Chargeback Prevention Strategies for Sex Workers: Minimizing Risk and Protecting Income

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Running an online business can provide creators the freedom to work from home and showcase their creativity, but with that also comes the challenges of learning to cope with chargeback prevention.

Maintaining good communication with your customers, understanding the platform’s rules and regulations regarding fraud chargeback, and ensuring you deliver what you promise, are all good ways to prevent chargebacks on OnlyFans. We’ll dive deeper and explain in detail what OnlyFans’ specific rules are and what chargeback prevention strategies work best for this platform.

What is a chargeback on OnlyFans?

OnlyFans processes all credit card transactions for the creator directly, so you don’t have to handle payment processing or chargebacks yourself. From the OnlyFans FAQ page:

OnlyFans Chargebacks / Credit Card Disputes: If a User seeks a chargeback or dispute from their credit card company, the User’s access to OnlyFans may be discontinued or limited. If you believe your account has been limited in error, please contact support. Any amounts that Users seek to refund or chargeback will be reported to the Creator and will be removed from the Creator’s income.

Chargebacks are different from refunds, which are issued by creators. A chargeback is initiated by a fan against their credit card company or bank account, and in turn against the creator’s OnlyFans account. 

How do you prevent customer chargebacks?

There are no foolproof chargeback prevention strategies no matter what kind of business you’re in—especially when your business is on OnlyFans. To prevent chargebacks, you must first identify the core reasons behind the source of these disputes. In most businesses, the top trigger for chargebacks is known as “friendly fraud”—when the original charge is legitimate but the customer changes their mind post-transaction and disputes the charge on their end anyway. For OnlyFans creators, this could happen due to a number of reasons, but oftentimes a spouse or partner finds the charge on a bank statement and the client refuses to fess up to it.

This particular OnlyFans chargeback isn’t something you can combat ahead of time, unfortunately.

The best chargeback prevention strategy for OnlyFans business owners is high-quality customer service. Take for example the 2020 Bella Thorne OnlyFans controversy, during which the actress promised to deliver a nude photo to her $200 monthly tier fans but only sent lingerie photos, sparking a slew of OnlyFans chargebacks.

Delivering on your promise, ensuring your page is in line with the terms of service of the platform, responding to inquiries from customers in a timely manner, and above all, under-promising and over-delivering, are the best ways to prevent chargebacks.

Is your OnlyFans account banned after a chargeback?

A creator’s account isn’t immediately banned after a chargeback occurs. The user will no longer have access to the OnlyFans account they initiated the chargeback against, and their account will be otherwise limited. Creators can keep track of chargeback ratios while logged into their accounts; this is important because if this ratio gets too high, they are subject to losing access to their accounts. 

Can a creator refund a fan on OnlyFans?

If a fan contacts a creator stating they’re unhappy with the content they’ve received, it is at the creator’s discretion whether to issue a refund. Often, this can be a good way to prevent chargebacks, as the fan is satisfied by receiving a refund and will still have access to the creator’s work.

Issuing refunds does not stop the fan from following your work nor does it preclude you from providing future private media to them in exchange for tips in Pay-Per-View messaging. It also does not apply to your chargeback ratio and, therefore would not affect access to your account in the future. Creators can refund fans for tips received or for monthly tier charges at their discretion. 

Although it may not be optimal to issue refunds to fans on a regular basis, it’s definitely worth considering when a fan reaches out with a valid reason in order to prevent numerous chargebacks. Giving a creator the opportunity to make things right without involving a credit card company can be a good chargeback prevention strategy that keeps the fan happy while safeguarding the creator’s account.

Protecting your income by employing these chargeback prevention strategies while doing business on OnlyFans and other fan sites doesn’t have to be difficult. Building your fansite based on providing quality media for your fans, delivering products in a timely manner, and maintaining high-quality customer service are the best ways to prevent chargebacks from occurring.

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