I'm genuinely confused how they think people will believe this - it really is the "just lie" stage. Take a look at these statements from steam and itch.io:

"We were recently notified that certain games on Steam may violate the rules and standards set forth by our payment processors and their related card networks and banks."

"Recently, we came under scrutiny from our payment processors regarding the nature of some content hosted on itch.io."

It is extremely clear from these official statements that the payment processors actively reached out to these platforms and made at the very least an implication that they could lose access to payments.

Why would anyone believe MasterCard over Steam and Itch?