Speaker 01: 0:00

Hi and welcome to Behind the Paddle Podcast with me, Porcelain Victoria. Today we are going to talk about banking within the sex work industry and how difficult it may be. Today I am here with.

Speaker 02: 0:16

So I am Emily Sin from owner of the Sanctuary of Sin and co-host of the uncensored market in Glasgow.

Speaker 01: 0:24

Right, so we are going to talk about banking today. There is quite a lot of talk about are sex workers allowed to have bank accounts, really.

Speaker 02: 0:38

Or just anyone in the sex industry is cover later on.

Speaker 01: 0:42

Yeah. I mean the umbrella is massive, which I'm sure you'll find out that there are many things which come under sex work or the adult industry. So yeah, shall we get started?

Speaker 02: 1:00

Yeah, cool. Um so one story we kind of wanted to cover was from um earlier this year there was a petition went out for um kind of asking the banks if they can ensure sex workers aren't excluded from banking services. Um this started on the back of Becky Webster's account being closed for the 15th time. Um she's a single mum who was a former NHS worker, turned full-time escort, um, who was actually struggling to feed her child because she couldn't get access to her money um 15 times. So it gathered more than 11,000 signatures, um, and unfortunately it did close before it was due to go up in front of parliament, but the government still put out a response back um from it anyway that I'm not gonna read the full thing out because they're basically waffling on about all the things they're doing for personal bank and current account users, which obviously doesn't apply to business workers in general. Um like they have changed some of the legislation and stuff to make it easier for people, like people is a right to have a bank account, however, it's not a right to have a business bank account, and this is where the problem is. Yeah, we can still be discriminated against. Um one of the things that they said in their statement was the availability of lending products such as mortgages or credit cards and decisions about offering services to businesses are commercial decisions in which the government does not intervene. Um, where they're basically saying that um opening a business account is a business to business deal and it's not something that the government can get involved in, it's something that needs to be decided between those two businesses. So they're basically washing their hands at and saying tough luck, you just need to sort it out between yourselves. Exactly. Um which was the whole point in this petition, funnily enough. So we're kinda back right where we started. Um, they've also advised for customers to make a complaint to the financial ombudsman service, um, which is a UK service that just kind of manages and makes sure that um like banking institutions are following like regulations and stuff like that, which it seems to be they are.

Speaker 01: 3:27

So, what does the business offering services to business or commercial decisions, what what exactly does that mean though?

Speaker 02: 3:37

I think it's it just means that if you're free to open a personal account and that as much as it applies, you're you're still um limited by the terms and conditions of that, like business to business isn't like a right. Like it's if you want to open a business account, you're a business contacting another business to make a deal, and the government doesn't get involved in that, they're only getting involved in like people's personal accounts rather than business.

Speaker 01: 4:08

Right, I think I understand that see that like the way they write it, they make it sound so complicated, but also like really up there with how they write it, it does make people question, like myself, what the hell does that mean?

Speaker 02: 4:28

Like yeah, like the jargon and stuff they're using, like they're like excluding people from being able to actually understand what's going on.

Speaker 01: 4:36

Exactly. It's like, does does that mean that if I have a personal account and I say get some money for like an in-person session, will that be flagged?

Speaker 02: 4:50

So when I was looking at accounts, like I myself am a sole trader, and what the advice was that sole traders could use their personal account. So when I first started, I was using my personal account, no bothers, and I just don't know why, I'm just a bit weird like that. I decided to go off and we look at my terms and conditions on my bank. And within that, it said that if the bank finds that you're using a personal account for business use, they can close it. You they can just close your account. So even if you do use a personal account for business, you're in the exact same position as you are trying to open a business account well in the sex industry where they like they probably don't close many people's accounts that are using um their account as a sole trader, but they probably will close yours because they know that you're attached to sex work. Yeah. And they have that there that they can just that rule they can just pull out and use against you. So yeah.

Speaker 01: 5:51

Yeah, they try and make it sound very confusing, which like they could just bullet point it and just make it look so simple, but instead they have to overcomplicate by what they're saying and make out that most people will understand what they're on about, but they're literally by the looks of it, just trying to slide by and just be very sly about it and be able to close your account basically whenever they want it. Yes.

Speaker 02: 6:26

And they've got all the excuses in the book exactly to do so. But everybody knows why it's been closed.

Speaker 01: 6:33

Oh, absolutely, yeah. Num's report, National Ugly Mugs, in 2022.

Speaker 02: 6:44

Yeah, um called Payment Rejected. So um they conducted an in-depth report just looking into um the kind of lack of knowledge and understanding among banks around sex industry's work in the UK and how that was resulting in widespread banking discrimination against sex workers. Um it's quite interesting actually. I've just noticed while I was having a wee look through the government's um reply to the petition. They've also said about the money laundering regulations apply um to regulated firms, including banks, and speaking about how that's one of the things that banks are looking for in their customers is like the potential for them to be involved in money laundering schemes, and it's something that Num's going to touch on and we're gonna speak a wee bit more about um going forward.

Speaker 01: 7:37

But that's even in the government statement as well, it's just the same things being said across the board, like it's nothing new, nothing sadly is evolving in the speed that we would like where sex workers or people in the adult industry with whatever business they have, having um a sex shop or being in person or doing an online subscription, like sadly we are still just being discriminated over, and they're just using a lot of words and a lot of ways to get around it. And we pay taxes, this is a job like sadly we can't it's not sadly a drop-down thing or anything like that on taxes, which hopefully in the future will change. But we've been discriminated against with banks for so many years, and hopefully in the future it will change. I know that I'm aware of there are some banks for sex workers, but they're all online, yeah, and it's all like it's still totally random.

Speaker 02: 8:53

Like they are good 80% of the time because even in like the report that Num had put out, they've said that um like there's no UK-based banks that are known and not discriminate against sex workers, like there's issues with every single one of them. There's at least one case where that has happened. Um, what you're talking about with like online-based ones, I don't actually know an awful lot about. Um I guess they wouldn't be UK-based.

Speaker 01: 9:21

No, I don't um I think there's a UK-based, yes, I looked up recently. There is a UK one right now, and it's called Suit Up. But I'll be honest, it looks really dodgy. Is it new then?

Speaker 02: 9:33

Well, after this report came out, because that was 2022, so this is this is very new.

Speaker 01: 9:39

Yeah. Um in the group chat full of sex workers, and we had a wonderful talk about what banks accepted us. It it basically is just potluck with what banks we don't get flagged up at because again, even though this is legal, we still get discriminated against.

Speaker 02: 10:00

It seems to be like different all the time as well, because um, like speaking to quite a few different banks myself when I was trying to open an account, um, they were talking about the fact that like people in the sex industry are quote unquote high-risk customers, and basically the reason why one person can get a bank account with them one day and someone else doesn't the next is because they basically have like a certain amount of customers they're allowed to have that fall into that category. So it's only when there's like a space available that people are actually managing to get an account with them, and then when like a better one's coming along. I wonder if this is when people are then getting their bank accounts closed, like if they're then getting a client come in and ask for an account that has more money, or like if there's something else at play here why there's just this constant roundabout of people like popping on for a wee bit and then getting kicked off and then getting on somewhere else, and it's really tough to say because um we spoke about Rebecca Goodwin, how she had like a Tide account, and she's very honest with what she makes.

Speaker 01: 11:03

She makes a good milli or more, yeah, and she's had her bank account and like she she's OF and she's had her bank account closed, so I don't know about that with um seeing if somebody makes more or anything like that.

Speaker 02: 11:25

I could be wrong, it's just a guess. Like I don't know what else it could be. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 01: 11:30

It's an absolute guess of why exactly they discriminate with us. It's either the not necessarily, but the the person who is it would be the what what were they called? Umbren's or the ombudsman's the person you go to to complain about the banks. Oh, they're just complaints. Okay. The person who is in charge of checking accounts and accepting them, they might not just like sex workers.

Speaker 02: 11:57

Yeah, like it might vary person to person weight, whoever you get that day, whoever's on the end of the phone or the computer or yeah, exactly.

Speaker 01: 12:04

Because my situation right now is Santander, who I bank with, have asked for me to give more information and I had to ring the fraud team, and they said in order for us to meet the UK legal and reg oh Jesus Christ, I can't say this word regulatory obligations, we need to make sure the information that we hold on you is up to date. Now, I had to call the fraud team and the questions they asked were what is my job? How many bank accounts do I have? They want the most recent bank statements from those bank other bank accounts. Yep. Um, how much I earn, how much I earn yearly, how much I earn monthly, how many properties do I have? Uh are they mortgaged? Can I have they want proof of ownership of the properties, proof of the mortgage, they want my latest tax return, and then they want my rental agreement, which I have with uh my properties. So they want quite a bit.

Speaker 02: 13:26

Yeah. That is so invasive. Yeah. I would be really interested to see if like your local like fish and chip shop were getting asked this like level of questioning about their bank account.

Speaker 01: 13:39

Exactly.

Speaker 02: 13:40

Um if this is specifically, yeah.

Speaker 01: 13:43

And I remember two years ago, I got my bank account frozen. Uh I think it was in like October, so it was near to Christmas. And when it's frozen, the bank can decide if they want to actually let transactions out, and you can't transfer money or anything like that usually. And when that was frozen, oh my god, my mental health was like frickin' terrified. Oh, of course, because I have to pay the bills, and if I don't want to pay the bills, then my house will um fall into debt and like all the bills and everything like that. Yeah. Um and I can't put money in. And it's like how how are you meant to have somebody survive? Like exactly. Thankfully, luckily, then I had a lovely client who um I think he was able to put money into my account. Thankfully, I'm not too sure what we did. Um, but then I think it was like a week later, it was unfrozen.

Speaker 02: 14:50

Yeah.

Speaker 01: 14:50

I didn't get a reason why. I didn't get a reason why it was frozen or anything like that. Yeah. Uh they j they just froze it. And it was so terrifying thinking, what the frick am I meant to do now? So we're gonna have so we're gonna see what is gonna happen with my bank now. Have you got access to the woman?

Speaker 02: 15:12

No.

Speaker 01: 15:12

Yeah. So basically they said I've got access until the review is over. So I've submitted all the documents they needed, yeah, and all the information.

Speaker 02: 15:24

Well done. I wanted the dot tinker.

Speaker 01: 15:27

Hey, I was on the phone to them for an hour. Oh my god. And like I wait, I I was on hold for like 20 minutes. It was good, I was getting it done today. Yeah, like it was it was good, and then yeah, uploaded everything and whatnot. Very successful in my motivation because they give you a time limit. So they gave me that message on Thursday, which was the 6th of June, and they give you 20 days to submit all the information and ring up because you have to ring up to be like, yes, please, I I want to keep my bank account and everything like that. So it's not great for people with bloody anxiety or anything like that. Um so yeah, they gave me 20 days and I just have to wait and see. They didn't give me a time scale of when the review is going to be done or anything like that. They just said they'll email me. So with what I've sent, and with me being a relationship therapist, and an exotic dancer, right? And an exotic dancer, because for whatever reason, that was a drop down when I made the account or something. I can't remember. It must have been a loan or something that I said that was my job for. Yeah. I think that that was it. Um and that was in their drop down because you know that that's allowed. Yeah. But Dominatrix or escort companion, um it's sex shop in the drop downs. Sometimes. Yeah, yeah, fair.

Speaker 02: 17:15

Most like, yeah. There's an other. I was just doing other because I was like, I was determined I was getting a bank account saying exactly what I was doing.

Speaker 01: 17:24

I think on my like online only ones, I'm other. Uh-huh. Um, so yeah, we'll see what happens with Santander. I got transferred to the business line because I wanted to ask them if they did accept sex workers. Now I was on the phone with a lovely woman, and she herself was like, You pay taxes. Yep. I don't see why this should be a problem. And she was so lovely because she absolutely agreed that in this day and age it should be fine. Yeah. Um and so Wednesday, I have an appointment to make a business account. Last year.

Speaker 02: 18:10

So is your one at the moment a personal account then? Yeah, I have um And they're still asking you that many questions. Yep.

Speaker 01: 18:17

Just for a personal account. I went into Santander about two, three years ago um to get a business account, and I explained my job, and they were like, no.

Speaker 02: 18:27

Yeah.

Speaker 01: 18:28

And they literally turned me away. I had an in-person uh appointment, and they were like, because this is your job, w we don't do business with you. Yeah. And so I'm very curious to see what this phone call is gonna say.

Speaker 02: 18:43

If it's gonna be the same again.

Speaker 01: 18:44

When was that two years ago? About two, three years ago. So I I don't believe it's gonna be any different, but I want to know what is in their terms and conditions because the lady couldn't ask me and she sets up business accounts, yeah. So hopefully that this person who I'll be talking to next will know something about that. And now that it's on my file, that I'm a lovely dominatrix. Um hopefully it'll be all fine, but we we will see. I I don't encourage people to lie, but in this job, in this industry, whether it's a sex shop or in person or online, you probably will get found out at some point.

Speaker 02: 19:32

Yeah.

Speaker 01: 19:33

But it's not about that, I would say. I would be I would say it's about surviving. Yeah. Actually seeing how long you're able to get a bank account for until the bank says you're you're in this umbrella, we don't want you. Yeah. That that is how I see it. I see it as this is how you're gonna survive. Totally. I like I like you know me, I hate lying. I absolutely do. Like, my family knows, everybody knows, my accountant knows. I would hope so. My doctors know what my job is and everything like that. Uh I like and my mortgage advisor knows and stuff like that, and I don't know what exactly is on the mortgage and things, but I don't like lying. But when it comes to banks, when they want to not necessarily dis yeah, discrimination massive discrimination to discriminate against you, and they want to deceive you in thinking that banks are for everybody, yeah. And I don't believe that's true. Because we're not money laundering, we're not trafficking, we're not doing bad shit. We are surviving, we're having a life, we're enjoying what our job is, yeah. Whether that's selling subscriptions or selling toys or doing in-person work. I don't believe we should be discriminated against. It affects our mental health, it affects the way we pay our bills, it affects a lot. And sadly, the banks just don't care. And we we have a in the UK here, we uh we're we're picking there's a new election soon. And I don't know if that's gonna affect anything, so we'll see.

Speaker 02: 21:29

Hopefully. Anyone's better than the Tories.

Speaker 01: 21:34

So I'm I'm not sorry if there's any Tory listeners. Sorry, it happens. Freedom! They've gone, they've gone already.

Speaker 02: 21:44

We've scared them off, yeah.

Speaker 01: 21:46

Exactly. But yeah, that is what's happening with me right now, and that is my experience with banks, terrifying as hell, yeah, because um you just think you're gonna get turned away, and that happens, and you're getting judged and you're opening yourself up to that judgment every time.

Speaker 02: 22:08

And I think like for people who are starting out exactly, like that can be so off-putting, you know, like even for myself who like I'm just buying and selling things, um, like still felt that like guilt and that horrible like shame almost from like getting rejected so many times and starting to be like, I've um is what I'm doing wrong, like why is there such like backlash to this? Like, but exactly.

Speaker 01: 22:35

Just take a dildo, yeah. Nowhere to put it, just use it. Go on, I'll send you more many. I'm gonna like phrase it just like, what do you sell? Nipple clamps.

Speaker 02: 22:54

Tentacle dildos. Do you want to say? Oh I had this is slightly off topic, um, but I had to get someone to fix something on my website once, and it was great because they were doing like the um like the control in it for far away. I can't remember the words for it just now. Like where they were controlling my mouse, so they were like on my website. Oh, and they were just like, Oh, your stuff's so cool, and it was actually such a positive experience, it was really nice. I was like totally prepared for it being awkward as hell, but nah, it was it was lovely, it was really wholesome.

Speaker 01: 23:33

I mean that going on to that just a wee bit, that is another thing we would uh I think people would benefit from talking about is just how websites handle us. Yeah, um I guess another thing we could say with banking is stripe.

Speaker 02: 23:49

Stay away, stay away from stripe. So I um working with The Lovely Throne, which is like a wish list for creators that kind of works as like a middleman so that um people can get gifted items without having to give out like their name and address and stuff. Um, but they use Stripe. So when I first started working with them, they were like, Yeah, all your stuff can get pulled from our website at any time just to make you aware. It's like, cool, it hasn't happened so far, fingers crossed. But like I think there's just limited options for certain like platforms and stuff because they all seem to be using Stripe.

Speaker 01: 24:26

Yeah, like Stripe, MasterCard. Is it just them all that don't want to work? Exactly. Nobody does, and this is the difficulty. Yeah, like um this is how hard it is for people under this umbrella to actually find reliable banks. Yeah. And you'll find banks which are like online, but you can't put money into it. So that makes it difficult for people who have stalls, yeah, or in-person sex workers who just um either just take money or partially take cash. Uh yeah, that that that's just it's so difficult. Yeah.

Speaker 02: 25:10

That I think that's just everywhere these days as they're kind of moving into like a cashless society. I think we should probably do an episode on that at some point as well. Oh my god.

Speaker 01: 25:20

Just just clients go through the door. It's like, do you want another half an hour? Just just tap it, just tap it.

Speaker 02: 25:26

Oh, I forgot to charge my card machine and give me 10 minutes.

Speaker 01: 25:32

What is it? It's it's called like square something, isn't it? Yeah, just square. Yeah. Oh my god. And here's your receipt. With the VAT included. I'm so bad. I know. Yeah. Again, we can do another episode on like limited businesses and VAT and stuff like that, because I've had recently the joys of doing that.

Speaker 02: 26:02

So if we kind of go back to like NUM's report and looking into why it is that banks are claiming they don't want to work with the sex industry, or in this case, I would say sex work on its own, because the reason that they're given their justification for the exclusion of sex workers, um, for example, NATWES state that they acknowledge the risks associated around the adult entertainment sector, which include the promotion of gender inequality, ease of access to pornography, human trafficking, forced and child labour, and links to prostitution, drugs, crime, and money laundering risk. That's anything though. I don't know how any of that applies to like a sex shop, for example. Like, why is it That could be anything? And also that could be literally every business.

Speaker 01: 26:51

My frustration right now. It literally could be anything. Because like you can't say, oh, you're open to this, and it's like, okay, so all the lingerettes, yeah, all the takeaways, um all the nail places, exactly. All the like things which aren't established at big brands like Asda, Tesco, Peacocks, I can't think of it.

Speaker 02: 27:19

Oh, the sweetie takeaways.

Speaker 01: 27:21

Yes, especially the Do you want American candy? Because you know, this isn't money laundering. Yeah. We've all heard that. So what why is it any different?

Speaker 02: 27:35

Um, I had actually put a post up on about this on Instagram a few months ago, and one of the I had quite a few people get back, but one of the ones that really surprised me was a woman that I follow who does tarot reading has also really struggled to get a bank account because tarot is also a high-risk customer.

Speaker 01: 27:56

Oh, so it's not high risk that like we could possibly die. No, it's high risk for like the banks because we could be money laundering.

Speaker 02: 28:07

And the bit that gets me is like you've just listed an X amount of things that you've provided to the banks. Why don't they just do that? Do you know what I mean? Like if they're doing they're doing that, and that's their checks to make sure that money laundering isn't going on, so like they are already doing the things to avoid their own argument against working with sex workers, it's ridiculous. Like just the sex industry in general, which like half of that stuff doesn't even apply to anyway, or it doesn't apply to any more than just any other business. Like, it's totally ridiculous.

Speaker 01: 28:42

It really is. It's they're really grasping at straws, and sadly, it does work because it it's true in a way that that can happen, but it can happen in any business, even if you have like a limited company or anything like that. I mean, how many like it's funny on that list it doesn't say like tax evasion or anything like that, whereas there's big companies that have oh, but the banks don't care about that.

Speaker 02: 29:16

That's no cost to name any money. Exactly.

Speaker 01: 29:19

They they don't care about like the oh it's so bullshit. They don't care about their actual customers, they just care about saving their own ass and discriminating against them.

Speaker 02: 29:32

Aye, it's not even about saving their own ass. This is the thing, it's literally just like a moral issue that they're taking a stance on because like the reasoning the reasons that they're given, as we've said, like could apply to anybody, and like I understand to an extent that in the past, like there's a potential that this customer base maybe would cause like cover like a higher percentage of that, but like that's so outdated for these. days especially with things like OnlyFans and stuff like the the way the sex work industry has changed over time has like actually like reduced I would say the amount of like crime attached to it like because it's getting easier for people to work safely and no have to like resort to like coming under like the protection of other people to the same extent. Yeah because people can like work online and stuff now.

Speaker 01: 30:27

But it's ridiculous because even when you work online you can still get your bank account shut even if it is just online subscriptions. There is a big history of banks going bye bye because you've had an OF or a dark fans or loyal fans and it's it's absolutely ridiculous. And weirdly when I had to ring the bank up they only mentioned um one of the subscription sites and that's because it looked dodgy as hell dead to be fair because some I I don't know why exactly I need to look it up some subscription sites they send through multiple people um so it's different every month I've noticed that probably so they can keep their bank accounts open yeah yeah uh what else was there on the national ugly mugs which are amazing by the way absolutely lovely.

Speaker 02: 31:29

Yeah like if you want to read the report in full it's all on their website which is where we got a lot of information from it's definitely worth a read.

Speaker 01: 31:36

Um they covered a lot more topics than what we are today really interesting I definitely definitely encourage people if they are interested in anything underneath the umbrella to look at national ugly mugs they do have a few bases all around the UK I know we have one in Edinburgh and they are just wonderful people if you need advice on anything it'll either be on their website or you could just even email them.

Speaker 02: 32:11

Yeah um but what else is there to talk about this is interesting. So it's one of the things I'd written was the terms and conditions of various banks including Tide Revolute and Sterling um will not be offering their services to people engaged in adult industries in the first place. My bank accounts with Tides like actually this is what I mean it's it's like the look of the truth so random.

Speaker 01: 32:32

Yeah so it states on Revolute that they do not accept sex workers. Yeah um same with Monzo.

Speaker 02: 32:42

Yeah Sterling I think is owned or uses Mastercard well that was the one when I had put online um after I'd had like my first two or three like rejections from banks like I'd put a post on Instagram just been like help guys like what what what are people using? And I'd had three people come back to me saying Sterling was a good one and I got like instantly rejected from them when I tried but a lot of people that commented have bank accounts and have had bank accounts with them for years and never had an issue so that's crazy. It it really is the look of the draw. Even when it's in their terms and conditions that they're not working with sex workers they still are in some cases.

Speaker 01: 33:20

So like my with Monzo my limited company is on there and you can see it and everything like that like I had to connect it to my limited company so they know what I do at least I'm down as over because again there's nothing in taxes or when you do start a company there is nothing to say that you can apply for like sex work or anything like that. There's nothing that says that that you're an in-person dominatrix or an in-person S there's no like codes for that. Exactly um you have to be entertainment or arts or exotic dancer I don't know if that one's on there I can't remember actually I can't fucking dance for shit don't tell the banks um but yeah like what else is there? Um I think that's pretty much us to be honest yeah basically if you want to become anything under the umbrella be aware it is going to be very very difficult with banks I'm not saying don't be truthful or do be truthful that it's all up to you and how you handle it.

Speaker 02: 34:46

Yeah and at the end of the day if everybody's not being honest about what they're doing things aren't going to change because there's not going to be like enough people being honest to like elicit that change do you know what I mean as well yeah absolutely um as you've heard from us like it is literally so unpredictable if you will get your bank account closed.

Speaker 01: 35:11

I definitely definitely encourage people to have like a couple money stored away or something for like quote unquote a rainy day because it's bound to happen at some point. I've had my account with Santander since I was I was we so I've had it many many years and two years ago. Yeah exactly two years ago was the first time that it was frozen and now it's coming up again that it's possible fraud or whatnot and then what else I got turned away from making a business account based on my business um and yeah it's just very very unpredictable so even if you've been with a bank account long they will still turn you down. If you make millions they will still turn you down and block your account and ban you it's a very very difficult industry. I would not recommend it because there will be mental health issues along the way and there will be stress and there will be lots and lots of things to do and you have to think about everything. So yeah I think that's probably about it just think about what you want to do in life think about your company name think about if you want to be a company because as we've said here it doesn't even matter if it's a personal account because that's why I kept my Santander's because they're all personal accounts and as being a sole trader before I came a company it was absolutely fine it was encouraged to that you could have a personal account in some business but you just have the risky the rug being pulled out of you under you exactly what I should have checked one of the things that had been changed by the government was that the um if they were going to close your personal account it used to be 60 days notice and they've upped it to 90 after COVID. That's so nice.

Speaker 02: 37:24

You're giving you that extra month to shit your shell and try and get something sorted out but I don't know if that applies to if you break the terms and conditions of your account I don't know if that's if it's for a separate reason or not.

Speaker 01: 37:37

This is a good point don't use PayPal PayPal is not sex worker friendly at all or anything like that. My we story with it is I did a webcam uh used PayPal uh took the payment he then did a chargeback and put in the description she's a webcamer. Yep and they instantly were like we're gonna block your account you need to show us that you are not a webcammer you need to show us that you are a therapist she's a witch same energy and we need proof of your website yeah so some banks will ask for proof of your website or um whatever PayPal is transaction like a payment service yeah um yeah that was yeah that they they held the money and they've done it with multiple um sex workers where they've held the money and they haven't given it you back. Yeah because I remember it was like six nine hundred quid or something.

Speaker 02: 38:44

I've seen a few people that I can't remember anything about right now talking about that like having used.

Speaker 01: 38:51

I can't remember the exact price I want to say it was 90 grand might have been nine can't remember but this famous sex worker Bella Delphine who sold the bath water she put up a post recently saying how PayPal blocked and banned her from PayPal and they have that money. Right. They never gave her that money back she earned nothing from selling that bath water it was probably at least 90 then I want to say 90 I'll have to look up it later but she earned nothing from that because PayPal um took it and apparently it was against her terms and conditions whereas she can't find anything in their terms and conditions about why they didn't let her sell her bath water and get the profits from it. So I would very much be wary about PayPal.

Speaker 02: 39:51

Is there any other payment services that you've used like PayPal?

Speaker 01: 39:55

Is there any that um Cash Apps app I'm thinking of I knew there was one that like people use quite often Cash App I don't use anymore because they really fucked sex workers over in terms of I think you can only transfer 150 or something like that.

Speaker 02: 40:20

Is that like the minimum payout for that or something?

Speaker 01: 40:23

Maximum payout or the maximum payout right that like yeah or like you can send or something like that. I can't quite remember because I just always avoided it really it just wasn't for me um but yeah it's not great at all don't use Cash App and of course Cash App can be like nope goodbye. Um PayPal Cash App I don't really think there's any others I know that Amazon can ban your account from giving to if you get too many gift cards. Yeah um we went to a lovely fringe show I can't remember her name now something lane and absolutely lovely and she talked about she was an in-person sex worker and she talked about how Amazon banned her account and kept the money I'm trying to look up her name and I cannot say that. I kind of see that we are struggling can you google it Google read aloud um or just find her Twitter for me but yeah she was absolutely lovely um and once I remember what it was called and everything we shall Quidorus Quidorus can you send me the link for her Twitter please but yeah she discussed how Amazon just banned her basically and kept the money which obviously isn't great but so it can happen on a lot of things it seems nothing safe basically nice yeah do do do yeah Lane does um the sex job show really really enjoyed it really awesome she talks about Findom and sex work in a comedic way but very truthful yeah I would definitely encourage people to see her in every way possible of course is she doing the fringe this year I'm not so sure I'll have to have a look I hope so because it was a good laugh and it was so nice to see somebody actually say the negatives about sex work rather than all the positives she can make all this money and everything like that and I make she was like I broke a guy's ribs yeah and I was like yes I think it's hard if you're like constantly trying to like campaign for something to be negative about it.

Speaker 02: 43:17

Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 01: 43:18

Yeah yeah like it's quite a hard laney walk to see why it's normal like spoken about as like commonly but yeah it's it's like we're it's it's like with this podcast we try to be honest yeah and actually tell the truth because it's it's not gonna go down well if you just go blind into BDSM into not knowing what's safe or education.

Speaker 02: 43:48

Yeah like I like there's risks in everything.

Speaker 01: 43:51

Oh absolutely like especially in sex work especially in BDSM yeah yeah what else is there there's yeah that like get into some under the umbrella group chats look on Reddit look wherever there will be people saying there will be people saying oh if you do Barclays they do do they do offer a high was it Barclays no it wasn't Barclays it was Lloyd's was it let me see I got rejected from Barclays I feel like I'm eventually going to be able to see I've been rejected from them all if my bank shuts hopefully that's it let me yeah thankfully I don't think I've ever been rejected from banks other than your business account one which one when you applied to Santander for your business account oh yeah apart from that one yeah the mortgages is like a different question but we'll go into that at some other point how the hell do you spell Lloyd's double L O Y D S oh it must have been Barclays it must have been that was the dog no it wasn't me mate yeah Barclays offer high risk business Oreo what's he dreaming about I know such a good dream Barclays offer high risk business accounts daily pay use them which is another payment service the fees are higher but not much in the scheme of things the best way to try and obtain one is to do an application over the phone with a business manager so you can explain what you do. Oh is this the thing for DOM line? Yeah yeah so this so as I said find a group chat find something where you can talk to other sex workers in the industry or people under the umbrella see what they think get their uh experiences get the most recent up to date because it seems to change a lot absolutely um in this they also say the downside is that it can take six to eight weeks for an application at the moment so as we said it needs to be up to date yeah there's no guarantee they'll accept you but having an account at a proper bank like Barclays and then being fully aware of what you do is worth it basically because the hope is that you being up front means that you're not gonna get questioned X amount of time down the line.

Speaker 02: 46:53

Exactly because everything you're doing matches up to what you've told them.

Speaker 01: 46:57

Yeah which me being the exotic dancer I still got questioned though um but now that I've uh moved on to be a relationships purpose it should be fine but now I'm opening up a Dominatrix business account hopefully but we'll see I've got the feeling that my bank accounts are just gonna get closed which really sucks but we'll see um yeah moral of the story is no bank is safe basically we can always say this is good this is great because somebody said that they've been with Sandare for God knows how many years and it's been great for them. However this is what I'm experiencing and other people have been shut down by Santander. So what we need is a new bank to start that's just for sex workers who will have so much business I know it will be unreal oh god if anybody listening has like millions of pounds please do this I wish I really wish billions I don't know I'll see what my connections are but no I think that's it I think that's where we wrap up cool because that's it you'll get screwed over by banks eventually I think this is the end of episode three from behind the paddle I've been your host Paulson Victoria and Emily Son yeah you can find details um we have an Instagram behind the paddle yeah behind the paddle underscore podcast nice we also have a gmail behind the paddle gmail.com yeah um what else do we have soon to be told it's behind the paddle podcast at gmail dot com behind the paddlepodcast dot gmail dot com yeah okay there we go good job um without the snoring dog um what else do we have twitter at just behind the paddle we've got a fet life now and a fet life if you don't know what that is it's a kinky Facebook and that's just behind the paddle I believe that's just it I'll just double check but and if any lovely people want to check out my website which is thesanctuaryofsin.com if you use the code behind the paddle you get a 10% discount off yeah yeah wonderful right that has been behind the paddle thank you so much for listening this has been really awesome bye bye