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

131–140 of 172 posts

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#131

Post by flutas »

1shooner wrote: post #129
flutas wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pr…

Interesting, looks like there was some kind of attack on privacy.com in 2020[0] that caused transactions to be run from vendors without them. 0. https://blog.privacy.com/a-different-type-of-card-fraud-anat...

Thanks for digging that up! I knew they made a post about it. Didn't notice before that they tried to say they "made (everyone) whole".

Maybe they think that not sending me to collections after I stopped the payment at the bank and closed my account is "being made whole."

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#132

Post by cmeacham98 »

fragmede wrote: post #114
cmeacham98 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I said, pretend I said "Plaid pretends to be the users' banks in order to trick users into giving Plaid their bank credentials and stores those credentials without their knowledge or consent" if it makes you feel any better. I'm content with my comment if you agree Plaid's behavior matches phishing with the only exception being how they use the credentials afterwards.

But it's how they use the credentials afterwards that's core to the disagreement over your use of the word phishing. Which is to say, you don't like or trust them, fine, but Plaid isn't a scam that's going to try and steal your money with those credentials it's gotten. Which makes it not phishing. Phishing involves an attacker trying to get those credentials in order to steal yo shit. Plaid is trying to perform a ser…

Like I said, pretend I said "Plaid pretends to be the users' banks in order to trick users into giving Plaid their bank credentials and stores those credentials without their knowledge or consent" if it makes you feel any better.

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#133

Post by Kye »

public_defender wrote: post #29
_8j50 wrote: post #23

Ahhh FFS, this post is complaining about third party KYC providers. Give me a break, in what world can you get a visa or mastercard without KYC? They provide privacy not anonymity, payment privacy that is not hiding your identity privacy. Your payments are private. Your payment info can't be easily tracked across the different cards you create. That's it.

I agree that most of the comments here amount to handwringing (or not understanding what amount of "privacy" is legal), but also, what KYC is really necessary for a company like this? If I understand correctly, all they do is pass through transactions. They don't hold customer deposits or provide credit. Isn't all this third party verification a little much?

Privacy is backed by an actual credit card ever since they restructured things to get around most sites rejecting their cards due to mistaking them for prepaid.

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#134

Post by collegeburner »

ineptech wrote: post #38

Sooner or later we're going to need a federal dept of is-this-guy-who-he-says-he-is. No startup can solve this; it's not profitable enough to do right. The last resort for authentication will always be "go to a place and talk to a human" and the gov't is the only entity who is willing/able to staff a brick-and-mortar office in reach of everyone in the country. I know some people are afraid of the feds having a centra…

or... the feds stop requiring everyone to go through this KYC bullshit and we accept that anonymity or pseudonymity is hecking valid.

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#135

Post by collegeburner »

buildbuildbuild wrote: post #2

The use of third party KYC services like Onfido is widespread in the cryptocurrency space as well, where over-compliance is the norm right now. Consumers are given little choice as to which provider stewards their ID scans, bank statements, biometric data, etc. This user experience has trained the most vulnerable, non-tech-savvy audiences to provide just about anything requested when asked for ID verification. Includ…

ahahahaha man who do you think is the one who added all this KYC shit and who scares companies into over compliance... and you want more regulation as a solution. we could start by removing all KYC requirements and fighting crime as crime instead of imputing some criminality to a financial transaction. like even if it's part of a criminal enterprise the transaction itself isn't the "wrong" part.

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#136

Post by jiveturkey »

_8j50 wrote: post #23

Ahhh FFS, this post is complaining about third party KYC providers. Give me a break, in what world can you get a visa or mastercard without KYC? They provide privacy not anonymity, payment privacy that is not hiding your identity privacy. Your payments are private. Your payment info can't be easily tracked across the different cards you create. That's it.

That's what the post is complaining about, but the problem is quite deeper. The KYC bit is actually ok IMO -- you're giving your identity to places that likely already have it.

What this kind of article should be about is the same thing that VPN is about. privacy.com actually removes privacy. Now, instead of VISA being the only aggregator of your purchase data, privacy.com is also. Either way, the merchant and VISA know your purchase history. Now, so does "privacy".com.

If you want to hide something from your bill so that someone else in your household doesn't see it, then ok. If you want to hide your address and name from a merchant (say for a digital downlaod) then ok. If you actually want more privacy, privacy.com is the opposite of what you want.

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#137

Post by jiveturkey »

bel_marinaio wrote: post #99

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…

Not starting, this kind of virtual card service has existed long before privacy.com came on the scene.

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#138

Post by INTPenis »

_8j50 wrote: post #18
INTPenis wrote: post #17

I worked in domain registrations in the early 2000s and it's funny how we used to put stock into what sort of TLD a domain used. Like .com would clearly be a commercial entity, while .org would be more non-profits, open source, public domain and stuff like that. Anyways, they're probably harvesting your payments and selling that info. I've noticed that since the card issuers have such high security requirements, and…

You "believe" without any evidence? To the contrary my bank card purchases were resulting in targeted ads but privacy.com cards have not shown any sign of that after using them for over a year.

Yes I believed to be more specific, you've changed that belief with your facts. Thanks.

But I still do believe this practice goes on here in Sweden where small businesses are offering services that act as man in the middle between the consumer and the card issuer. And therefore they're able to harvest your transaction data, which is gold.

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#139

Post by tchened »

jiveturkey wrote: post #136
_8j50 wrote: post #23

Ahhh FFS, this post is complaining about third party KYC providers. Give me a break, in what world can you get a visa or mastercard without KYC? They provide privacy not anonymity, payment privacy that is not hiding your identity privacy. Your payments are private. Your payment info can't be easily tracked across the different cards you create. That's it.

That's what the post is complaining about, but the problem is quite deeper. The KYC bit is actually ok IMO -- you're giving your identity to places that likely already have it. What this kind of article should be about is the same thing that VPN is about. privacy.com actually removes privacy. Now, instead of VISA being the only aggregator of your purchase data, privacy.com is also. Either way, the merchant and VISA k…

> Either way, the merchant and VISA know your purchase history. Now, so does "privacy".com.

how does the merchant know your purchase history if you're using virtual cards with bogus info?

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#140

Post by INTPenis »

solumos wrote: post #45
INTPenis wrote: post #17

I worked in domain registrations in the early 2000s and it's funny how we used to put stock into what sort of TLD a domain used. Like .com would clearly be a commercial entity, while .org would be more non-profits, open source, public domain and stuff like that. Anyways, they're probably harvesting your payments and selling that info. I've noticed that since the card issuers have such high security requirements, and…

That might be true if they weren't also the card issuer[0]. The main way they make money is on interchange, which for a card issuer is a kickback of up to 2% from Visa/Mastercard/etc [1]. [0] - https://techcrunch.com/2021/05/20/privacy-com-rebrands-to-li... [1] - https://www.adyen.com/blog/interchange-fees-explained

So privacy.com themselves handle the transaction from their own account then? I stand corrected. I assumed that you registered your card with them and they just acted as an inbetween.
Post reply on HN