34 posts were merged into an existing topic: Card masking tool
If your bank (or banks) lets you create and keep at least a handful of virtual cards at the same time (not uncommon), you can manage with two or three cards: one for subscriptions, one for trusted stores, and one you rotate either every purchase or every few purchases. If push comes to shove, you can use your debit card for everything and employ some of the data-minimization strategies discussed above. Revolut is not a privacy.com alternative. Itâs pretty aggressive neo-bank with dubious privacy policy and security choices as GrapheneOS fiasco demonstrated.
If your bank (or banks) lets you create and keep at least a handful of virtual cards at the same time (not uncommon), you can manage with two or three cards: one for subscriptions, one for trusted stores, and one you rotate either every purchase or every few purchases. If push comes to shove, you can use your debit card for everything and employ some of the data-minimization strategies discussed above.
I canât use any masking/aliasing or virtual cards with my bank.
I only can use my normal debit card I have.
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Oh, I see. Yeah, I use them both on GrapheneOS.
Revolut have such an amazingly shitty marketing site. It looks really nice though.
I was browsing it for over 10 minutes just trying to figure out exactly what theyâre offering. In the end they donât support my country (Canada), so whatever.
If I understand correctly, their virtual cards offer no rewards? This would be an extremely tough sell for anyone but the most hardcore of privacy enthusiasts imo. Here in Canada the standard is 2% cash back for CCs with no fees, but you can get 3% if you do a little research. Itâd be very hard for me to accept paying 3% more for everything for the sake of privacy.
All banks are shit and the biggest the company, the harder it is to figure out what theyâre even selling.
I feel that Revolut is good for its size, especially if I compare it to other local ones in my area where you just see people happy in their sofa or posing next to their washing machine/house. 
Quite surprising that itâs not available in Canada tho.
As for cashback, it is not really a thing in EU as a whole.
There is some in some very specific cases, but we overall donât tip/have fees in the same way as the US, hence we donât have any cashback either.
We donât lose some money, hence donât need to gain it either
is kinda the mindset I guess. Surprising I know, I was too when I heard about US people having cashback and being curious as of why I never heard of that principle. 
Depends for what but I wouldnât mind, in general.
Itâs (mainly) marketed in countries where cash back is not a thing/rare. Revolut did however offer some small cashback on paid plans last i used it.
they did but it got replaced with points which is more like a built in loyalty reward
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Iâm surprised to hear that EU cards donât offer cash back. Here the merchants pay fees to be able to support credit card transactions for their customers. Those fees are then passed on to the customer in the form of a marked up price. As I see it, if youâre not paying with a CC that gives you at least 2% reward in some form, youâre just leaving money on the table.
regardless there are now no cashbacks in revolut and last I remember the best you were getting is 1% cashback, I dont think it wouldâve paid off even your subscription to get access so (putting aside actually genuinely some interesting perks like insurances)
The thing is many people here donât even have credit cards. We generally do not use credit but debit. I suppose the fees here are also different as we had many of our banking systems independent of us companies, although that has declined, new iniciatives to get such autonomy back are on the rise.
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Depending on the part of Europe and the age group, you can go a month without seeing a single credit card while out and about. People do own them, but I havenât used mine in a year. I donât even know why I have it.
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Iâm done derailing this thread about Revolut after this reply, but here in US/Canada itâs the exact opposite and here itâs irresponsible to pay with a debit imo.
You have to use a CC for everything for the sake of rewards, possibility to chargeback, rental car/car share insurance, travel insurance (never used it so dunno how hard to claim) and other common perks like airport lounges (might be trash now though as everyone has it).
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Dont forget credit scores! Do you want a loan, a mortgage? Youd better have a robust history of responsible debt management. For 95% of people under like 35, thatâs either cosigned college debt or credit cards
Existing without a credit card (or four) sounds entirely detached from my reality. What a crazy world
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Car rentals and, to a lesser degree, hotels are generally credit-card centric operations everywhere, but debit cards work just fine, but credit cards are just easier. But the credit-driven lifestyle of North America is definitely a huge source of culture shock if youâre visiting for the first time. Itâs almost like another way to live.
In Spain, people spend what they have and not what they donât have, normally.
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I have to say that it seems that discussing about cash back and credit culture seems on topic when discussing alternatives to Revolute seems off topic and somehow related to âcard masking toolsâ thread. 
- only debit cards in EU, was very foreign for me when I heard about that idea of
debit cards - hence no need for the fees/cashback
I havenât used my AMEX card at all last year. Iâll probably use it if I need a really big purchase, but yeah, I donât know why I have mine either. It didnât even build my credit score when I used it regularly.
AMEX (cobalt) is my min/maxing card because they offer ~5% rewards on food purchases. I also have a subscriptions CC (4% cash back) and a general CC (~3% cash back). I use my subscriptions CC with another service (Chexy) to get extra cash back on bills that I canât normally pay with a credit card. Itâs kinda complicated, but maybe worth?
^ none of this is ideal for privacy, I know, but I like money.
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