Who paid for the account?¶
id: "AI-013" title: "Who paid for the account?" series: "Accounts and Identity" content_type: "video-script" status: "draft" owner: "IF Digital"
Who paid for the account?¶
Script¶
Some online accounts are free.
Others involve subscriptions, advertising, purchases, hosting or other payments.
Payment information can provide a useful link to a person or organisation.
It does not automatically identify the user.
Start by establishing what was paid for.
Was it the account itself, a premium subscription, an advertisement, cloud storage, a virtual number, a domain name or an in-platform purchase?
Then identify the payment method.
That may be a bank card, bank account, digital wallet, gift card, voucher, mobile billing or cryptocurrency.
Ask what the provider actually records.
You may obtain the payer's name, billing address, partial card number, transaction reference, payment processor and payment time.
Those details can connect the account to other evidence.
But payment chains can be indirect.
A parent may pay for a child's account. An employer may pay for an employee's service. A stolen card may be used. A prepaid voucher may have been bought with cash. One person may fund an account used by another.
The payment time also matters.
A card added months after the account was created tells you nothing about who originally created it unless other evidence makes that link.
Likewise, one payment does not prove who used the account during every later event.
Use payment evidence to develop and corroborate enquiries.
Compare the payment method with bank records, devices, receipts, emails and other accounts.
Look for repeated use of the same payment instrument across several services.
Be precise in your conclusions.
The evidence may show that a particular card funded the account.
It may show that a person controlled the bank account from which payment was made.
That is not the same as proving they personally operated the online account.
Payment can link an account to the real world.
But payer, account holder and user may still be different people.