Patreon was established in 2013 as a platform for creators and artists to gather funds from their supporters or ‘patrons’. Artists and content creators can publish their work on Patreon which can be viewed by their fans after paying a requisite fee. This membership service is currently one of the most popular forms of income earned by independent artists and creators. This platform is utilized by YouTubers, digital artists, musicians, mature content creators, writers, and other types of artists who want to share their work with their audience. Let us know ‘Is Patreon Safe?’.
Is Patreon Safe?
Patreon is safe to use for creators and patrons. Just by going to the official Patreon website, you will notice that the connection is secure. For subscribers, you won’t have to worry about your financial information getting leaked or hacked as it’s encrypted safely by Patreon. For creators, you don’t have to worry about saving your bank information or PayPal for payments as it’s stored securely.
How To Safely Get A Patreon Membership?
Patreon lets its creators and artists choose the prices of their membership tiers. Three types of tiers are usually used by content creators but they can make more tiers as well. The first tier is a basic one which costs the least, the second one has more benefits while the last tier has the most benefits.
When a fan decides to subscribe to a tier, they’ll be prompted to pay for a monthly subscription or an annual one. Monthly memberships are the most popular and they renew on the first of every month. This is automatic so if you want to cancel your membership, you’ll have to do that before the first of every month. There’s no cancelation fee so you won’t have to worry about extra charges.
If your subscribed creator had per-creation posts published for patrons, then you will be charged for those posts too upon cancelation before renewal. This only happens if you accept the per-creation plan before subscribing to the creator so there are no hidden charges. You can remove your card details from the payments section in the ‘manage memberships’ option swiftly as well.
Is It Possible To Get Deceived On Patreon?
When a person stumbles upon a creator’s profile, they might find their content interesting and pay to view their patron-only or paid-only content. At times it’s possible that you will not get the amount that you paid for and you might be dissatisfied with the quality or quantity of the creation delivered.
If that happens to a patron, they can use the ‘chargeback’ feature from Patreon. This enables them to issue a chargeback to the creator and state the reason why they need it. This could be because of the accidental transaction, miscommunication with the creator, or a scam as well if they intend to get the money back but also keep the product delivered.
Patreon’s team answers these chargebacks and deals with the situation thoroughly to have a clear understanding of what went wrong. In most situations, the one in the right will keep the money but there is a possibility that the one scamming might get away with it. Although this doesn’t happen frequently as Patreon has a well-responsive and diligent team.
Fraud On Patreon
Patreon’s team has taken several measures to create a safe environment for the creators and patrons but there are times when creators might have to deal with fake patrons who use pseudo credit cards to steal the creator’s work or their money.
There is a separate ‘Fraud Prevention’ team by Patreon that works to deal with suspicious activity that they might notice during transactions on Patreon. Although the team is working full time to keep a secure environment for the artists and their supporters, fraudulent activity is at an all time high because of the constant rise of technology which has made the scammer’s job easier.
A creator can make the Patreon team’s job easier by informing them about suspiciously large pledges by a name they don’t recognize or if they keep getting pledges with similar names. The team will check the transactions thoroughly, in this case, to ensure the creator won’t fall victim to any scams.
Conclusion
Patreon is a safe website to use in a general sense. There are often scams and fraudulent activity taking place around the website but they’re shut down quickly by the team and the affected people get their dues in return. This service has thousands of artists and content creators that rely on them to make their income, so it’s bound to attract plenty of patrons throughout the year. The process of canceling any membership and setting up a creator account is also easy which makes the service appealing to many users. This platform is secure not only for the content creators but for the subscribers as well.
