How GawkBox’s ChargeBack Protection let Streamer GravyCatMan keep a $10,000 Donation
“I ended up keeping $10k…which was incredible.” — GravyCatMan
Every live streamer who’s dreamt of transforming their streaming hobby into a career has faced the same reprehensible boogeyman — Chargebacks.
If you’re not familiar with the blight on streamer’s careers known as ChargeBacks, they tend to work as follows:
Most of the users who donate do so through PayPal. A viewer donates, a creator receives most of that donation, and the user (hopefully) gets a shout-out live and on-stream for their trouble. A fair transaction has been completed.
Naturally, it doesn’t always end there for the hard-working streamer.
Often times, once the donation has occurred and the donating user has been shouted out, some deviant users will search for ways to get their money back.
These “donating” viewers often cancel their transactions well after the streamer has seen (and sometimes spent) their donation funds.
And thus, a ChargeBack is born.
As you can imagine, the size and grandeur of charged-back donations can vary significantly, from a $5 donation and a quick shout-out, to a showstopping, tear-inducing $50,000 investment. Because of this, many streamers have began to consider the possibility that any donation at all has the potential to be “charged-back”.
ChargeBacks have become so prevalent, many streamers have opted out of donation platforms entirely.
That’s where GawkBox comes in.
First off, GawkBox’s Sponsored Donations are entirely chargeback-free. When the donation is actually coming from a sponsor, then there’s no way that a user will be able to revoke that donation in any way. Nice as that security is, that’s not the end of the story — GawkBox accepts and transfers “real-money”, or PayPal donations, too — are those susceptible to chargebacks?
No donation platform using PayPal donations is able to fully claim to be ChargeBack-free. Users will always be able to make a case to get their donations back. However, since we collect all of our users payments into our system and pay out in larger, more regular transactions, we’re much better positioned to work with companies like PayPal to give creators the best possible chance of getting the donation that appears on-stream.
The fight for your earned donation no longer falls solely on you — we’re here to fight for your donations.
That’s not all, though. If even that were to fail, the GawkBox team is more than prepared to step up the the plate to defend your donations.
Meet GravyCatMan, a YouTube Streamer who specializes in Minecraft and Roblox content.
Mr. CatMan streams often to his happy audience of fans (using his GawkBox leaderboard to collect donations), but he began catching the attention of a user who began donate copious amounts through GawkBox. He could only assume that such large amounts were fake donations.
We sat down to get a quick word from GravyCatMan regarding his high-stakes, $10,000 donation experience.
GawkBox: How often do you deal with Chargebacks? How have they affected your streams?
GravyCatMan: This wasn’t the first time I had to deal with chargebacks in my streams. I gave the person that donated mod [Moderator rights to the streams] which I regret doing because they used it to gain my community’s trust.
GBX: You recently received a pretty large payment from us, as I understand. How much did you receive from that one user who was attempting to chargeback their donation?
GCM: The user donations were spread through 3 months. The first time I met them, they donated over $1,000 with superchat. It was insane! They would show up and just drop $100-$300 per day. One day they showed up and donated $100 on GawkBox. I was really excited about that donation because I didn’t have to share most of it with YouTube. YouTube takes 30% of all superchat and sponsors. This was the last time I saw them for a few weeks but the donations all went through. A few weeks later the user came up and dropped 2k, 4k, 10k then 20k… all in 1 hour. I was losing my mind, I didn’t know what to think…there was no way someone would donate that much to a small stream. The user then disappeared again for a few weeks. One day they randomly popped in the stream and donated 10k then 20k. This was when I knew there was no chance these donations were real. Later on, I was informed by GawkBox that they chargedback their donations but they said they were fighting for me.
I ended up keeping $10k, which is incredible.
GBX: Have you experienced chargebacks before this? If So, have you been able to fight them before?
GCM: I’ve ran a Minecraft server in the past for over 3 years where people were able to donate to help the server keep running. I had to deal with chargebacks about once a month from users that tried to get their money back once they quit the server.
I would fight every dispute, but 80% of the time, PayPal with side with the buyer.
GBX: How many times have you been paid by GawkBox? Do you make money from YouTube at all?
GCM: I’ve been getting paid by GawkBox since June. I get money from YouTube, but the amount is very small unless I get a generous donation. The money I get from GawkBox if I regularly stream and promote GawkBox donating, is 10 to 20 times the amount I make from YouTube.
GBX: I’m glad that we were able to help you keep a portion of that massive donation. Did you expect to be able to keep it? What have you decided to do with it?
GCM: After I heard the news that the donations were being charged back, I did not expect to get any of it.
I was really surprised when I saw $10k in my GawkBox payment. I’m glad GawkBox was able to fight for me so I could receive some of it.
This whole experience has been an emotional rollercoaster. I used most of it to pay college loans and saved the rest.
That’s all for now.
— GawkBox Community Team
