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Privacy – Forget Your Credit Card

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Re: Privacy – Forget Your Credit Card

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a general question about card numbers. Say there are 3E9 people on Earth, each with 3 cards. That's around 10 digits right there. There's 1 digit for checksum. I imagine you'd want to leave space for least 1000 financial institutions around the world, so that's another 4 digits. Which means you can only have 100 transactions per person. None of this takes into account the fact that the same people are issued wa…

> Say there are 3E9 people on Earth, each with 3 cards. You vastly overestimate the number of people with credit cards.

It averages out. The people who do have credit cards are issued far, far more than 3 numbers in their lifetime due to cards expiring/being cancelled, promotional offers etc. I myself have had something like 10-15 different card numbers in the past 10 years, without actually trying.

Re: Privacy – Forget Your Credit Card

#272
post #89

Is that something that new? My bank (Itaú, in Brazil) offers this option for some time now. Here(in portuguese): https://www.itau.com.br/cartoes/cartao-virtual/ Or am I missing something? Edit: They launched it in 2002: http://exame2.com.br/mobile/tecnologia/noticias/itau-agora-t... Edit2: Sounds new in the US. This is not supposed to be a bragging/snarky comment. Just genuinely surprised as innovation usually come t…

High level question about virtual cards and the implication of their implementation: 16 digits doesn't seem like a very high number of available cards, especially since at least two of those numbers are reserved (checksum and IIN number). At some point numbers are going to be recycled, right? Or am I massively underestimating the # of credit cards out in the world? It seems like if a large # of people get a new # for…

I believe expiration date plays into the possible combos. I'm not sure if CVC does.

Re: Privacy – Forget Your Credit Card

#273

I think people are over-thinking this offering a little too much. People who are asking if the company will resist a subpoena, or if all customer data will be irreversibly encrypted, are expecting too much. The main purposes of this product are to be able to mask your marketing data (name, address, phone) to businesses, and to mitigate damage in the event of a data breach (any stolen card numbers are useless). It's n…

That's fair, if you're doing something illegal that may result in a subpoena, this is not the product for you. However, that doesn't mean what we're doing isn't meaningful. We just think that you just shouldn't have to share your personal info with a random merchant you want to buy something from. This notion that passing along your billing info is going some how substantially cutting down on fraud is ridiculous. It'…

"We just think that you just shouldn't have to share your personal info with a random merchant you want to buy something from."

FWIW, this is, and has been, possible with regular credit cards for as long as I've used them (20 years ?)

Nobody anywhere checks the name on a card. Nobody. Not amazon, not google, not a small online retailer, not a large one. Nobody. Zero.

I made up a default fake name ten years ago and have used it consistently for everything from DirecTV[1] to my daily-used Amazon account to magazine subscriptions.

Yes, of course they have an address (not my home, but an address I control) and of course a global observer (or just my bank) can correlate and index everything I purchase ... but not any of those vendors.

[1] Yes, this does indeed imply that I paid them the big up-front payment instead of allowing them to do a credit check with my name and social. This is a very rare downside, however.

Re: Privacy – Forget Your Credit Card

#278
post #60

> Privacy is PCI-DSS compliant. We are held to the same rigorous security standards as your bank. I always giggle when I see that.

"Privacy is PCI-DSS compliant. We are held to the same rigorous security standards as your bank."

Hey, us too!

http://www.rsync.net/resources/regulatory/pci.html

Cheers!

Re: Privacy – Forget Your Credit Card

#279
This is super close to the product that I really really really want. The only thing that's missing for me, is that this requires a checking or savings account. When I purchase something with my credit card (most things), it's because I want the rewards program points. With this, I don't get that. If I can't pay with my credit card, then I'm losing money (~$300/yr).

I really want a product that let's me proxy my credit card (and change it when I get a new card). I want a firewall for my credit card.

Re: Privacy – Forget Your Credit Card

#280
I wish this was "country-agnostic"

I am from Brazil, and the government sometimes censor online stores, or is just an ass...

Also many stores have some sort of licensing agreement that exclusive Brazil, sometimes with no other way to get some stuff, for example there is a series of books that I can't legally obtain copies of them after Barnes e Noble closed Fictionwise, anyone on my country wanting one of those books must pirate it (they are digital only, and the stores that sell them are mostly US-only, and a bunch even check your IP or insert DRM that checks your IP).

If this payment service could hid someone country, I am very sure that in some countries piracy would drop a bit.

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