I’m based in Australia and trying to find the best way to shop online while keeping my personal details private. I want to avoid handing over my full name, address, phone number, and other sensitive information to every merchant I interact with.
I’ve been exploring a few tools to help maintain privacy:
- Masked cards (e.g., Privacy.com, Revolut, or N26)
- Private Mail Box (PMB)– but I’ve found that the only PMB available in my suburb requires government ID for pickup, which kind of defeats the purpose of staying anonymous.
So, what’s the best balance of privacy and practicality in Australia? Are there any PMB services that don’t require ID for pickup? Or are masked cards and email aliases still the best route, even if the PMB option is compromised?
Any personal experiences, tools, or advice — especially in the Australian context — would be greatly appreciated.
I believe @jordan can best answer this from an AU perspective.
For the most part though, the standard advice you see on this forum applies. I don’t know if anything specific for your country. I do suggest researching thos forum. Similar questions have been asked here many times.
all email aliases are mostly the same, Addy.io has a Lite plan which only costs $12/year and I’d say it’s enough for most people
Have you checked esims? they’re pretty cheap (especially the ones from “third world countries"). I’m not really sure but I think most of them support SMS.
vouch for revolut. been using it as my main bank for years and its awesome. way better than N26 also
Online shopping is tricky because at the very least the delivery address needs to be genuine. You should feel free to use a pen name and to provide a fake phone number if requested and not actually needed. Email should ideally be a unique mailbox or alias for each store, so that sources of spam can be identified and punished. For payment, crypto is best obviously, but prepaid credit/debit cards have their uses too.
Thanks for this i was looking at VOIPS as i was looking to have a dedicated number for each different merchant or is it better to just have a singular dedicated number for online shopping
Honestly, just don’t give any phone number or input a fake one.
I don’t see why a store would ever need that: you give them money, the drop the package somewhere, period.
Also, the delivery guys needing it to call you when he/she cannot find your address is not a viable enough excuse to let that one leak out. On top of it being very un-useful to begin with. And you should try to avoid giving your real address to those stores in the first place.
Some merchants actually flag VPN IPs and block your order fulfillment unless you call them and confirm a few details of your order. Amazon does not do this but other merchants can. So, it’s not always as simple as you say it is.
I think I’ll just pass those merchants and buy from somewhere else.
Might not always be possible, but if people don’t want from my money, I’m fine giving it to someone less picky.
Also, if I need to pay 5% more in that other store, it’s not a big deal.
Especially if I can buy it in person.
I agree it’s not a solution in itself, yet sometimes even people with choices forget to look out from their usual purchases places.
Moreover, I think that OP being based in Australia doesn’t have the most hostile country but maybe it’s also hard to find things there based on its geography?
I sometimes also accept giving some info if a product is very limited or available at 1 single place, cuz something is better than nothing at all haha.
