LOS ANGELES — APAG President Alana Evans has penned an opinion piece for the Daily Beast, outlining the details of a recent instance of alleged financial discrimination that Evans says she and other sex workers suffered at the hands of Wells Fargo.
The opinion piece, headlined “Wells Fargo Closed My Account for Being a Porn Star—and It’s Time to Fight Back,” was published over the weekend.
Evans, who earlier this month posted a video on social media describing how Wells Fargo had informed her it was closing her account, described her shock at learning that “the longest relationship in my life was coming to an end.”
“My bank, Wells Fargo, decided to break up with me via a typed-out letter delivered through the mail,” Evans wrote.
“As I opened the letter and began reading, confusion took over,” she added. “The letter stated that after reviewing our relationship in connection with the bank’s responsibilities to manage risk, they would be closing my bank accounts. After thirty years together, through thick and thin, my bank was dumping me because I’m somehow now labeled a risk. While this is not the first time an adult performer or business has been kicked out of a financial institution, it was the first time it had happened to me.”
Evans' video detailing her ordeal went viral on several social media platforms and her statements were covered by several mainstream media outlets.
The op-ed also described the personal incident in the context of the current campaign by War on Porn and anti-sex-work crusaders to financially cripple sex workers and the sex industry.
“As a union leader, this breakup was beginning to feel more like discrimination than a simple business decision,” Evans wrote. “As a performer and content creator, I receive deposits from online companies such as OnlyFans. My deposits create a direct link to online platforms where I post and share my adult content. Historically, as an adult film actress, my checks from production companies would often be the dead giveaway. The company name would automatically notify the teller who was cutting me that hefty check, sometimes with the name of the film listed in the subject line. This would cause bank tellers to mistreat us, often harassing workers who were simply trying to collect their pay. When we moved over to online work, direct deposits took that problem away. We didn’t have the snarling face of an upset, underpaid bank employee judging us anymore.”
However, Evans noted, “while this was a short-term improvement, it may be one of the causes of this current problem” because banks could now easily “create a list of every worker on a platform by searching recipients of deposits from Fenix. In one fell swoop, a bank like Wells Fargo could identify which of their customers are involved in legal sex work and remove us all.”
Fenix is OnlyFans' parent company.
Evans also noted that in 2021, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) “announced its finalized rule to ensure fair access to banking, and this could have changed the way that banks are allowed to treat legal sex workers. Adult workers have faced occupational discrimination from the banking industry since Operation Choke Point was put in place. This policy blocking banking access for high-risk accounts affected performers, even when those workers didn’t violate banking policies or accounting rules. Performers and adult businesses have famously lost bank accounts from institutions such as Bank of America, Citibank, PayPal, Square, and Chase.”
But although the OCC ruling was supposed to go into effect on April 1, 2021, Evans wrote, “instead of it being put into action, preventing issues such as mine, the ruling was frozen, much like my bank accounts. Because a new president took office, and a new Comptroller of the Currency was put in charge, the matter was set aside until it could be reassessed and implemented.”
As tax-payers, the APAG president concluded, sex workers “deserve protection against the biases of big banks. Credit card giants like Mastercard and Visa have already buckled to pressure in refusing their business to adult companies like Pornhub. Now, the banks are focusing on the more vulnerable target: the workers just trying to survive. But I believe our strength has been proven time and time again. The fight for access to fair and safe banking will not end until we are victorious.”
To read “Wells Fargo Closed My Account for Being a Porn Star—and It’s Time to Fight Back,” visit The Daily Beast.
Main Image: Alana Evans' recent viral video describing the alleged financial discrimination by Wells Fargo (Source: TikTok)