Accounts & payments

Two separate problems live on this page. The first is that most payment methods broadcast your legal name. The second is that you are a person with income, an online profile and a public schedule — which makes you a better-than-average target for account takeover. Both are solvable, and neither is expensive.

Getting paid without giving up your name

• Never use a personal peer-to-peer payment app. Consumer payment apps show the legal name on the account to the other party, and several default to a public transaction feed that anyone can browse.
• Platform payouts are the safest default. The platform already knows who you are, it's legally required to, and it sits between you and the customer. That gap is worth a lot.
• A business or trading name can shield your personal name on invoices and transfers, where your country allows it. Company registers are public though, and often list a director's name and a service address — check what yours exposes before registering anything.
• Crypto is pseudonymous, not anonymous. Addresses are permanent and public, and an exchange that has your ID links them back to you. Treat it as traceable.
• Gift cards are an underrated tipping route — no name, no address, no chargeback.

Gifts, wishlists and addresses

Wishlists are popular, useful, and the most reliable doxxing vector in the industry.

• Never give a customer your home address. Not for a gift, not for a card, not for anything, no matter how long they've been around.
• Only use a wishlist service with a genuine third-party address setting, and verify what the sender actually sees by having a friend go through the checkout.
• Better still, use a forwarding service, PO box or virtual mailbox and keep your home address out of the system entirely.
• A "gift" that requires an address is a request for your address. Treat the offer itself as the red flag.
• Check the packing slip problem. Some retailers include sender and recipient details in ways you wouldn't expect.

Scams aimed specifically at you

• The overpayment. "I've sent you extra by mistake, can you send some back?" The original payment is fraudulent or will be reversed; the refund you send is real money.
• The fake payment screenshot. Trivially forged. Confirm funds have actually landed in your account before delivering anything.
• The chargeback after delivery. Card payments can be reversed months later. This is one of the strongest arguments for taking payment through a platform that handles disputes.
• The fake recruiter. An "agency" or "brand" offering a contract that needs your ID, your logins, or an up-front fee. Legitimate partners do not need your platform passwords.
• The verification scam. A link claiming you must re-verify your account, which harvests your credentials. Platforms don't ask for passwords by message.

Locking down accounts

• Unique passwords everywhere, held in a password manager. Reuse is how one unrelated breach becomes a lost income stream.
• Use an authenticator app or a hardware key, not SMS. SIM-swap attacks — where someone convinces your carrier to move your number to their device — specifically target people with money and a public profile. SMS two-factor gives them everything.
• Protect the recovery email above all else. It's the master key to every account you own. Make it separate, secret, unused for anything else, and secure it with its own two-factor.
• Lie on security questions and store the lies in your password manager. Your mother's maiden name and first school are often public record.
• Review active sessions monthly and sign out anything you don't recognise.
• Add a carrier PIN or port-out lock to your phone account if your provider offers one.

Devices and files

• Never open files a fan sends. Not a "custom app", not a script, not a document, not a game. Remote access malware is cheap and the payoff here is obvious.
• Turn on full-disk encryption and use a real lock screen. It's built into every current operating system and takes two minutes.
• Keep work on a separate OS user account if you can't justify a separate machine.
• Back your content up somewhere encrypted. Losing an archive to a dead drive is a business problem as well as an emotional one.
• Be careful with cloud storage links. Sharing a file from an account tied to your legal name can display that name to the recipient.

Tax and records

• You are self-employed, in almost every country, from your first payout. That carries obligations whether or not anyone has told you.
• Put money aside from every payout rather than facing a bill you haven't planned for.
• Find an accountant who has worked with adult creators. They exist, they're discreet, and being properly registered protects you rather than exposing you.
• Keep clean records of income, expenses and platform statements. Equipment, lighting, costumes, a proportion of rent and utilities are often deductible.

Related: staying anonymous and content & leaks.