this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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When I was younger I remember buying credit cards with a set balance on them to pay for subscriptions that seemed shady.
If cancelling was anything except convenient, I'd just use up the balance on my next trip to the grocery store, then shred the fucker and forget about it. Company XYZ could then have fun trying to bleed a rock.
Only downside is that was a pain in the ass too, but at least kept the control in my hands.
Wondering if any banks have a way to set this up as a kind of partition on your account? Never looked into that approach but it seems like such an obvious solution.
Anyone got tips for this kind of thing?
Privacy.com is literally the digital equivalent of what you were talking about. As for bank services, I don't know that I have heard of any personally.
Capital One has that capability built in. I have dedicated credit card numbers for just about every service I use.
Sadly not outside the us tho...
You can use wise.com, they also give you free virtual credit cards. Up to 3 simultaneously, it's amazing. Been using them for years, absolutely for free.
You can use online banks like revolut for virtual debit cards in Europe.
Damn. I was interested too.
See my comment above - wise works perfectly fine. https://infosec.pub/comment/5824149
Check out the site called Privacy cards. It's pretty much exactly this but all with virtual cards.
Couldn't visa gift cards work?
I used to work at an Internet provider that offers a discounted auto pay program.
No, at least not there.
Every once in a while we'd get complaints that a card wasn't working and it was because they were trying to use a gift card, and the system recognized gift cards and declined them immediately. Needed to be a credit or debit card with your name on it. Or at least someone's name on it. Who payed didn't matter, but a real person would be billed every month.
Good point here.
I've thought about using them like that as someone without access to privacy.com, but they do charge an activation fee and other random little fees I didn't want to deal with. So I just... didn't buy whatever it was I was considering at the time lol. Always keeping an eye open to see if there are any alternatives though.
In the US, gift cards will often be declined for setting up ongoing transactions. Every transaction has a merchant code associated with it and many subscriptions and services will read the merchant code and reject it on that basis alone. Doesn't matter how much of a balance the card carries.
here in Brazil it's really common for your bank to provide an option on your bank app to make a virtual credit card that you can block and unblock for different types of pay or providers and independent of your physical one
Virtual card numbers usually work well. I always made sure to use them with stuff like SiriusXM and other clowns that make cancellations difficult. You can leave them active or cancel them arbitrarily. Some card companies let you set them up via their app or website.
Bank of America used to have a way to make a temporary credit card with a set amount of money on it. I haven't used it in a while, so I'm not sure if it's there still.