Sex workers say Wells Fargo shut their bank accounts: ‘Destroying our livelihoods’
Wells Fargo has inexplicably terminated the bank accounts of several high-profile individuals in the sex industry — one of whom took to Twitter and slammed the bank for the move.
“I don’t bounce checks, I’ve never done anything bad with my bank account, I don’t have fraud alerts or do chargebacks,” Alana Evans, an adult performer who is also the president of the Adult Performance Artists’ Guild (APAG), said in a tearful Twitter video that was posted on Friday.
Evans read a letter that she received from Wells Fargo informing her that after a 30-year banking relationship, her account would be discontinued.
“A bank that I’ve done business with for 30 years decided that I’m not worthy of a relationship with them,” she said, adding: “How am I supposed to pay my bills? How am I supposed to get paid?”
The Post has sought comment from Wells Fargo.
In the letter received by Evans, the bank stated that it “performs ongoing reviews of its account relationships in connection with the Bank’s responsibilities to manage risks in its banking operations.”
Wells Fargo made the decision to terminate Evans’ account “as a result of this review,” as per the bank’s letter.
Spike Irons and Sofie Marie, a married couple who jointly run the Las Vegas-based pornographic production company YummyGirl Studios, told Rolling Stone magazine that they, too, were informed by Wells Fargo that their account would be decommissioned effective Oct. 13.
They told Rolling Stone that Wells Fargo sent them a letter last month shortly after they cashed a check that Marie earned from recently posing for Hustler.
The bank account was used to pay salaries to independent contractors as well as actors and production staffers.
Irons and Marie said they have applied to at least two other banks — both of which rejected them.
They said they fear they will not be able to pay their workers once their Wells Fargo account shuts down in a month.
“We’re a tax-paying business that has been operating consistently since 2016,” said Irons.
“Tell me how we are high-risk. Wouldn’t they have dumped us years ago?”
Leia Way, who is an adult content creator who earns an income from a cam site, said she too received notice that her account would be disabled even though she’s been a customer in good standing with the bank for six years.
“In this line of work, the feeling of being discriminated never really goes away,” Way, who is searching for another bank willing to take her on, told Rolling Stone.
“With that feeling, I am always expecting the other shoe to drop.”
She added: “To have a business terminate your relationship when you’ve done nothing wrong or illegal, it sucks.”
Financial lenders may have been scared off by a lawsuit filed earlier this summer in California, where Serena Fleites claimed in court papers that she fell victim to revenge porn after an ex-boyfriend posted an explicit video to Pornhub that was filmed when she was just 13 years old.
Fleites’ lawsuit named credit card giant Visa, which was accused of facilitating the dissemination of child pornography.
In response, both Visa and Mastercard stopped processing payments for Pornhub’s advertising arm, TrafficJunky.
Over the weekend, Instagram suspended Pornhub’s official account, which had 13.1 million followers at the time it was shut down by the app’s corporate parent Meta Platforms Inc.
