With the Left deplatforming conservatives, many conservative websites have gone to a subscription model. I want to support them but I want to limit the access to my credit card number.
An idea that occurred to me is to use a mastercard or visa gift card number for payments
Do you think this will work?
Alternate ideas for implementing time-limited recurring payments?
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Privacy. com? You can create a virtual card for each service with the limit being the subscription amount. You canāt pay with CC though.
At this time we only support checking accounts and debit cards from US banks/credit unions as funding sources.
When you use a Privacy card to purchase something online we automatically debit your checking account. Weāre hoping to roll out credit card funding, as well as other options, in the not too distant future!
thanks for the suggestion, but the risk with giving them access to my checking account seems worse than the risk that I canāt stop websites from charging my credit card.
Visa gift cards are often blocked from recurring charges. They dont allow ongoing charges to an account that is inherently not perpetual.
You just have to give that site access to a checking account, not your main checking account. You can open a throwaway account just for this, and only transfer in the amount you intend to spend.
Worse case, you can just use your credit card, then once the approved charge is processed report your card stolen. Then no further charges to that account number will be approved, although your credit card may or may not automatically push the new account info to the recurring charge processor.
Thanks. Good ideas.
Several Iāve seen have given up trying to take CCs since the left whines enough to the CC company about how Hateful they are and gets them banned by their processor. Mostly they take crypto.
I imagine a lot of vendors quit taking prepaids because there were all sorts of glitches in which the card would fail but it would give you the service anyway. Notably, the NYT for a year or two.
you can buy a Visa or MC gift card (when Staples has the 200.00 no fee ,this week the 200 MCGC are fee free)then use that card. They are debits!!.
you can buy a Visa or MC gift card (when Staples has the 200.00 no fee ,this week the 200 MCGC are fee free)then use that card. They are debits!!.
Thanks for the idea. Otherwise the fee is about $10.
have you ever tried to register them say with Amazon as a payment card?
I havenāt found a card that does NOT do this. However, each of my cc providers will let you opt out of this āserviceā. If itās an expired card, this doesnāt prevent the biller from guessing your new expiration date. :-{
yes. Last year bought a few VGC for 200 when ODOM had no fee via mail. But upon reading the terms, on back of card, these metabank cards had an inactivity fee of 4.95 after first year. So I had funds left over after 1 year on 4 cards. Small amts of 1.15 .82. etc. Did not go to groceries to drain due to pandemic. So I added them to Amazon and drained each card for .82 1.15 etc. That works.
For true recurring charges, a lot of times the gift card BIN is blocked and the charge isnāt allowed.
no problem when I did it.
Have you considered opening a separate ācheckingā so they do not have access to your main one and funding it through a periodic ACH? Creditkarma provides a debit card; as does Varo Money and T-mobile money. I believe these accounts, or some of them, will provide an ABA routing-transit (RTN) and account number as well. But you may need to check with them on working with other than the debit card that they provide as not all give unique account numbers.
I just used the Staples 200.00 MCGC with no fee and bought with the Chase Ink as I have done for years. 5% back from Chase. Just paid Suez water bill of 119.00 and changed my Xfinity mobile card on file to a 200. VGC. I like the 5% from Chase. As I said before, USBanks cash+ has all these cat for 5% too. But USBANK pays you in a gift card. I like the Chase cash.
could you expand on this? I looked on the credit karma website and they do have some kind of payment service. How would you compare that to privacy.com?
here is a good review of privacy.com
The section on the signup procedure is interesting
tl;dr you need to give your bank login information but can then change it (for example the password) after you are signed up
On the other hand ā and as I mentioned ā itās not hard to imagine that some would-be users might be scared off by needing to enter their banking login info before getting started. After all, that data getting out could lead to more damage than a credit card number being revealed. Of course Privacy.com realizes this conundrum and addresses it in their FAQ section. Regarding the need to log into your bank account, they write, āIt sounds risky. But give us a sec to explain how this works. We partner with Plaid to facilitate these connections. Plaid has an agreement with your institution to be a trusted bridge to your bank. When you login via the portal provided by your bank, we are given a token by your bank that allows us to verify your account and conduct Privacy related transactions. We donāt obtain or store your login information, and you can change it anytime without affecting your use of Privacy.ā
While weāre on the topic, is it fairly easy to dispute unauthorized recurring payments away? Assuming the vendor is a dick and either makes it deliberately hard to cancel or ghosts you?
That is my point on this thread. I do not think it is easy once the vendor has your credit card information. The only way I know of is to dispute the charge. I checked into this and my credit card had a minimum amount, $50, that I could dispute.