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Alternatives to Privacy.com? (self.askbeehaw)

submitted 1 year ago by Bowen to c/askbeehaw

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My account was recently banned from privacy (dot) com for some nebulous "violation of terms of service" after I changed my email over from gmail to protonmail.

I've used it for dropout.tv and sirius xm (this one because the way to cancel is nuts), as well as a few instagram based stores that sell things like tshirts and such that were just a little bit on the shady side for how it was thrown together. They quite literally advertise that this is the use case for their service, even on their twitter they'll retweet out users.

I have no idea what I even did because they won't give me details, but the only recent (within 6 months) thing is changing the email. So I'm guessing protonmail kicks up some fraud thing in their system.

I was just wondering if anyone had any services that mimic their virtual/masked card service. I did look into ironvest, but how little I've used privacy over the past 8 or so years isn't really worth the $5 a month that it costs.

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[–] wifienyabledcat 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

is something like Privacy worth using? I forgot they existed until now.

[–] Bowen 1 points 1 year ago

It was great for things that have free trials so I didn't have to remember to cancel before I got hit with something. Or something that has a crappy cancellation policy (Looking at you Sirius XM). Also great for those slightly shady web stores from instagram that you don't want to risk exposing your actual credit card to.

I know capitalone has virtual cards but it's not exactly the same thing. If Revolut doesn't pan out I'll probably just go with a prepaid card for these things going forward.

[–] Sendbeer 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I find it very convenient. Can set spending limits and pause cards. So if you know a company is going to charge $5 a month, set it there and don't sweat it. If the company decides to raise the rates to $20 a couple months later it will get declined and you can tell them to go pound sand.

For something you are only going to run one time they make single use cards as well. It's pretty nice service when they aren't banning you for random reasons.

[–] trufax 1 points 1 year ago

It recently saved me a lot of headache with finally ditching a subscription that the parent company made nearly impossible to cancel. After months of ignored emails and frustrating run around calls, I set up a virtual card, added it as a payment method, then deleted my real card info. The card was active for long enough for it to take as a legitimate CC, and then immediately closed. Those fuckers have emailed me (and snail mailed me) a million times trying to get me to update my payment method, lol.