that means the same morality clauses and federal laws apply. they can and WILL close your accounts and keep your money.
cash app is...everywhere. it would be my third choice for use as a sex worker, simply because it’s so common and they offer a debit card option. you can also use it as a crypto wallet and cash out directly into your account.
if you have a bank account i recommend using cash app, getting the debit card, pulling out cash at an atm, and depositing it in the bank to mimic a regular pay check. but again, emojis and notes will get you banned QUICKLY.
if you go the fintech route, do not do NOT DO NOT use a business account. use a personal account each and every time. use a personal account. use a personal account. use a personal account. use. a. personal. account. business accounts are audited frequently and intensely.
what if your account gets closed? again, be calm and be polite. you will never get your account back but you may get your money back. please remember that the person on the other side of your computer does not make any decisions — they can only advocate for you.
. @hackinghustling has a great list of sites/apps that are explicitly anti sex work so you can make the best, most informed decisions for you. https://hackinghustling.org/online-platforms-sex-worker-discrimination/
hacking/hustling also has a great form letter you can adapt to appeal an account or ask to be paid out the balance of your account.
https://hackinghustling.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/hh-payments.pdf
https://hackinghustling.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/hh-payments.pdf
if you think your account is being targeted for closure, take all of your money out immediately and stop using it for no less than 6 weeks. this is wildly inconvenient but as a marginalised group, we have to make hard choices for long term gain.
if you have other alternatives, close the account completely. it’s better to lose it temporarily than it is to lose all access permanently. this frees up your email/phone number to create a new account if you need to.
the greatest bulk of my research comes from these sources, reaching out to banks directly, @hackinghustling, and the fdic’s 2019 banking report. i’ll add a thread below about cashing out of sites like OF & MV often but i’m basically done.
cash out often and DO YOUR TAXES https://twitter.com/adrierising/status/1367265659722338305
. @threader_app unroll pls
