Backpage.com thumbs nose at sheriff after Visa, MasterCard cut ties

Aamer Madhani | USA TODAY

The online classified web site Backpage.com is allowing users to post ads for free to the adult services section of its site, just days after MasterCard and Visa announced it would no longer process payments for the Dallas-headquartered company.

Soon after the MasterCard and Visa announcement last month, Backpage began sending e-mails to users of the adult services section of the site informing them that they could use free promo code "FREESPEECH" until the payment situation was resolved to post ads.

The credit card companies announced they were cutting off business with Backpage after the credit card company's top executives faced calls from Cook Sheriff Tom Dart to cease processing payment for adult service ads for Backpage. American Express had ceased doing business with Backpage earlier in the year.

Dart, the sheriff for the nation's second biggest county, has long been a critic of Backpage, which he says fuels the sex trade--including trafficking of minors.

Benjamin Breit, a spokesman for Dart, dismissed the move by Backpage as unsustainable.

"Making the ads temporarily free is a predictable act of desperation," Breit said. "They know their business model is on the brink of destruction and are gasping for air."

Users can still use bitcoin to pay for ads, and the company recently began allowing users to pay for "credits" that could be used to post ads. The credits can be purchased by money order, check or cash mailed to a P.O. Box in Dallas.

Dart wrote to Guy Cottrell, chief postal inspector, on Wednesday urging him to "explore all available means to ensure that the U.S. Postal Service is not being used to foster avenues for sex trafficking via Backpage.com."

The website, which is similar to Craigslist, has been under pressure from lawmakers and law enforcement for years to end adult-services advertisements. Craigslist ceased posting adult and erotic service ads in 2010.

In April, Backpage published over 1.4 million adult-services ads in the U.S., with the company bringing roughly $9 million in revenue per month through that channel, according to the Cook County Sheriff's Department.

Backpage accounted for about 70% of prostitution advertising among five websites that carry such ads in the United States, earning more than $22 million annually from prostitution ads, according to a 2012 estimate by AIM Group, a media research and consulting company.

Some harm reduction groups praised the move by the credit companies, but a few also raised concerns that it could lead to some sex workers, who were working independently by advertising on Backpage, being pushed into the street.

"This policy effectively disenfranchises thousands of sex workers across the country who do not have access to any other means of online-advertising," said Lindsay Roth, Board Chair of the Sex Workers Outreach Project. "Those who may have worked independently prior to the policy change may now have to rely on third parties, including traffickers, in order to meet their needs."