I find Monero to be more convenient than a credit card.
I don’t have to enter any information into forms, and the payments are fast with no waiting for someone else’s approval or spying on my transfers. It all happens from my phone in seconds, whereas a credit card you have to set up a bank account, KYC, give info to an employer, file taxes, order a credit card, get it approved, manage credit scores, prevent fraud, etc.
Credit cards and banking is not convenient, it is just the default.
Some people were saying that Proton focuses on businesses. I am pretty sure they are happy to have the many recommendations from this growing community, as Tuta is.
xmr payment is ideal but until then you can pay with xmr using a swap service
Proton seems to have restocked every proton product on Proxystore with large quantities in stock.
Obligatory @Proton_Team mention since no one has mentioned them yet.
My assertions are based on my experience with the customer support of multiple online services, including Proton.
Have you ever contacted Proton Support and the support agent makes observations about your account that you never explicitly disclosed and have nothing to do with why you contacted them?
This has happened to me many times, and it happens to Proton users all the time when they contact support, but they just don’t notice it. They don’t interpret it as an invasion of privacy when it is. They think it’s normal. I called out Proton on it, and they apologized.
The point is, even if a Proton agent never mentions to you what they see about your account, they still see it. Them mentioning it just serves as proof that they see it. I understand that when you contact Proton Support, they can see stuff about your account, and there is little you can do about that, which is why I try to avoid it when I can. It’s why I never contact support with my account email unless it is absolutely necessary. And it is why I don’t want my cash payments to be manually added by a Proton agent.
CASH PAYMENTS
I understand that. My main argument is that anonymous payments could be made more convenient, to the point that it’s as easy and perhaps even easier than using your credit card to pay Proton directly.
When it comes to direct cash payments to Proton, which is the specific anonymous payment method you’re talking about, I am saying that it could be improved for those who want to use it. I refer you to the ATM analogy. Depositing cash in your bank account via ATM is more private that going to a bank teller who sees your profile.
ANONYMIZING CREDIT CARDS
However, if you believe credit cards are the most convenient way, I already told you what I think about that. Proton could anonymize credit card payments like Posteo does by not linking them to accounts. To protect users even further, they could apply those anonymized credit card payments to gift cards so that you have to buy your subscription with your Proton credits instead of your credit card.
The first method doesn’t require the user to do anything. The second, which is an improvement on the first, requires barely a few more clicks and prevents your credit card info from being saved or linked to your account.
It’s possible that anonymizing credit card payments would be the most challenging to implement for Proton when they already have millions of paying users with their credit cards saved.
This is why I believe the anonymous method that would be easiest to offer and at the same time yield the most impact is for Proton to allow their gift cards to be sold in the Proxy Store. The second best, which is also reltively easy, would be to accept cash payments for gift cards.
You’re making excuses for the bank and completely missing the point.
My friend had already verified her identity before they started to inquire about her whereabouts. They had also already ordered a new card to send in Japan before they started asking those questions. The bank had zero doubts that she was who she said she was, i.e., the owner of the account. Moreover, they did not suspect her of fraudulently using her card.
When I told you this story, I gave you lots of unnecessary details to give you a hint of what the bank might be fishing for, but you didn’t catch it, which is fine, because I didn’t necessarily want you to.
I told you my friend is German but has never lived in Germany. The bank asked her if she lived in Japan because they saw that throughout the year, most of her purchases were in Japan, but the address listed on her profile is a German address. The bank she is with is only for people who live in Germany. Specifically, it is only for people who are tax residents in Germany. And if most of your purchases through the years are in Japan, that suggests to the customer agent that you’re not a German tax resident. This would mean you’re not allowed to have an account at this bank and that you might be evading taxes.
Do you now see the difference between a human support agent accessing your profile versus a company’s computer system seeing it?
My friend didn’t call the bank to have questions asked about where she lives. She called the bank to have her card replaced and sent to her in Japan. After she verified her identity, it should not be the bank agent’s business to ask what she is doing in Japan, especially if she hasn’t done anything wrong.
And to be clear, my friend didn’t do anything wrong or illegal. But because she identified herself to a real customer support agent, that agent made observations about her account profile and felt compelled to ask questions that had nothing to do with why she contacted them.
That’s fair. My argument is that cash payments are the most convenient anonymous method for the average person. The Proxy Store accepts cash and Monero, so it would be great if Proton allowed their gift cards to be sold there.
Yes, I did mention it. But as I said, Proxy Store vouchers are limited because they are only for free users. That’s why I’m advocating for Proton gift cards to be sold there, because paying subcribers can use them too.
Companies don’t exist in a vacuum. They are build, managed operated by people. Staff is required depending on their task to have some access to account data. They are bound by the privacy policy just like the legal entity. And that staff member probably reads through thousands 9f letters. They don’t give a shit.
Banks specifically as I have a relative working there. Customer support agents just need a name and can see all you past transactions.
Yes. But almost all companies have more customers than they have employees. This means that for online companies, most of the interactions between the users’ accounts and them are not done via human intervention but via a computerized system. There are pros and cons to both, but there is still a difference between the two.
Proton’s computer system knows more about you than most Proton employees. That is because most Proton users have never interacted with a Proton employee. Just like most bank account users are completely unknown to all bank employees because they never interacted with them. The bank’s computer system is aware of every account holder, but most account holders are anonymous to most employees.
It depends on the system you built. It is not always required. As I have illustrated, various privacy companies accept direct cash payments without requiring your account username.
Firstly, you don’t know that. I have given examples where it is clear that staff are not minding their own business. Secondly, even if what you say was universally true for all employees, the simple fact that they become aware of something means they have the information, and the information can be used against you. Even if it’s not the intention of a specific employee, the fact that they know things about your account can be used against you.
If people know that you were a witness to an event, they may want to ask you questions about it. Hence why some people don’t want anyone to know that they were a witness. It’s also not uncommon for witnesses to want to come forward when they remember something. In this case, the Proton employee is the witness.
Have you noticed how in crime dramas, there are always red herrings, i.e., people we are supposed to think are the culprits, but they aren’t? And those red herrings typically don’t want the police to look into them despite them being completely innocent of the crime. It’s the exact same concept here.
It’s not necessary. That’s my point. You don’t have to go to the bank teller to deposit cash into your bank account. You can do it at the ATM. Similarly, Proton doesn’t have to require a username. They can follow Posteo and Mullvad’s model. They can also accept cash for gift cards. And they can sell gift cards on the Proxy Store.
Is that really relevant for your threat model? It seems to me you are just trying for the sake of it.
I don’t like being asked questions about my profile that are irrelevant to why I contacted support. It has happened multiple times. I don’t want employees seeing my profile if it’s avoidable. I don’t have to be a whistleblower to not want that. I want to be under the radar as much as I can. And this is not just about me, it’s about protecting users in general.
Proton claims that their alternative payment methods are anonymous, when that is not true for the most part. And the fact that their Proxy store vouchers are only available to free users makes their claims even more misleading. It suggests that they are not really in favor of anonymous payments. And I think that should change.
I want to pay for my Proton subscription anonymously, and I can’t do that.
That’s not the same thing though. One is automatic and doesn’t require any human intervention, whereas the other has to be done by a person.
Have you been following this thread at all?
Various privacy services accept direct cash payments without requiring a username. There may be a human person involved, but no usernames are required. Proton could accept cash payments for gift cards, which would involve a person, but no username requirements. Moreover, other suggestions I made would not require the intervention of a Proton employee. Chief among them are allowing gift cards to be sold on the Proxy Store.
Privacy doesn’t equal anonymity. So I was curious about Proton’s marketing in terms of anonymity.
I stumbled upon this:
They do talk about anonymity. So I asked Lumo, their AI.
Here’s a summary, as I can’t copy/paste because of PG’s weird policy.
Being a paid customer at Proton significantly enhances your ability to use services anonymously, but it doesn’t automatically guarantee it on its own. True anonymity depends on how you set up your account and use the services.
It said that Proton allows you to create an account without providing personally identifiable information like your name, phone number, or recovery email. You can sign up using just a username and password.
It also said that, as a paid customer, you can maintain anonymity by using Proton’s supported anonymous payment options, such as:
It incorrectly stated that these methods avoid linking your payment to your real identity as PurpleDime correctly described and Bitcoin is not at all anonymous.
It finally had the good recommendations to avoid adding a recovery email or phone number, use email aliases (via SimpleLogin) to mask your real address and to be cautious with metadata in emails, files, or calendar events.
Ultimately, it said that absolute anonymity also depends on your own behavior and threat model and that Yes, you can use all Proton services anonymously as a paid customer, which as shown in this topic is wrong.
All that to say +1 to thread.
Thank you for sharing this great article. I remember reading it a long time ago, but I did not save it, so I took the opportunity to bookmark it on Raindrop. I just read it again and it’s very insightful.
True. As Proton says in their article, email can never be 100% anonymous.
I completely recognize that. But that doesn’t mean Proton can’t increase the level of privacy they offer for payments, and it is completely within their power to offer truly anonymous payment methods that are convenient to use and available to everyone, not just free users.
Yeah. Multiple Proton support agents in the past have told me they support anonymous payments by citing all these methods, and I explained to them why that wasn’t the case. I suggested to them ways they could fix it, and they said they would take it into consideration. However, I don’t believe that to be true.
I think our best chance is to raise our voices publicly. And not just that, encourage every privacy and cybersecurity influencer we know (PG included) who has the privilege of interviewing Andy Yen or any high-level Proton employee to ask them about this.
@Nostromo, I finally got the answer to if your method is allowed.
Myself:
Hello, I notice, under Authorized User Services #9, the TOS does not allow multiple free accounts. If someone has multiple free accounts because their intention is to subscribe and merge them at a later date, does this temporarily violate TOS due to having multiple accounts?
Proton:
Hello,
Thank you for contacting us. I apologize for not being able to respond sooner.
Please note that It is not a problem to have two Proton accounts. However, be aware that having multiple free accounts (e.g. username hoarding, creating bulk sign-ups, creating and/or operating a large number of free accounts for a single organization or individual) is against our Terms of Service.
https://proton.me/legal/termsWhile you can have more than one free account — a backup email address — having too many free accounts is not considered an acceptable use of our service.
Also, please note that attempting to create multiple accounts will trigger more difficult verification methods such as Email or SMS.Feel free to get back to us if you need any further assistance.
Kind regards,
Kind regards,
Vladimir M.
Customer Support
Proton Mail
We are allowed a second free account as a “backup email address,” whatever that means.
Therefore there would be no issue with making a second backup account you aren’t using before upgrading it to consolidate with your main account. It’s strange to me they wouldn’t mention backup emails in the TOS, but it appears that your method is fully viable, albeit complicated.
Someone could also use vouchers for multiple years this way I think.
I think what they really mean by back up email account is a secondary email account and not necessarily an email acting as a backup for the first one.
“backup account” is not really an official term and but they are only saying it here as a means to explain themselves for the question you have. And that’s why this terminology doesn’t appear nor belong in their TOS.
Either way, like I said, this entire post and discussion to me is pointless because Proton is allowing it and the arguments laid against them make little to no sense as OP is not appropriately thinking about it.
Hey, thanks for opening discussion on this, let me address a few things to the best of my ability, given that this is a pretty lengthy thread now.
Proton support explicitly and repeatedly denied to my face that they supported payments via the Proxy Store. Against compelling and irrefutable evidence, they affirmed to me that it was not true.
This was a mistake from our Customer Support agents, whom appear to have been misinformed at the time – sorry about that. I have asked our agents to re-examine what we believe to be your ticket, and I can confirm that our Legal department was never asked to reach out to ProxyStore to take down the vouchers, as we were the ones directly supplying PS with these. I can only apologize for the lengthy back-and-forth you had with our CS team, which must have been quite confusing.
What seems clear is that Proton is very slow to respond to the Proxy Store’s requests, and all indicators point to it being deliberate.
We provided ProxyStore with stock starting September 2025, and they eventually ran out of stock in January 2026, which we were notified about. Unfortunately we had some delays in getting back to them with additional stock, and resupplied in March 2026 – we will be better at supplying them on time moving forward, and we apologise for the gaps in time during which stock was out.
I want to stress that none of this was deliberate.
Unlike Proton and SimpleLogin vouchers, Proton gift cards can be used to credit your account and renew an ongoing subscription, which is fantastic! But for some inexplicable reason, Proton gift cards are not available in the Proxy Store, when this is unquestionably the best way to anonymously renew an ongoing subscription or purchase a new one.
You should now be able to renew your ongoing subscription with the vouchers provided by ProxyStore – i.e. if you had a 12 month voucher, you could stack another 12 month voucher on top of it at any time before it runs out. The inability to “stack” subscriptions was not limited to resellers, and we added this capability in March.
Lastly, we do support anonymous payments, and we have since day one: cash.
Aside from cash, we have also long supported non-reloadable Visa/Mastercards bought with cash (for example at petrol stations, train stations, etc) as a non-KYC way to buy Proton subscriptions online. It has actually been an extremely popular and widely adopted payment method.
Now we’re looking at more ways to expand this, hence our recent collaboration with ProxyStore to provide access to Proton subscriptions via XMR payments.
Hope this helps clear things up a little.
I don’t intend to take away from the overall good response, but please be aware that many european countries now ban those / require an I’d for those.
This is excellent news and update! Thank you for this.