Corporate Tacos - We Were DENIED From Opening Bank Accounts

Jo (00:00.182)

You're listening to the Girls Get Off podcast, an R18 podcast on all things female pleasure. Think girl talk, but real girl talk, where we chat all things masty, self-loving, sex, orgasms and more. Nothing is off limits, which means you get all the secrets even our guests BFFs don't know. We're on a mission to make talking about getting off as fun as actually doing it. Ready to join the Mastination? Let's get into it.

Jo (00:31.32)

Good morning and welcome back to the Girls Get Off podcast. This morning we are jumping on as a bit of a random episode midweek, unplanned, to give everybody a bit of a rundown on the BNZ denying us a bank account saga that's been happening all this week and kind of around the business side of it and the benefits that have come with that.

and the experience and everything else. And we're gonna start doing more of these episodes. We sort of take you behind the scenes. For those of you that are on our email list, you'll get the download from us every week and we talk a little bit about what we've been up to, but we figure why not start this start of Christmas? There's no reason why given this great opportunity and things that have happened to us over the last week, this is actually the perfect situation for a podcast because I think

it, you know, we get some comments online, for example, about saying like, stop whinging, why'd you go to the press? So it'd be, it's like, feel like being able to give you the full context around the story will help you understand like actually how incredible these moments can be for our business, even on the outside, how it can be a bit of pushback. We actually have learned to use these to our advantage. Yeah, a hundred percent. And it's taken us three years to learn that, but

Yeah, it's worth it at the end of the day. So for context, were initially with, well, we have a bank, we've got bank accounts with Westpac. We were sort of with them. We just figured that we weren't really, we just, we couldn't even get like an overdraft if we needed some emergency cash. Like we just wanted to a relationship with banks plus BNZ had those like partner facilities and so on. So we just thought, let's switch it up, you know, like the banks, they've got bigger fish to fry. We'll just go to someone that we can sort of leverage everything a little bit more.

And you, Jo, had been really like running this process. You'd been going back and forth to the bank. We'd all been signing papers, but it had been back and forth for about three months or so. Like there was lots of things we had to get together for this. Yeah, a hundred percent. And I think that sounds kind of stupid in itself, right? Like if a process is that hard, why did we like continue to push for these bank accounts? And I think about a year, a year and a half ago, maybe we were looking into trade finance.

Jo (02:56.352)

as an option and we found that like nobody wanted to work with us. And I think that's where the idea came from, hey, after talking to people that, you know, with BNZ and stuff and they've got a big business banking side to their business and just having that relationship with somebody that's going to look at us as business women rather than, my gosh, there's this sex toy company that we don't want anything to do with them type of thing, you know?

And I think that's where it's so beneficial for us to have that relationship side of things. you know, we'd been recommended, BNZ, have a relationship banker and great. So yeah, we pushed through this three to four month process of, you know, just IDing and stuff like that. After talking to the lady yesterday, it seems they've tried to go down the digital route that

is meant to make things easier for people, but we got the opposite side of that experience and digital did not work for us. It was so confusing. So I guess from our point of view, we were sort of like, my goodness, this has taken so long. Finally, we're going to be able to get these bank accounts. And I think for also a few details in there, when we went for trade finance, pretty new business. So banks are really conservative. They're pretty hesitant to people who I don't even know whether we had two years worth of financials when we tried to go for trade finance with them.

And we actually also at that time, I tried to find the email because I didn't want to quote them when I got interviewed by media. But when we went to Fortride Finance, Kiwi Bank did also say to us, we won't even consider their application due to the nature of our business. And that must have been a phone call from our accountant and the broker that we were using at the time, because I don't have that in writing anywhere, but that was what we were told. know, we, A, we were struggling because we didn't, our business wasn't old enough.

But B, was also that, yeah, they wouldn't even consider the application. So I guess what I'm trying to say is it's really not our first rodeo. Like we've had, we struggle to advertise on Meta, for example, they're really strict. You'll notice if you look at our Instagram feed, we don't even show pictures of the sex toys often because as soon as we do, that content will get flagged, which means that Instagram won't put our reels in front of people who don't already follow us. And that's what we rely on a lot for growth. So we're no strangers to getting a lot of pushback in this industry.

Jo (05:18.891)

I guess when we got, and you got a phone call, right Jo, when we found out that it was denied, because it was you messaging me on Slack saying, we've been classed as prohibited. What happened? Yeah, so before we got the actual final email that our application had been denied, about three or four days prior, I had a call with a lady who wanted to finalize. She's like, it's been over a hundred days now, let's get this sorted, what's the holdup?

And so we sorted everything else and then she's like, just going to go through and ask you these security questions. was like, yeah. Way back at the start, a guy has already spoken to me and asked me all these questions. So like I'm repeating the answers and stuff anyway. And even then the questions started going like really down a path of I'm like,

Not relevant. think I said, Hey, was like, there was a question that sounded like we were like our website had prostitutes on it. And like you're available. Like we're selling that basically. but an online brothel. What like, so like a classified section, like if you were going on to browse prostitutes, which by the way is legal in New Zealand. there's also no reason for that to be.

Yeah, but that's, but anyway, that's a different story. Yeah, different story. But the questions were going down the road of like, we were selling people rather than toys. Right. And I'm like, yeah, not relevant. Everything's above board. think there were questions in there as well, which are totally understandable about manufacturing in China and the work, like people's working conditions and stuff like that.

And that's great that they're asking businesses those questions and keeping things above the board in that line. And like, it's great that they're checking that all the businesses that are with them are above board in that area. So that was all fine. I explained that we'd been to the factories. That was a big thing for us. We're not going to support any companies that aren't supporting their workers and stuff. And that like, it came to the end of those questions and she said,

Jo (07:34.91)

Okay. This application has been flagged as prohibited. She's like, I am going to go and talk to somebody higher up though, because I think there's kind of more to it and we need to assess it properly. I was like, cool. Thank you. And I think that's where the paper and stuff as well. It kind of made it sound like to me that that application process hadn't finished yet. You know, like

They hadn't, but they actually had done that. They had, we'd got the prohibited thing and then they had gone further to check that, you know, it was all above board. And about three or four days later, after that, we got an email saying that the account had been denied because our business operations didn't align with the BNZ policies.

So initially for us this was, I remember being like, my god, annoying. But then immediately before I'd even said to Joe, let's push this out to press, you literally messaged me saying, I've got Lily onto it, who's our, you know, the girl who talks to the media for us. So we were both on the same page about, this is just the perfect opportunity. And I guess for us, like, we're already solutions focused. We've already got a bank. We already use WISE, which is an online banking service.

In terms of opening bank accounts, it's really, as a business owner, especially one in this industry, you just have to be ready to find other solutions. Like that's really not what the intention was here. The intention was to show how ingrained in society these taboos are around sexual wellbeing and wellness that we were, it had gone through that process and we still weren't able to open bank accounts. And even when you do talk about, know, I think it's another conversation, but when you talk about

prostitution and whether there's like brothels, I know that they also have struggles opening bank accounts and there actually also shouldn't be any reason that they have trouble anyway. If you look at the company selling cigarettes, I mentioned like, I wonder, you know, I couldn't find any actual evidence to support whether the TAB had trouble finding bank accounts, but I would put my money on the fact that they do not have any issues opening bank accounts in New Zealand. So.

Jo (09:48.426)

I think there are a lot of different industries that have for years, you know, we had people commenting on our reel saying, I have an alcohol shop and I've, you the banks were happy to take on my new businesses with alcohols and cigars, alcohol and cigars. So it just goes to show how some industries have, you know, that's how far into our society the taboos are embedded where we struggle to open the bank accounts and it's taken that much of a process to even get to that point. Yeah.

100 % and not going to lie, I think I made you talk to the media because I knew for me there was also a level of totally over it after the four month process. I was like, so yeah, I didn't trust myself, but you came at it from a much more grounded place, which was great. Yeah. And to us that are in it every day, it seems wild. It just seems wild that we are still to this day having these, these issues, right?

Totally, but on the flip side, I wanna talk about why it's so great that we get in the media. So we've had media coverage before. I don't know if anyone's been following us since we were on Seven Sharp on a TV show. That was amazing. We actually couldn't say the word sex toy on TV, so we changed it out to say sandwiches and it became a of a laugh at the whole, like everyone really loved it because it was just almost so ludicrous that we were on this 7pm family friendly.

TV shows, of like current events, and we were talking about how we sold sandwiches, wink face. So that, and like that landed really well. It's really funny. And it was almost making fun of the fact that we weren't allowed to talk about this on TV, but we still were able to do it anyway, which was really cool. And so we know from getting on the media, how much of an impact that has on our business. Yeah, a hundred percent. And you know, there's different

type of media that comes with PR, hey, and it's, you know, we've had the articles in the online, you know, we've been in the Herald online and stuff like that stuff, pedestrian, whatever, lots of online PR, but the difference is when you can also make it in that print or the TV, hey, just hitting that audience that is not necessarily online.

Jo (12:11.419)

and it definitely brings some laughs. Well, I think it was almost the perfect storm because I was interviewed on the Friday. said, we're not going to release it till Sunday. And they released it at like 5 a.m. and we were the top story on the New Zealand Herald app. So we were getting so much traffic through to our website because like my mom and my dad sent it to me. My friend's dad messaged her to tell her that we were the top story on the app. So I think it was.

We got into the physical paper, but we were also really high on the homepage of The Herald. And the funniest part about every time we get in mainstream media is the demographic of people who it pulls into our website. So we love and have a very big supportive community of mostly millennial women on Instagram. Yes, there is, you know, there's an older woman who follows us and also a younger one.

But when we can get in mainstream media, it is honestly the best. We attract the, I would say like 50 plus age group. And we know from talking in person to these people, for example, I might be at an expo and a group, like say I'm at the women's expo, a group of women might walk up to me in their 50s. They'll be like cackling. They'll think this is so funny that I'm here selling sex toys. They'll call me very brave. But then say there's four women. One of those women will say,

I've got heaps of these and her best friend might turn around to her and say, what are you talking about? I haven't got any of these. Like this is a demographic where as say millennials, we've probably had some conversations about this. know, we've been exposed to this kind of content on social media, but that for that like 50 plus year old woman and her partner, they just, there's a very high chance they've never had these conversations with their girlfriends before. And it is like a whole new world to them.

I know, and you know, our mate, my imagination just goes out there on all the people this week that are getting introduced to sex toys for the first time because like Keith, you know, got click happy with the order. It was honestly, and it was, I would say at least 50-50 men to women ratio coming through the orders this week, hey, and there's no better way to describe the demographic than going through a few of the names.

Jo (14:36.555)

that have come through the order. Shall I go through some names? Go through some of the names. This is what I mean. As soon as I find out we're in, you know, as soon as I hear the story's gone live, I can start seeing the live visitors on our site and I start to see the names. And that's when we know. Yeah. Okay. So here's a few from the last couple of days. We've had Donald, Irene, Trudy, Keith, Pam, Greg, Douglas, Gavin, and Grant.

It's so great. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. And these other names like Tim, we can't tell how old Tim is, but Irene is not 25. No, no, Keith and Pam, Greg, we're definitely getting that 50 plus. And sometimes I haven't even checked whether they're using discount code sometimes. Like these are just, these are people in their prime.

ready to have the best sex ever. And we also see it in the customer service. We see it in the emails that we get through. I had a couple of people email through asking for advice and they said their ages, you know, in their 70s. And so we see this. And the funniest part is as well, is this has just reminded me that I need to upload the how-to videos to the site, is that often we will get an influx of customer service of people also thinking that their toys are not working.

but it's because they're not holding the button down for long enough. I guarantee next week we're gonna get the email. So I made videos of how to turn them on and this is reminding me right now they need to go on the product page and I think they're already in the instruction manual which is good but I'm gonna put them on the product page as well because, and I've had this in person where someone has come back the next day at an expo saying it's broken, it doesn't work. I said you've just gotta hold it down for three to five seconds, please.

It's actually the best, isn't it great? When they talk about finding your target customer. I would love for this to be our target customer. The issue with us is that it's so hard to get in front of these people. It's not like, we can do a bit of Facebook, we also, I said to Jo, maybe I should just go to the boat show. Maybe I should go to, instead of the women's expo, the boat show. Surely this is where these people Bingo or Bridge or something as well.

Jo (16:57.195)

Badminton. Badminton, tennis. yeah, golf. Oh yeah, this is, and this is my favorite. just, like you say Jo, I'm just so excited because I know, like I will never forget the time we got, and this must have been after Seven Sharp, we got an email from a lady and she said, I am, was she 78? 81 I think, hey. 81. She was living her best life. And she emailed us saying,

Hi ladies, I just wanna let you know I am so happy I found Missy. I lost my soulmate five years ago. I really missed the big this has just been such a life changing experience for me. And then we emailed, we were just like over the moon in the office at the time. I remember we emailed back and she responded again saying, I can't wait for the day.

that I pass and I wish I was here to see the look on my kids' faces when they find this in my bedside drawer. And we were in hysterics. We were like, this is amazing. Like this is, I love everyone from my Girls Get Off community, but I know that particularly for this audience, it's just gonna be such a game changer, you know? Yeah, like just bringing that spice to life when, you know, how good, how good this,

Demographic is also on Facebook and had a field day on the Herald Post when they posted the article on their Facebook page. And the laughs we got out of the dad jokes that came along with that. think Peter said, looks like you got shafted. let me read you some of them. Okay. So for starters, someone always picks up on Joe's last name, which is Cummins. Like it's just, we're just waiting for it, you know? Simon.

Her surname alone deserves the loan, dot, dot, dot, dot. And I'm like laughing face reacting to all of these. I was engaging on those Harold comments. Like they deserve it. Okay, here's one from Graham. Just as our mouths weren't made to stick cigarettes and other orifices weren't made to stick toys and a winky face. my God, thanks Graham. Yeah, Peter, someone's getting shafted. That was pretty funny. Craig said, ironic considering the banks have screwed us more than sex toys ever have.

Jo (19:17.865)

There were a lot of vibe related puns. Russell, that'll send bad vibes around the country. Well, we did have a bit of a negative comment from Margaret. Good job, love it BNZ, but I can tell we've got someone from our community saying, grow up, you prude. Poor Margaret. Margaret just, Margaret was in the demographic and they never talked about this. Plenty ought. Should have registered as a meat substitute business. And actually Neil really.

went to town here, he put in a lot of effort. So BNZ didn't hit the right spot, there's plenty of stiff competition out there with backdoor slash second tier lenders. Things can be hard out there at the moment for the little guys, at least you're creating a buzz about it. Onwards and upwards I say, plenty of emojis at end of that one too. and what was the lube one? well, you win some, you lube some from Rory. I actually jokingly said on Instagram with the...

Real I posted, should we put that on a t-shirt? And everyone's messaging in saying, I would buy that t-shirt. What a buzzkill. So the bank didn't get the right vibe from them. just went on and That's ridiculous, yep. It was so well received. It made me laugh so much. How good. And so in the end, New Zealand Herald wrote the article, which is fantastic. We were obviously,

in the paper, we were on the really high on the app and on the homepage, which is always great. Stuff, wrote an article as well. Two people, including my dad, have told us that we've been on News Talk ZB twice now, which is fantastic. I'm like, we've sent, and we've sent toys before to Kate Hawksby, who is Mike Hosking's wife, because we were like, if we can just get talked about on News Talk ZB.

that is just like we say, that's the demographic we actually. Why don't we sponsor? Love to get in front of, yeah we should, hey. And then I'm about to do a radio interview this afternoon on Radio New Zealand and someone messaged us in saying that we were in the paper in Blenheim as well. So they must have taken the Herald story. How good. And we appeared in the paper in Blenheim which is just fantastic. We've made it Viv. We've actually made it like.

Jo (21:37.787)

It's so funny to see what the media actually picks up because we pitch things kind of often, you know, we'll often throw things out there and often it's the simplest little things like this that really get people talking. And I guess with this one, there's a little bit of controversy to it too, because you've got the Margaret's of the world who really think that this isn't a good idea, but I mean, it tends to land. So did you notice as well that the pic they used of us was we had

You know, we're pretty happy looking and that didn't go unnoticed either in the comments. It was like, they're smiling. Whatever you use before this photo. Can we have a link to that? It's so funny to read through. was amazing. actually, and to be fair, there weren't that many comments about stop having a winch, but that was like, there was a few of those, but it was so worth it. It was great. And then I guess in terms of outcomes, so.

I mean, now everyone wants to be a banker, don't they? Everyone's trying to sweep us off our feet now. to all these high up people in the banks. We're not just getting the standard person calling us. We've had managing directors and GMs and all sorts reach out. Yeah. So there were some good suggestions. think a lot of people were rallying for Emerge, which is a new New Zealand online bank startup. But in the end, we ended up

having Westpac, our current bank, become very accommodating. So that's been amazing. And it sounds like they've made some just general changes around their business too, which is gonna benefit us, which will be really cool. I do have coffee with BNZ on Friday. Yeah, I've had a couple of very nice phone calls from their people and yeah, so meeting for a coffee to discuss.

totally on board if we want to switch to them, but understand if we're staying with Westpac and yeah. how funny. And the thing is as well is that I knew you would start getting calls, like obviously if you were BNZ'd, you're going to start calling the person whose number's on the application. And if there's one thing you need to know about Jo is that she is not answering her phone. If it's like not answering her phone, especially if it was someone.

Jo (23:57.865)

who you didn't know the number of on any day, let alone on a day where there'd been a news article and people are trying to call you. I'm like, oh, there's no way she's going to answer that phone. Like Corbyn said, we trying to apologize? And I'm like, oh, I know, know, I know, like, you know, there's the people of the world that will not answer a call of an unknown number. And then there's me who's not answering your call. Like whether I know you or not, I'm just like.

Because I'm like, ooh, surprise, who could this be? And then it's like some scammer or someone's asking me about something, goodness. So that was also very entertaining to me because I knew that your phone would be blowing up and then I also thought if it was me, I would be answering them and then having to deal with things on the spot. So your response was actually probably best in this situation while we have time to process. yes, so guess, I mean, look, the outcome's been good. It was never our intention to push the news article to media so that we

got our way, like we were always gonna find a solution. That part's always gonna be fine. I guess that's just been a bonus that now, know, been, Wuspec's been very accommodating and that's been like a great cherry on top. The thing for us is like, how can we show, you know, bring to light this, the issue around the taboo and then also get in front of the customers who we don't get to get in front of all the time, which is so great. And also, I must also say that,

You know, the email, I spent quite a long time yesterday going through all the emails of support that we've been getting people emailing in from either have had similar issues in the industry, whether they own brothels or they've got different things happening, whether it be in the, you know, in the sex industry, but also just people loving the brand, showing support. That's always really cool. And I think for a business who focuses so much on community, that's also why it's so important to us. it's so, it actually just.

brings everyone in on the journey and everyone feels more connected to Girls Get Off, I feel. Yeah, 100%. And I mean, every business should do it, right? Like an opportunity for PR can really do your business well. So jump at those opportunities. Totally. I need to go and update those videos to the site or wherever they're supposed to be. do. Because I'm just like...

Jo (26:15.197)

I didn't sit here and make those videos about how to turn the toy on and go up and down the modes for no reason. So that needs to happen like right now. Right now, yep. They will be getting their orders out stat. But all in all, it's been a very funny experience. been, you know, it turned our frustration into a great opportunity. And we always, always appreciate the, you know, the conversations when people leave comments on our social media. Like it was really good to.

get everyone's different perspectives. And we also always appreciate the, you know, the engagement on, you know, the New Zealand Herald Facebook page and stuff where you can see that there's like, yeah, there's some GGO girls and they're liking and showing support. Like that's always the best. great, hey. And just a little bit of icing on the cake. As of the 1st of December, all our orders have been getting our Christmas decorations in them.

So these lucky customers that are just finding out about GGO for the first time getting their sex toys. Also getting a little bondage gingerbread man. A candy cane that says it won't lick itself. And our new card, which we purposely, we don't always tell everyone about these things. Like if you, for example, if you've ever purchased from us, then you know, know what video you get at the end of your.

purchase. Yeah, we love giving the little surprise. Surprise. And so we've got these cards in the orders now that make us, I'm spilling the beans now, but it makes us look like we're popping out of Evolver, which people have been putting on their stories, messaging me personally being like, this is hilarious. What have you done? And we purposely haven't, we've posted a couple of things, but we haven't been like, now all your orders come with these because we want it to be pretty funny. So there's going to be some, yeah, I can just imagine Keith laughing about this one.

this week, which is exactly what we want. Let's just hope Keith's wife, you know, takes it on the chin. So incredibly funny. So, so, so funny. And look, we actually might run out of these Christmas decorations soon as well. That's the other thing, you know, like they might be getting low. I know, I know. I think the first 500 orders, hey, for December was going to get them. So.

Jo (28:29.0)

Hilarious. so funny. Awesome. All right, well, if you have any questions about the podcast, about the process, anything that happened here, please DM us. We might be able to turn it into another podcast, given that we will be mixing up our topics in future. But otherwise, thank you for listening. You can always find us at girlsgetoffoninstagram. That's our main page and we will talk to you soon. Amazing.

Thanks for listening to another episode of the Girls Get Off podcast. you want to hear more from us you can check us out on Instagram at Girls Get Off, our Facebook group Girls Get Off Uncensored, for any of our products GirlsGetOff.com and our personal Instagrams are linked in the show notes.