[ryandrake]

As a credit card customer it would be nice to be able to generate one or more temporary cards (physical or not), which are authorized for one transaction only, but are otherwise identical to my main card. That way I can use it with a merchant I simply don’t trust to have their act together, then safely toss it in the trash.

[subsubsub]

As a previous commenter mentioned Revolut do this.

However I would suggest a temporary card that only lasts for 2 transactions.

- the authorization charge (e.g. $1 on amazon.com) [1]

- the actual amount of the purchase

Too many times I have been caught out by the authorization charge, only to have the actual purchase fail.

[1] https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/aws-a...

[homero]

I use privacy.com which is awesome

[dvfjsdhgfv]

To save others a click - looks good, but US-only.

[jv22222]

Just signed up and had a poke around, created a few cards. I have to agree it looks excellent.

[ForHackernews]

Citibank already offers this feature on their credit cards, I believe: https://www.cardbenefits.citi.com/Products/Virtual-Account-N...

[abawany]

I used to use this pretty thoroughly but a few issues have caused me to stop altogether now:

* Flash app means that in newer versions of Android (edit: 6+ IME), even with an old Adobe Flash for Android apk loaded and with Firefox, the functionality no longer works in mobile (input functionality is broken.)

* Cards used for time-limited recurring expenses (subscriptions that I intend to end in 1 year, for example) would arbitrarily fail transactions resulting in hassle. Since each number was locked to the processor who requested the first transaction, I suppose one reason this happened was if a business switched processors mid-stream.

I have always wondered why no one has created a nice mobile solution for this very useful feature. It seems that credit cards want each customer to just use one number and trust that their risk department will stop data leaks - seems like a bad solution.

[akeating]

I've been watching Revolut who introduced something like this a while back https://blog.revolut.com/introducing-disposable-virtual-card...

[gant]

I used that for a while, until a billing network banned me for using too many cards with my name.

[f00_]

i'm thinking about using privacy.com, what ended up happening? What is a billing network?

[gant]

They're sort of an intelligence network for payment processors. Took a few days and it worked again, but just be aware that having a new credit card every payment might put you in a higher risk bucket.

[xeromal]

I've been using products that facilitated this for the past 10 years and one has yet to stick.

Paypal had a firefox extension that did this about 10 years ago.

https://getfinal.com/ was fantastic and I used it for about 2 years. I was one of the first 700 applicants. It worked exactly as you described and you could even set dollar limits for monthly recurring charges. They folded earlier this year and I was sad to see my CC cancelled. :(

[fragmede]

GetFinal was acquired by Goldman Sachs which may or may not fit your definition for "folded".

[julianozen]

Check out privacy https://privacy.com/

[felix_nagaand]

Probably to shelve the idea.

[toomuchtodo]

Proven teams from unprofitable ventures are frequently acquired to work on other business ventures with higher likelihood of success.

[nixgeek]

Privacy.com is doing this today although it’s a debit card (AFAIK).

[JamesBarney]

Just wanted to say I've used them and they're great. You can set limits on the virtual card. As well as have them lock to only one vendor. So as soon as the sale goes through no other vendors can charge the card.

[bound008]

Check out Capital One. They have the ability to have multiple virtual cards that you can turn on or off.

https://www.capitalone.com/applications/eno/virtualnumbers/

[germainelol]

As others have said, try out Revolut. I believe it's only part of the premium package which sucks, but they offer throwaway cards for this purpose.

[mehrdadn]

Have you looked into the existing options? Citi and Bank of America for example support virtual card numbers (virtual account numbers and ShopSafe, respectively).

[ceejayoz]

Capital One does, as well. Unfortunately, it requires a browser extension, which I'm not a big fan of.

[mehrdadn]

Ah, yes, the UI (Flash-based in the cases I mentioned!) is definitely clunky, so it's not surprising Capital One's is similar. They also tend to hide the feature a little bit for some reason; it's not prominently displayed. But otherwise it's there and nevertheless usable if you can find it. If you need it on literally a daily basis, though, it might not be smooth enough to be comfortable.

[toomuchtodo]

Could you MITM the extension to reverse engineer the API calls it makes and write a command line tool to perform the required functions?

I have a friend at CapOne, I’ll ask tomorrow.

[aussieguy1234]

What would be good, would be to have a card number generated that expires 10 minutes later, that you could use as a "one time code" to purchase stuff

[miketery]

Been waiting for something like this for a while. Much nicer if you can keep a ledger of these auth'd cards and revoke if need be.

[kbuck]

A few banks provide a system like this. I'm aware of at least Bank of America and Citi.

Bank of America calls it "ShopSafe"; you can generate a number for one-time or recurring payment with an associated limit and expiration date.

Citi calls it Virtual Account Numbers. Theirs don't have a limit by default (but you can create one that does).

Unfortunately, both systems use archaic Flash applets to generate and manage the numbers... I hate the Citi one in particular because it has sound effects when you press buttons.

[Animats]

Yes, ShopSafe is useful when dealing with flaky businesses.

[VectorLock]

I've wanted something like this for a long time as well. The ability to generate and discard one-off card numbers. Much less worry about those card numbers leaking, unauthorized transactions, etc.

[arama471]

Privacy.com does this

link: https://privacy.com

[cyrux004]

I have been in US for 10 years and have had this since the first time in I opened an account in BOFA. The feature is called ShopSafe

[bradknowles]

Check out privacy.com for that.

[aussieguy1234]

Startup idea of the week

[tezza]

entropay.com has similar virtual cards for a ~4% fee

[voltagex_]

Entropay.com is great - I use it for sites that really don't want my Australian dollars (normally this is enough for me to never buy from them, but sometimes I really do need the product). The cards are "American", but appear to be issued somewhere in the EU - I've had the number rejected by someone, maybe Sling?

I do wonder if I'm getting flagged as a higher fraud risk when I use it, though.

[anirudhmurali]

True, I remember my card at Entropay being registered under Malta, Europe. But fortunately, online services accepted it.

[voltagex_]

Do you remember how you checked this? I wonder if there's a BIN lookup somewhere.