Twitch under fire after banning streamer for “fraudulent activity” and withholding payments

Twitch has come under fire after banning a streamer for “fraudulent activity” and withholding payments from subscribers.

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Getting partnered on Twitch can be an arduous task, with streamers putting in hours upon hours of work to get a subscriber button on their channel and in turn being able to make money.

However, that can all be taken away as quickly if the livestreaming platform finds you within violation of their rules. That unfortunate situation landed upon iRacing streamer Craig Williams – despite the fact that he wasn’t set out to break any rules or guidelines. 

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On July 29, Williams, who runs the popular Craig’s Setup Shop for iRacing, was struck down by Twitch after amassing around 1300 subscribers. 

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While he isn’t an everyday streamer, instead streaming around once a week, Williams uses the subscriptions to give fans access to his in-game set-up shop where he has car tune-ups for a wide variety of races.

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He took issue with the fact that nobody had investigated him prior to being struck down with a ban, was labeled as fraudulent activity from the get-go, and received pretty poor communication from Twitch. 

“No research was given into what I did, no questions were asked,” he tweeted. “From my first email you did nothing to help, you just assumed I was being a fraud. 1300 subscribers and 300+ of that number used NONE PRIME accounts.”

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However, the streamer offered up a slightly positive update to the situation a few hours later, noting that his indefinite suspension had been removed – even though he still hadn’t received his owed payments.

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He posted: “Twitch have removed the ban from my account but I’ve received no email. Hopefully with all the support from you guys they’ve got people looking into it and hopefully some news comes my way soon, I cannot thank each and every single one of you enough >

Onto the update, @Twitch have removed the ban from my account but I've received no email. hopefully with all the support from you guys they've got people looking into it and hopefully some news comes my way soon, I cannot thank each and every single one of you enough >

— Craig Williams (@NBDxWilliams) July 29, 2019

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Despite that, it appeared as if the damage was already done to Twitch regarding the situation, as some personalities piled on with criticism. 

Senior Vice President of Immortals Tomi ‘lurppis’ Kovanen suggested that whichever member of the support sent the “fraudulent activity” email to Williams would be fired by the livestreaming company. 

Update: July 31, 5:47AM EST: Williams has no confirmed that Twitch has fully reinstated his channel and his revenue from the stream will in fact be paid out.

Last updated: July 30, 5:47 AM EST.