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Privacy – Forget Your Credit Card

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Re: Privacy – Forget Your Credit Card

#351

Post by geoelectric »

ac29 wrote: post #161

In case anyone didn't catch what this actually costs, the answer is: 1.5-2%, which is the rate you could get cash back (or airline miles/etc) with good credit. Because this service draws directly from your bank account, and takes what would otherwise be your rewards from the credit card fees their banking partners charge, it provides a nice business model for them at the cost of you getting 0% rewards back. Not worth…

Don't forget no warranty doubling, no theft/loss protection, no price increase protection, none of the usual benefits for a decent credit card.

Re: Privacy – Forget Your Credit Card

#352

Post by carapace »

Laaw wrote: post #205
carapace wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I browse with JS disabled and your site is just a blank page for me.

Should probably turn JS on, then, if you want to browse the modern web.

Fool! This "modern web" you speak of is nothing without me browsing it. It is not I who am missing out! Nay! It is the "modern web" that is diminished by my non-browsing of it!

They are punishing themselves! Why!?

No matter. I shall browse on, without Javascript, safe in the certitude that I am only missing the content of people too foolish, ignorant, or uncaring to use HTML and CSS properly.

Re: Privacy – Forget Your Credit Card

#353

Post by nickpsecurity »

carapace wrote: post #174
boling11 wrote: post #4

Hey HN - Privacy.com co-founder here. I'm really excited to share what we've been working on for the past year and a half or so. We've been neck-deep in payments stuff on the card issuing side (getting a BIN sponsor, ACH origination, etc), so happy to answer any questions on that front as well. P.S. For new users, your first $5 donation to watsi.org is on us :)

I browse with JS disabled and your site is just a blank page for me.

Privacy.com. Don't let them track you. I open it to find a totally blank page asking me to turn on malicious, surveillance-loving, code execution to view ("we promise") good content.

(sighs)

And, to "modern web requires Javascript" critics, modern life expects credit, web surveillance, Facebook, etc. That doesn't mean you have to support or force it on others. Let's look at it really quick to see if a HTML4 w/ CSS site could've handle it. Yep, we did more interesting stuff back in the "DHTML" days (eg dynamicdrive.com). So, it's a privacy site pushing risky, higher-overhead crap on us just for fun. Hypocrites.

Alright, now let's look at the security. I should eliminate stealing a specific card or using malware on the machine to forge transactions. These are main attack vectors. Might mitigate the first. Looks like it will be vulnerable to the second. Admittedly, most methods are vulnerable to the second and those that aren't stay niche due to "inconvenience." So, still could be value in mass market where people get compromised anyway but want to knock out a common attack. The third risk is an unknown with some of the claims looking good on paper but to abstract to evaluate.

Note: The split-keys between employees part on the security page is funny. It's a banking control for sure. I'll just let your imaginations work out how little protection it brings from hackers, management, or the government. ;)

Re: Privacy – Forget Your Credit Card

#354

Post by panabee »

brokentone wrote: post #333
ac29 wrote: post #161

In case anyone didn't catch what this actually costs, the answer is: 1.5-2%, which is the rate you could get cash back (or airline miles/etc) with good credit. Because this service draws directly from your bank account, and takes what would otherwise be your rewards from the credit card fees their banking partners charge, it provides a nice business model for them at the cost of you getting 0% rewards back. Not worth…

They actually get one better. Whereas a credit card takes 1-3%, gives you 1-2%, makes $$ on various partnerships for redemption, sell your data for additional $$, and potentially charges you yearly, monthly, or interest fees. The CC ALSO extends you 1 month liquidity for free. These guys directly debit you, so they have to float nothing, they have no fee on the ACH, and they keep the 1-3% merchant fee. That said... a…

can you please elaborate on why they don't have to pay ACH fees?

Re: Privacy – Forget Your Credit Card

#355

Post by dogma1138 »

tacostakohashi wrote: post #348
dogma1138 wrote: post #197

Mastercard has this service in quite a few countries, the downside is that usually they do not offer the same insurance as for the normal cerdit card and those cards will not pass an actual credit check. Other issuers, banks, and other organizations (post office for example) also offered similar services. I never really liked these services they don't really support recurring payments, some of them force you to purch…

The reason this doesn't solve a problem is because it's an attempted technological solution to a non-technological problem. If you're going to do business with someone, a certain amount of trust is required, and there isn't any working around that with technology. If you don't trust a vendor to refrain from stealing your credit card information, how can you trust them to actually deliver the goods, not spit in your f…

Well it does solve a small technical problem, trusting vendors is hard Sony, Target etc. are "trustworthy" but still got nicked and the credit card data of millions of customers was compromised. But that's not a problem most consumers have to deal with, their credit cards are insured, debit is a different story but in the US at least the amount of debit transactions is still fairly limited.

The biggest issue i see with this is that this isn't the most sustainable business model credit card costs are balanced more or less by the trust that the issuers has in the credit card holder (your credit limit, interest etc.) and the trust the acquirer has in you when you perform a transaction, prepaid cards are more or less notoriously untrusted by both because the issuer basically thinks you are too much of a liability to give you credit and the acquirer doesn't know who you are because that card has no credit history and single use cards are much more often abused for illicit purposes.

Re: Privacy – Forget Your Credit Card

#356

Post by panabee »

in the USA there are about 160M people with credit cards. for a preliminary model, let's assume 10% value privacy or have enough transactions where privacy trumps rewards/protections. assuming the startup captures 50% of this market, that yields 8M users. if the average user spends $1000 per year on private transactions -- this card won't replace all CC transactions, only the ones where privacy trumps rewards/protections -- and the company earns 2% per transaction, the company generates $160M in revenue under these assumptions. obviously the key variables are (a) 8M users and (b) $1000 annual spend.

to size the whole market, look at all 2015 credit + debit purchases and ask yourself what percentage of those would have been made private if some solution made things simple and easy enough. 1%? 5%? 10%?

the potential for private purchases seems promising, esp if they (or someone else) can expand the market by making private purchasing as easy as private browsing.

Re: Privacy – Forget Your Credit Card

#357

Post by fluxquanta »

URSpider94 wrote: post #340
akhatri_aus wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can put a hold on a debit card too without pulling the entire amount (they run an authorisation and release it immediately) I've used it to rent cars and hotel rooms, they do a check but the amount isn't 'blocked' off. In effect your statement looks just like a credit card.. There's absolutely no difference except with a credit card it's a borrowed balance. I'm not too aware of how cards are in the US but general…

US merchants don't do this. Most of the ones who take a deposit (hotels, car rental) have signs at the counter warning that they may put a substantial hold on your cash if you use a debit card, which won't be released for quite a while. You are right -- if the card is bank-issued, then they can simply place a hold and release it without money flowing. With Privacy, it would seem they will need to actually pull the ca…

>US merchants don't do this. Most of the ones who take a deposit (hotels, car rental) have signs at the counter warning that they may put a substantial hold on your cash if you use a debit card, which won't be released for quite a while.

My company used to send us on work related trips which were paid for in advance, but relied on us to provide our own cards at the hotels for incidentals. After a few (presumably less financially stable) employees used debit cards with low balances to check into hotels (effectively leaving them with no money during their stay), this policy changed so now the company credit card is used for hotel check-ins.

I personally hate the new policy because I have good credit and like getting room service, and for some reason I find it kind of emasculating that I'm not allowed to use my own card.

Re: Privacy – Forget Your Credit Card

#358

Post by narrowrail »

nicky0 wrote: post #323
narrowrail wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work at the largest merchant acquirer in the US and it's funny to see people claim these features just now making it to the US were signs of innovation lacking within the US. However, the reason these features were necessary outside the US is because the risk model was more severe outside the US; there was no need to implement them here. I have a presentation from Mastercard somewhere from 2006 that showed…

Quite interesting. Do you know why credit card fraud was a bigger issue elsewhere in the world and not in the US?

My understanding (I wasn't in the fraud department) was that the US historicaly had better connectivity (leased ISDN lines), and was doing fraud detection in the 'cloud' (i.e. soft real-time). Most other countries had to rely on connectivity-free authorization and ISO 7816 was a better fit there (smartcards with onboard storage and authentication methods).

Re: Privacy – Forget Your Credit Card

#359

Post by narrowrail »

girvo wrote: post #252
narrowrail wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work at the largest merchant acquirer in the US and it's funny to see people claim these features just now making it to the US were signs of innovation lacking within the US. However, the reason these features were necessary outside the US is because the risk model was more severe outside the US; there was no need to implement them here. I have a presentation from Mastercard somewhere from 2006 that showed…

Weird, because most of the data I can find shows that the US has one of the highest rates credit card fraud in the developed world. Australia being very far down the list typically, and yet we got chip & pin and Paywave/Paypass well before most other places

Before the internet, and before its pervasiveness (~2010), all, then most, of the credit card transactions were 'card-present.' The US still leads in fraud prevention for 'card-present' transactions. The US was optimized for these transactions, so the internet has been a bit of a hassle and or opportunity (e.g. paypal).

Re: Privacy – Forget Your Credit Card

#360

Post by Eridrus »

sixdimensional wrote: post #347
boling11 wrote: post #4

Hey HN - Privacy.com co-founder here. I'm really excited to share what we've been working on for the past year and a half or so. We've been neck-deep in payments stuff on the card issuing side (getting a BIN sponsor, ACH origination, etc), so happy to answer any questions on that front as well. P.S. For new users, your first $5 donation to watsi.org is on us :)

Seems like you guys could partner with companies like "Coin" - https://onlycoin.com/ - having "soft" physical credit cards with dynamically issued numbers would be crazy.

This is actually what final is trying to do: https://www.getfinal.com/

Though Privacy's approach of being extension-first and launching first is probably the right one.

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