I don’t really want to reveal my identity online and I’ve been trying to find how I can do that. It seems like Patreon is the only one that acts as a middleman between you and the donator but it only does monthly subscriptions which I don’t really want to have…
Short answer: you can’t.
Long answer: you can use the same schemes people use for money laundering, but you risk a knock on the door from your friendly LEO and you won’t have any way to prove the money didn’t come from drug deals, human trafficking, or worse. That’s where “guilty money” and “asset forfeiture” come into play (aka: any money you can’t prove where it came from, will be taken from you).
The most anonymous and safe thing you can do, is to create a self-custodial crypto wallet, avoid linking it in any way to your identity, have people donate to it (in crypto), and use it to pay (in crypto) for stuff that can’t be linked to you.
Otherwise, any bank or payment processor, including crypto exchanges, in 1st, 2nd, and even some 3rd world countries, has to meet with KYC requirements that will identify you, identify where the money came from, and identity where it went to, then keep those records for x years (5, 10… depends on the country).
You could probably set up a LLC or trust with a post office box address and VOIP number, depending on where you live. Then set up a business account with PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, etc. This will provide some measure of privacy from random people who donate but of course legally you will still be connected.
In Québec, all companies must have their “ultimate beneficiary” listed in their corporate listings so while a PO box and VOIP number are options, the listing would still have my full name and would be rather expensive to just… accept money.
Hmm okay. Maybe some sort of legal forum about Québec laws might have some more insight. And true, this will all cost money so depending on the donations it may not be worth it.
There is crypto. You could take Bitcoin or if you want to be incredibly cautious Monero. It is an additional hurdle though for the average consumer.
I really really do not like cryptocurrencies and do not want to encourage anyone to use them.
the issue you’ll run into is the rules and regulations on the finance industry. To prevent fraud, terrorism, or crime, there’s know-your-client and anti-money-laundering rules that most financial services follow that require you to identify yourself.
Kofi lets you use a PayPal business account, or Stripe, which you set what is shown on the donors bank statement (so it’d show up as what you set it to, rather than a personal name/email). So that might be an option to protect you from being identified by donors, if that’s your worry.
Right, Kofi does do that but to establish a Paypal business account, you need to have a registered entreprise as far as I can tell. To established a registered entreprise, I would need to, well, register it and then I might be liable for corporate tax and people will be able to simply look up the business and find my personal information there anyways. As for Stripe, as said in another document, it still leaked information about me which is quite annoying.
I have a PayPal business account and don’t have any sort of registered business. They upgraded me at some point years ago when I was getting paid through them regularly. There might be a minimum that has to have gone through your account or something, but it shouldn’t incur any corporate taxes or anything.
To established a registered entreprise, I would need to, well, register it and then I might be liable for corporate tax and people will be able to simply look up the business and find my personal information
Drug trafficking rings use someone else to register the enterprise (family, friends, random guy they pay a token amount to, company in a tax haven) and use them as the fall guy to avoid revealing/linking their own name to the money.
Can’t kofi be anonymous?
If it can, I can’t figure it out.
Here are my observations on it:
- Paypal
- If you use a personal account, your full name and the email address associated with the email account will be revealed in the Paypal transaction
- Stripe
- If you set it up with a business name, it will seemingly still reveal the city from your home residence.
It doesn’t actually act as a shield like Patreon does where the only thing the person paying sees “Patreon LLC” on the transaction.
If you’re willing to setup a business for this, there are services that provide registered office addresses at different locations, basically a mailbox for registration purpose.
For conveniency pick a city relatively close, but not necessarily your city of residence. Lookup services in your country to get details and prices.
It’ll have a cost, and it won’t make it perfectly anonymous, company records probably will show your name, and the registration/hosting service know who you are.
It really depends who you want to prevent from having your identity. It’s likely impossible to receive money while being perfectly anonymous from all involved parties.
That is true, getting a PO box seems expensive though…
That said, I just want to hide from the donator, not the government nor the payment provider.
The issue is that even by incorporating a business, my full name be trivially found. Corporate listing services in Quebec are free.
- Paypal
Revealing it to who? The service you’re getting money through? Good luck. The donor? That’s pretty easy.
On PayPal you can set up a donation page that only lists the name you give it. It might have something to do with setting up an organization or something? Anyway, I use it for donations for my DayZ server and it doesn’t display personal info, just the server name.
I don’t know if CashApp shows anything other than the name you set, or if there’s some way to find one with the other, but that might be worth looking at.
Right, that’s what I want, just the donor.
On PayPal, It mentioned that it was the “legal business name” so I guess I got scared because of that.
CashApp is not available in Canada.
They may have different policies in Canada than in the US. I’d try contacting their support to find out!
I haven’t been able to figure it out either. Which really sucks, but I understand why it is the way it is. I hope you can figure something out that works well for you soon!