Advance Warning

I have run into that problem a few times. But luckily my patreons are mostly very good people.

I've had to cancels once in a while for finances reasons(sadly they've sometimes been THAT tight) but I hear you there. So far the best way I can see if an account is just a bot or "burner account" intending to dodge their pledges is to look at their account history: If they have an actual avathar, chances are by that alone that they are a real account thus increasing the chance of them being there indeed to support an artist. If they have actual history of supporting(that is, having processed payments and all) other accounts.... then it's a good sign they might again being there to support yours and not dodge on their pledges. Finally, if their account informations is set to "private", I've ironically found that to be a good sign they intend to back a Patreon: they just don't want people to delve and know the specific -type- of content they support. However, if the account has no avathar, no history of ever supporting any other Patreon and not even bothered to make their account informations privates..... yeah, chances are very high you're facing a newly created account very much set to delve through all of your art and save it as fast as possible and not care if they're banned right after they dodged pledges payments by forcing a declined payment. In other words, chances are very high you're facing a "burner account" there. I hear Patreon is experimenting with SOME users with options to demands pledge payments upfront before allowing access but sadly I've got no news of how THAT is going and how long it will be before they implement it. All I can say is that if they ever do, it will be "Damn, it was about time" for me. It's frustrating to check every new backers to see if they are pledges dodges who unrealistically inflate the amount that seems to be pledged on my own Patreon(and thus is I'll have to ban the, ASAP once their pledge read as "declined" as I expected) or if they are the real deal :/ I don't care so much about people "stealing my content" because I've come to expect that from Patreon and the alternatives would mean "email locking" my content behind emails that would hurt my backers more than it would people who really never cared all that much beyond the hope to nab the occasional piece of artwork... but gosh I'd love ways of just preventing those fake backers from happening in the first place so I can have clearer ideas of how much I can expect to make from this in a month.

Fringecrow

You aren't the first artist to get hit with this. Watch those supporters, Kids! The bot you remove won't be paying you anyway!

Mark Ashworth

They're too cheap for $1/month for good artwork? WTF?

Carnosaur

What a bunch of... I can't say it on here.

Stone Quillian III

For the love of, ALL YOU NEED IS $1 PEOPLE, WHY!?

ZekeStaright

I hear they're being called "scalpers"

Tinokel

This sounds more than a little silly. It's not something you would think people would do to save a single dollar. There are obviously some pretty mean and miserable people out there. The question is who cares? Perhaps adding $2 or $5 and $10 tiers would balance things up a bit by harvesting more contributions from your keener supporters.

Bob Partridge

I believe there is a new option for creators that charges new patrons as soon as they join. This should help cut down the number of fake pledges.

ScarySerum

Kill them all and let god sort them out! Or block them, same difference really

Kemix.exe

If it's any consolation, you're not alone on that. I know other artists going through similar. One had been dooped with $300 worth from scammers. Hope it gets work out man. But yes, Block em!

Savage Shark

I was having issues with the card going through. >_o

amandamontagne

Serves them right

Axti

Yes, block the buggers.

John

AS IS RIGHT AND PROPER.

McZed