“Buy Me a Coffee” and the Crocus City Hall Terrorist Attack

I have previously written about the US government’s likely role in the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack last Friday, and today Buy Me a Coffee terminated my account and seized remaining balance on it. Note that I have since switched to Boosty.

So here’s some background. A little over a year ago I started an account at Buy Me a Coffee, as it seemed one of the best donation plugins for a smalltime blogger like myself. Since then I received roughly $1,000 through it. Not a huge sum, but nothing to sneer at either, especially since it was coming from a small pool of longtime supporters, some of whom were making sizable and re-occurring contributions. And to be fair, I was usually a little lazy about promoting my page and corresponding donation plugin. I don’t “need” the money now and certainly wouldn’t perish without it, but part of my reasoning for creating this pipeline was if, for whatever reason, I get in financial trouble later, my blog here is something I can lean more heavily into for income.

I was always quite happy with Buy Me a Coffee for more than a year. Trouble only started on March 13, the week after the US Embassy’s cryptic warning about an “imminent” terrorist attack in Moscow. To be clear, I bring up this incident to be fair and provide all the facts, and it might have been a contributing factor. However, I don’t think it was the final reason for me losing the account and I’ll explain why.

On March 13 – like I said, following the Embassy notification – I received the following email from Buy Me a Coffee:

Hi Ian Kummer,

As you may already be aware, Buy Me a Coffee has restricted Russian creators from our platform to adhere to international regulations and our platform’s specific rules. It has recently come to our attention that, although your payouts were directed to another country, our records indicate your actual residence is in Russia. Unfortunately, this means your account is affected by these restrictions.

To ensure compliance and to facilitate a smooth transition for you, we kindly request that you initiate the closure of your account by March 15. This step will help avoid the automatic deactivation of your account and the potential refund of your account balance to your supporters.

We’ve also noted a remaining balance of $25.00 in your account. Please ensure you withdraw this amount before the aforementioned deadline to secure any funds you are owed.

Thanks,
Compliance and Risk Management Team
— Buy Me a Coffee

This was strange of course, because I am a citizen, taxpayer and resident of the USA. There is not any apparent legal basis for cracking down on me personally. It’s not even clear to me what “records” Buy Me a Coffee was referring to, as I am not a resident of Russia – I’m still on a tourist visa.

What I also found interesting is the line imploring me to voluntarily delete my account. It reminds me of Twitter (now X) imploring naughty users to delete “offensive” tweets to unlock their accounts. It’s ritualistic self-flagellation, like a pseudo-Maoist struggle session.

But anyway, I replied:

I am a US citizen, tax resident, and sole proprietor in the USA. The website (readingjunkie.com) is registered in the USA, and hosted by Hostgator, which is also in the USA. There are no ‘international regulations’ pertaining to me and I do not intend to close the account, but I am more than happy to provide additional information and documentation to clear this up, thanks!

I received a timely response:

Hey Ian, Our Compliance team is doing an additional review on your account. We will get back to you once the review is completed, you don’t need to make any changes to your account at the moment.

At this point I thought, likely, the first email had been some robo-response triggered by God knows what. I’ve had hiccups with payment gateways and merchant platforms before, and I’ve never had anything take more than a couple of days to resolve. I received no further correspondence from them and there were no limitations on my account, so assumed the matter settled.

On Saturday, I published Columbo Investigates the Crocus City Hall Shooting along with a corresponding meme I made featuring Columbo doing his signature grilling of Antony Blinken:

It went viral, and in just two days became the fourth most viewed post I’ve ever published here.

Today, Monday, the following business day after the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack, Buy Me a Coffee suspended my account.

Hi Ian Kummer,

We regret to inform you that our moderation team has suspended your account due to risk concerns. Unfortunately, this means that we will no longer be able to work with you.

As a small company with several business partners, we must comply with their terms and conditions, which require us to shut down accounts that violate their content policies, especially those involving illegal content or services. The remaining balance on your account will be refunded to your supporters within 30 days. We recommend that you contact them to find alternative means of payment.

We recommend that you read the terms of service of Buy Me a Coffee and our payment partner Stripe for further clarification.

I sent an inquiry asking for an explanation – however as of right now, I do not consider this account closure a direct result of my earlier “you are a resident of Russia” hysterics. For one, this was a new communication not sent in the previously-started email chain. Secondly, the reason is different. In the first incident, it was my alleged residency in Russia that was the problem. Now it is a violation of “their content policies, especially those involving illegal content or services.” Also, this notification did not come with an offer to let me retrieve my remaining balance (which fortunately wasn’t much, only one $5 donation made hours earlier). And also unlike the first email, this one specifically references Stripe, which is the payment gateway connected to Buy Me a Coffee. Update: it was apparently not Stripe.

They have so far not responded to two email requests for an explanation, so as of right now theorizing is the only thing possible. But if they do eventually respond, I will share it in an update.

As I’ve previously stated, I am not the only target and Buy Me a Coffee are not the only companies involved in the censorship campaign leading up to and after the Crocus City Hall attack.

Update 1:

I just regained access to the Stripe account through my phone – it’s still active. So this was clearly Buy Me a Coffee’s doing, not Stripe.

Tonight I’ll be going through the annoying process of removing the Buy Me a Coffee features from my website, though dead links will still abound and there’s not a lot that I can do about that.

Update 2:

I received no update or explanation from Buy Me a Coffee, but I also emailed “naufiya.mohamed” from my first email exchange. After providing him a picture of my ID he was able to get my account reinstated. I greatly value his response and customer service work (he was the only one), but after losing access to my account for two days and nobody even attempting to explain what happened, I will still be leaving and going to Boosty.

Ian Kummer

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