Hi!
I have a trouble finding good tool to hide my banking information (card details) from online shops.
I am from Ukraine, so I can’t use privacy[dot]com or Revolut.
Do you have any advice?
Just to break it once more. Revolut is NOT a card masking service. All the cards you can get at revolut will be in your name. There is nothing privacy friendly about Revolut. In fact revolut had quite some controversies about sharing customer data with Facebook. ( Revolut is sharing your data with Facebook. Here’s what you need to know. | by Hugo Batista | The Startup | Medium )
Besides that, once more, to make this clear, a service like privacy.com will not exist in the EU because of regulations against fraud, terrorism and money laundering. There no such thing as annoymous payments here.
Given it’s not in the EU, it will probably never be a thing in Ukraine either. For better and for worse.
While @ph00lt0 makes a very important and 100% accurate point, OP if your goal is not privacy but just more security of your card details, something like virtual cards that can be quickly created, frozen and destroyed again can come in handy, even when they’re all in your name. Revolut indeed is shady imo but in the EU there are many other decent digital banks, some operating just in a single member country, some in multiple. As for Ukraine, sadly I have no info. But Ukrainians have many talented IT people.
There is no point in getting more security on payments as they are insured by your bank. At least that is how it works in the EU. So effectively for you as a customer there is no real benefit, you are just volunteering for the bank’s security team.
I think this is actually a toxic change of responsibilities. Banks and the payment industry (mastercard visa consortium) make quite terrible ways to authenticate online card payments with shitty layers like 3D “secure” still with static ceditcard numbers. Why is that the customer’s problem now? The industry should move on and authenticate transactions in a completely different way, not with card numbers, but by authenticating a transaction by simply signing in to your bank account. I really never understood how we ended up using cards for online payments.
What should I use instead?
There is no option.
So I just should pay with my normal debit card online?
Yeah, that’s not helpful to their situation
That is what i would recommend yes. But you could try to use gift cards as proxy. Which is what i often do.
If your bank offers virtual cards I wouldn’t advise alternatives.
If it doesn’t, it’s up to you
I try it. For example with crunchyroll, but it doesn’t work 90% of the time.
What’s the reason you want virtual cards, I presume more to control charges coming in and out and more? You feel it is necessary ?
If your bank doesn’t offer virtual cards, it is not invalid to use something like revolut outright, I would just asses if you’re okay with the situation as they’re not in any way privacy respecting or friendly
I also tried with Google gift cards. They kept asking for purchase verification and even when I e-mailed proof, they still wouldn’t let me redeem my gift card.
What’s the reason you want virtual cards, I presume more to control charges coming in and out and more? You feel it is necessary
To prevent data leaks from leaking my card, to get a tiny little bit more privacy and to prevent dubious stores to get my real card.
There have been days of cards being tied to your identity
And I can may be see where merchants would tell where that card comes (the first 8 digits never change, with first 4 telling if it’s Mastercard or visa and the other 4 some unique number usually tied to say revolut) from but I haven’t seen proof that it ties back to your identity in any way
Yeah I lost 20€ to google ….. Even while I provided them my e-mail, phone number, google account, receipt, photo of the card.
It’s pretty aggressive neo-bank with dubious privacy policy and security choices as GrapheneOS fiasco demonstrated.
What do you mean?
I only lost £5, but I could’ve lost a lot more.
I had a hard time looking for a respectful checking account bank that provides virtual cards. I feel that PG’s statement is overly incorrect.
Now, in terms of online purchases/subscriptions some credit card providers, offers virtual cards. I’ve been using Citi Bank virtual cards for many online transactions. I really hate this credit card provider but I didn’t have the time and eager to research for a better alternative.
It’s as they said
Revolut isn’t like privacy.com or mysudo, they’re like a pseudo-bank pseudo-payment platform but mostly a bank which is not in any way privacy respecting or otherwise friendly