I came across privacy.com, a service that generates virtual credit cards, like aliases for your real credit card that can be paused or discarded at any moment.

My own credit card company has this feature. But it requires a browser plugin that so obviously is there to track my spending habits, so I’ve not wanted to consider it. Privacy.com looks like a great alternative.

But is it even worth it? It may be a hastle, but I can also cancel my actual credit card at any moment and they will send me a new number immediately and a card a few days later. From a privacy prospective, how much can a company use my credit card credentials to track me? Maybe a third-party virtual card provider even masks my own purchases so not even my credit card company knows? Not sure about that one.

Please share if you use one, who its with, and if its worth it.

  • whale@lemm.ee
    4·
    9 months ago

    I have used the privacy.com masking service for a long time, and I prefer above its competitors.

    The service is not good at hiding your transactions from, say, a government, but it’s sufficiently good at keeping your identity and money safe from rogue companies.

    • When purchasing, the vendor does not get your bank account details, they get a disposable debit card number that you can set usage limits to; it is also restricted to the first vendor that uses it
    • The bank does not get details about what company you are purchasing things from; all it knows is that money went to PrivacyCom.

    This service has saved my butt before. Once, I tried purchasing an old DVD off a schedule website for a physical place. The purchase never went through, but I had a $200 attempted purchase for “sewing machine” to the same masked card. It failed, because I set a limit of roughly $30 to the card. Then a second charge, for $1, almost went through… Except, by this point, the card had been locked to “sewing machine” and the fraudulent charges were no longer able to start.

    Of course, if another service comes along with similar features to Privacy, with a similar cost, and perhaps a couple extra features (for example, Privacy could use a better privacy policy)! I would go pretty quickly to the superior service. It’s a little unfortunate that the competition is relatively minimal in the USA.