Patronage Trimmed
Added 2015-09-04 18:09:25 +0000 UTCAs the Patreon system has told me that all pledges for this month have been collected, I've just gone through and removed all the DECLINED accounts.
Unfortunately, it appears that someone out there has written a bot program, programmed to manufacture Patreon accounts using fake credit card info, and make phony pledges with them for the purposes of scraping art of the online galleries here - and I had rather a lot of these.
All of my $10 pledges were fake.
All but one of my $20 pledges were fake.
All but one of my August pledges were fake.
in all, just about 2/3 of the money pledged to me was fake.
...and my milestone of hitting $100 per month in pledges never actually happened.
This has somewhat knocked the wind out of my sails.
I have written a message to Patreon asking what they intend to do about
the overt gaming of their pledge system, but so far have received no
response.
In the meantime, I shall continue onward - and I again thank you for taking enough of an interest in me and my work to continue to pledge your support.
Thanks guys. I really do mean that.
Comments
UGH. This is terrible. I hope this gets worked out.
Peter Buxton
2015-09-06 00:47:52 +0000 UTCHopefully Patreon will address this problem.
Albert Temple
2015-09-04 23:41:50 +0000 UTCI was alerted to it via a lengthy discussion on FA. It seems these bots have been plaguing pretty much everyone with a Patreon recently.
Cobalt
2015-09-04 19:17:54 +0000 UTCBots for pledges? Hard to believe...
Ryo Pasternak
2015-09-04 18:45:46 +0000 UTC