Twitch has been billing users for recurring subscriptions to permanently banned streamers, directly contradicting the platform’s own policies.
In March 2025, a streamer who had been permanently banned on Twitch revealed to Dexerto, under the condition of anonymity, that they have continued to receive payouts from subscribers to their totally inaccessible channel.
This is despite Twitch’s policy stating that existing subscriptions will not renew if a streamer is indefinitely banned.
A help page on account enforcement and bans states, “If you are indefinitely suspended, you will not be able to utilize Twitch monetization tools during your suspension and existing recurring subscriptions to your channel will not renew.”
Our investigation also identified several other instances of permanently banned streamers continuing to receive payouts, with the earliest beginning in 2022.
In an X post on September 21, 2022, then-permabanned streamer Tempest instructed his subscribers to cancel their renewed subs and instead become a member on his YouTube channel.
“IDK how it’s even possible Twitch can ban me and still take 50% of revenue on a channel that they won’t unban but it’s quite literally robbing people,” they said.
In another X thread from January 2025, Twitch streamer ‘Incoxicated’ said the platform had continued to charge recurring subs and tagged Twitch Support and the company’s CEO.
As shown on a screenshot shared on X, the streamer contacted Twitch about the recurring charges but the site’s support team didn’t acknowledge his complaint and told him that they were closing the case.
“We have reviewed your case thoroughly and can confirm that unfortunately we cannot provide any additional insight to your request outside of what we provided in the previous response.”
This continued with more banned creators bringing this issue to light publicly on X.
In January 2025, streamer xJappa informed Twitch that his subscribers were still being charged, despite being banned two months prior.
“Some people are still getting charged for a subscription despite me being indefinitely suspended since November last year,” he advised.
xJappa told Dexerto that he continues to receive money from Twitch. “I probably have about 10 people who are still subscribed,” he said. “It’s stupid Twitch allows people to still auto-renew their subscription even though I’m banned on the platform.”
In March 2025, streamer SokkzVR tagged Twitch and accused the platform of continuing to auto-renew their subscribers.
X“If you subscribed to my Twitch channel please cancel and request a refund,” they said. “Twitch is still charging all my subs even after banning me and keeping all the money!”
One of those subscribers replied to the post, claiming that Twitch also refused to refund them.
“I requested a refund for the auto-resub due to the channel being permanently banned and received an automatic reply refusing the refund,” they wrote. “This is their policy and business practice, and they deserve a class action lawsuit over it.”
“I usually sub for 6 months so they didn’t refund my months you got banned for,” another added.
After Dexerto contacted Twitch for their response to the details in this article, both SokkzVR and xJappa had their indefinite bans lifted within 24 hours.
These aren’t the only instances of users attempting to bring the issue to Twitch’s attention. In Twitch’s ‘user voice’ page, designed to share community feedback with the platform’s staff, numerous users mentioned recurring subscriptions for banned creators.
“When you ban a streamer, you should automatically refund, at least partially, anyone subscribed to said streamer,” one suggested in 2024.
“I think it is an absolute joke that you would collect a monthly sub fee from a suspended channel,” reads another post, this time from November 2022.
It’s not just banned streamers continuing to be paid, either, but also streamers who deleted their own accounts.
In at least one instance, a user who deleted their account is still receiving payments from their subscribers.
Even though the user’s account was deleted over 90 days ago, their subscriber perks are still available, including their custom emotes.
Twitch confirms subscribers are billed after permabans
Dexerto contacted Twitch about both deleted accounts and banned streamers continuing to receive payouts from subscriptions. Twitch said that in both situations, recurring subs are supposed to be canceled.
“In line with Twitch policy, when a channel is deleted or is indefinitely suspended, subscriptions to that channel are not renewed. The examples shared appear to be edge cases, and we’re working to quickly resolve those issues,” the company said.
They further stated that in “certain cases” where subscriptions continue to be active when they shouldn’t, users are supposed to receive a refund.
Twitch declined to comment on how many edge cases it is aware of, or how they slip through.
Twitch also said they have a limited grace period to give indefinitely banned streamers a chance to retain recurring subs in the event a ban appeal is successful. After that period is over, the subscriptions should be set to not renew.
However, they did not clarify how long this grace period lasts, if it is a set period, or if it fluctuates. Regardless, the existence of a grace period confirms that users have continued to be charged by Twitch even when a streamer they sub to has been indefinitely banned, contradicting the public policy.
Further, thousands of permabanned streamers will have subscribers who were charged during the grace period, only to have their ban appeals rejected or not appeal at all. It is unclear if these subscriptions are refunded.
Twitch did not clarify why the grace period isn’t mentioned publicly on the help page or T&Cs.
Twitch says channel subscriptions are a means of supporting streamers, rather than a means of accessing content. However, Twitch streamers can set their broadcasts, chats, and VODs to a sub-only mode.
No telling how much Twitch has accepted in recurring subscriptions for banned streamers
It’s not possible to know exactly how many users have paid, or are still paying, for subscriptions to banned channels.
It’s also not possible to know exactly when these “edge cases” with banned or deleted streamers receiving money from recurring subscriptions began, or what causes it. One streamer told Dexerto that they didn’t receive any payouts from Twitch after they were banned in 2020.
Based on our findings, the earliest reported instance of a permanently banned streamer continuing to receive payment was in September 2022.
If every banned streamer since September 2022 has had subscriptions auto-renew, and users did not manually unsubscribe, the amount of subscription revenue for banned channels would likely be in the millions of dollars.
Lawyer says Twitch could be committing fraud
According to lawyer Andrew Esquire of YouTube channel ‘Legal Mindset,’ by not canceling recurring subscriptions, Twitch could be committing fraud.
“Failing to cancel online subscriptions is a fairly new problem in the law but recently there have been big movements, particularly at the national and state level to punish US companies who fail to comply with cancellation requirements,” he explained.
“This could involve federal or state entities, such as the FTC bringing serious regulatory actions against any company that fails to cancel subscriptions. Similar cases have already been brought against Adobe and Amazon under what the FTC calls ‘dark patterns’ complaints, which are deceptive subscriptions and cancelation practices.
“If this was applied beyond mere ‘edge cases,’ this would constitute widespread and systemic fraud, which would show a level of negligence that would certain draw harsh scrutiny from government regulations as well as class action lawsuits,” he added.
In Amazon’s case, the FTC found that the platform had made it difficult for users to unsubscribe from Prime. In other cases, transactions didn’t clearly state that in choosing particular checkout options they were also agreeing to join Prime for a recurring subscription.
Esquire says that consumers would have access to private claims either through consumer protection laws which allow a private cause of action or through suing for simple breach of contract, considering they’re not being delivered the service that they are being charged for.
Twitch subscriptions are a fundamental part of the platform’s revenue.
In 2023, Twitch announced it would eliminate its 70/30 sub-revenue split, claiming it was no longer economically feasible due to high operational costs. Instead, all streamers were moved to a 50/50 split.
Additionally, Twitch has continued to raise subscription prices. In 2024, Tier 1 subs in the US increased from $4.99 to $5.99, with mobile subscriptions jumping by 33% from $5.99 to $7.99.
In 2024, Twitch reportedly lost money, even after it posted an annual revenue of $2 billion in 2024.
In January 2024, the site let 500 workers go—amounting to 35% of the company’s total workforce due to the website’s inability to be “profitable,” as disclosed by CEO Dan Clancy.
Content shared from www.dexerto.com.