Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

“Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

ersei.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 172 posts

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#91

Post by dessant »

junon wrote: post #79
markovbot wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the ask was pretty clear: not to share confidential identification information with sketchy companies that are clearly sharing that information with everyone.

So you're saying Privacy should reinvent the wheel with an incredibly difficult, terrible-to-manage process, itself requiring an entire company worth of people and a huge support staff, laden with insane amounts of red tape, just to perform a small function of their business, instead of contracting out another company that specializes in doing this exact thing? This seems like a larger security/privacy surface area t…

They should just verify identities without selfies, like most payment providers. This trend of using selfies comes from shady crypto companies that were eager to pretend that their users have been verified, while also benefiting from the collected biometric data.

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#92

Post by jrochkind1 »

tempsy wrote: post #41
sholladay wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privacy.com also allows setting monthly/yearly spending limits, or even setting the card as single-use. Does Apple have anything like that?

No it’s just the ability to generate new credit card numbers on demand If you want various virtual cards with varying limits I also noticed my Citi card allows me to do this. It’s just a little clunkier but it’s actually more robust than Apple’s feature if you wanted a unique number per website.

Oddly, my Citi card does not seem to have this. Guess I need a new card.

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#93

Post by 1shooner »

flutas wrote: post #25
nine_k wrote: post #3

Privacy.com is not about hiding your identity from authorities. It's mostly about hiding the fact that the same person, you, are paying to merchant A and merchant B. It allows you to easily have a card per merchant, and lock it to the merchant so that when its number is stolen, it can't be used anywhere else. The domain name is a bit lofty, yes.

>It allows you to easily have a card per merchant, and lock it to the merchant so that when its number is stolen, it can't be used anywhere else. In my experience even that can fail. I had a card number stolen from them, charged to the tune of $200+, and their support refused to even entertain the idea of it being fraud, and when I mentioned a chargeback they basically said "we don't do those, because we have contrac…

>I had a card number stolen from them, charged to the tune of $200+

I'm curious, how did this happen specifically? In my experience, all privacy.com virtual cards default to being merchant-locked to the first place you use them. Did the merchant run an unauthorized transaction on the card?

I've had online payment info compromised once, and privacy.com caught it cold (and also clearly demonstrated that the vendor had mishandled the payment info, despite claiming otherwise).

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#94

Post by flutas »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #81
flutas wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It allows you to easily have a card per merchant, and lock it to the merchant so that when its number is stolen, it can't be used anywhere else. In my experience even that can fail. I had a card number stolen from them, charged to the tune of $200+, and their support refused to even entertain the idea of it being fraud, and when I mentioned a chargeback they basically said "we don't do those, because we have contrac…

Woah, that is concerning. Making it harder, rather than easier, to chargeback fraudulent uses is not what I'm looking for.

> Making it harder, rather than easier, to chargeback fraudulent uses is not what I'm looking for.

Honestly I'm still confused by the whole thing.

I told them that it was a fraudulent transaction that I didn't approve, they then kept asking me for tracking numbers and finally closed the support ticket, and would close any further ones instantly on me with this reply.

https://i.imgur.com/EyjCGiU.png

Never mind the fact that it was a completely separate issue than what they would keep replying to me about, the fact that they included the line of

> At this point, the only possibility is that the shipment was stolen after the delivery. This is no longer a case where the merchant is at fault. Hence, the case would be concluded in the merchant's favor.

is a complete disregard for visa's rules. The fact that they wouldn't even let me open a dispute is the biggest factor of "wtf" here to me.

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#95

Post by Kiro »

d4a wrote: post #8
nine_k wrote: post #3

Privacy.com is not about hiding your identity from authorities. It's mostly about hiding the fact that the same person, you, are paying to merchant A and merchant B. It allows you to easily have a card per merchant, and lock it to the merchant so that when its number is stolen, it can't be used anywhere else. The domain name is a bit lofty, yes.

Author here. My concern wasn't that Privacy.com knows who is using their service, but with rather how they choose to know that information through a third party (Onfido) and how terrible Onfido's privacy policy is.

Maybe you should quote the whole thing instead of making it sound like they sell the data?

"As part of a business transfer. Onfido may disclose your personal information to an actual or potential buyer, investor or partner (and its agents and advisers) in relation to any actual or proposed divestiture, merger, acquisition, joint venture, bankruptcy, dissolution, reorganization, or any other similar transaction or proceeding"

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#96

Post by onetimeusename »

d4a wrote: post #8
nine_k wrote: post #3

Privacy.com is not about hiding your identity from authorities. It's mostly about hiding the fact that the same person, you, are paying to merchant A and merchant B. It allows you to easily have a card per merchant, and lock it to the merchant so that when its number is stolen, it can't be used anywhere else. The domain name is a bit lofty, yes.

Author here. My concern wasn't that Privacy.com knows who is using their service, but with rather how they choose to know that information through a third party (Onfido) and how terrible Onfido's privacy policy is.

I agree with you but the thing is I don't remember doing any of that stuff to use privacy.com. I hope they just changed their policy and that I haven't forgotten about uploading identification and photos of myself. I normally would not tolerate that.

All I remember is using the plaid bank API which is itself probably very dangerous and a poor decision to allow.

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#97

Post by baseballdork »

cortesoft wrote: post #72
jedberg wrote: post #54

In defense of Privacy.com, they've helped prevent me from being defrauded multiple times. I use them any time I'm buying from a website where I don't trust they will keep my CC secure (like paying local utility bills). Sure enough someone tried to use my one-time-use utility card multiple times. Once they charged it for 16 cents which how card runners test the cards to see if they are valid. Normally those won't show…

> Normally those won't show up on any alerts you may have, because most banks don't alert below $1. My Chase credit card is set to text me on any charge over $0. I have received alerts for under a dollar. Also, I have been using a credit card extensively for 20 years, and I don’t take many precautions (other than having text alerts for all purchases). I will put that number anywhere I want to buy something without ev…

I think that this is a totally valid approach. I merely prefer using privacy because it locks a card to a vendor and I can set limits (or simply pause a card) per vendor trivially.

In fact, this weekend I got a notice from wilsoncombat that their payment processor had been hacked and card info had been leaked, which I had suspected when I received a notification that a charge ($0.15) had been declined on the card I used with them in March. The charge was declined, and I was able to close that card and not have to redo my card info in every place I have a card linked.

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#98

Post by markovbot »

ex3ndr wrote: post #34

Onfido is state of the art service for ID verification and very trustworthy.

Then why do they have all those incredibly questionable things in their privacy policy? What makes them "trustworthy"? I've never heard of them, but from reading this blog post it seems like yet another evil company trying to suck up PII from unsuspecting victims and sell it.

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#99

Post by bel_marinaio »

privacy.com is one of my favorite companies.

They have saved me from fraud 2x in 3 years. Then I simply closed that "card" with the click of a button. No need to call my bank, cancel my debit card that I use at ATMs, and wait a week for a new card

I don't have to worry about remembering to cancel free subscriptions. I set the card max at $1. This has saved me multiple times from the free trial scams that you need to opt out of. Free trials should be opt in after the trial. Opt out is a scam to trickle money into a company from non customers.

They stopped a contractor from charging me over $2k when I specifically told them they needed to tell me how much before charging me. Of course they didnt tell me and tried to run the charge. Privacy put a stop to their BS.

It is mostly automatic or easy to set up once you are using Privacy. Some banks have started to offer similar digital card numbers similar to Privacy.

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#100

Post by flutas »

1shooner wrote: post #93
flutas wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It allows you to easily have a card per merchant, and lock it to the merchant so that when its number is stolen, it can't be used anywhere else. In my experience even that can fail. I had a card number stolen from them, charged to the tune of $200+, and their support refused to even entertain the idea of it being fraud, and when I mentioned a chargeback they basically said "we don't do those, because we have contrac…

>I had a card number stolen from them, charged to the tune of $200+ I'm curious, how did this happen specifically? In my experience, all privacy.com virtual cards default to being merchant-locked to the first place you use them. Did the merchant run an unauthorized transaction on the card? I've had online payment info compromised once, and privacy.com caught it cold (and also clearly demonstrated that the vendor had…

Honestly no clue, different vendor than the card was setup for.

This was during a big wave of unauthorized activity being attempted on their cards as well, a lot of friends reported blocked charges for random amounts at like a retirement/hospice home(?) at the time.

This was like 3+ years ago, and my only guess now (read: can't remember if this is true) is that the card had never been charged to the merchant, only pre-authed. But even then I'd expect the pre-auth to lock it to a merchant.

Post reply on HN