Credit cards have a privacy problem
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Credit cards have a privacy problem
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Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem
#2While I do love me some privacy.com, unfortunately they only allow you to tie payments to bank accounts, not credit cards.
So, it's a virtual debit card, not a virtual credit card.
Now, they do let you set transaction limits, and daily/weekly/monthly limits, as well as either locking the card to the first merchant to use it or to make it a "burner" one-time only card.
So, there's lots of additional controls there.
They don't give you a good way to export any of that financial information, so if you want to use a budgeting program to try to help you track what is going where, then privacy.com doesn't help you there.
Overall, I like privacy.com very much. I do want to be able to tie in multiple back-end payment sources, including credit cards, and I'd be fine taking the 2% or whatever fee on my end. And I do want more transparency in terms of being able to easily export my data where I want to use it. But those are both relatively minor problems, compared to the ones they do help you solve.
Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem
#3Will leave these here, just one small step to help you regain your privacy:
* https://marketingreportoptout.visa.com/OPTOUT/request.do
* https://www.mastercard.us/en-us/about-mastercard/what-we-do/...
Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem
#4I've always wondered: is the data the reason why credit card companies are willing to give cash back as high as 5% even to customers who carefully operate them at a clear loss for them?
Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem
#5While I do love me some privacy.com, unfortunately they only allow you to tie payments to bank accounts, not credit cards. So, it's a virtual debit card, not a virtual credit card. Now, they do let you set transaction limits, and daily/weekly/monthly limits, as well as either locking the card to the first merchant to use it or to make it a "burner" one-time only card. So, there's lots of additional controls there. Th…
privacy.com comes up on HN a lot, and every time they do I try to take the time to point out they require a binding arbitration agreement with no opt-out.
Arbitration agreements are bad in general, but not necessarily uncommon. What makes privacy.com different is that they have access to your bank account. They're in a position where they have direct access to your funds, and you can't bring them to court if they wrong you.
I've had people suggest that I link privacy.com to a limited bank account and manually transfer money. That's a good suggestion, I'd probably do that no matter how they were set up. But that's not going to help if privacy.com takes you to arbitration over a bogus overdraft charge, or if they leak your credit card numbers, or if they start selling data behind your back. My bank doesn't have an arbitration agreement tied to my checking or savings account. I don't think it's justifiable for privacy.com to claim that they have more customer risk than my bank does.
If a business includes an arbitration agreement in your terms of service, I immediately assume that they don't respect their customers. There are some businesses where I tolerate that, but I need a heck of a good reason -- especially if that business is going to be managing my bank account.
Binding arbitration agreements are underhanded. The only reason to have one is because you want to make sure right from the start that you're not accountable to your customers.
Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem
#6I've always wondered: is the data the reason why credit card companies are willing to give cash back as high as 5% even to customers who carefully operate them at a clear loss for them?
No. They make money on the swipe, and more money on the interest, if people don’t pay them off every month, and most don’t.
Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem
#7I've always wondered: is the data the reason why credit card companies are willing to give cash back as high as 5% even to customers who carefully operate them at a clear loss for them?
No. They make money on the swipe, and more money on the interest, if people don’t pay them off every month, and most don’t.
But that's only like 2%. Why still keep around people who are clearly taking advantage of higher rates of cash back like 5% and not paying anything in interest though? What's the benefit of keeping them as customers?
Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. They make money on the swipe, and more money on the interest, if people don’t pay them off every month, and most don’t.
But that's only like 2%. Why still keep around people who are clearly taking advantage of higher rates of cash back like 5% and not paying anything in interest though? What's the benefit of keeping them as customers?
It's closer to 3%, and I don't think there's a way to beat that on the cash back except on a per category basis.
Also, a lot of folks end up carrying a balance in spite of their best intentions.
I suspect this happens relatively often even for folks with a long history of not doing so - e.g. maybe you get fired for the first time and start running up a balance, not long before you've run up some significant interest charges.
Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem
#9While I do love me some privacy.com, unfortunately they only allow you to tie payments to bank accounts, not credit cards. So, it's a virtual debit card, not a virtual credit card. Now, they do let you set transaction limits, and daily/weekly/monthly limits, as well as either locking the card to the first merchant to use it or to make it a "burner" one-time only card. So, there's lots of additional controls there. Th…
The privacy.com business promise is privacy, but their privacy policy (as of several years ago) did not actually promise much. I emailed them about it and they said they were surprised by the oversight. I wonder if they changed it
Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. They make money on the swipe, and more money on the interest, if people don’t pay them off every month, and most don’t.
But that's only like 2%. Why still keep around people who are clearly taking advantage of higher rates of cash back like 5% and not paying anything in interest though? What's the benefit of keeping them as customers?
You also end up spending more, apparently--12 to 20% more.