[hugocbp]

This can already be done with credit cards in Brazil.

Nubank [https://nubank.com.br/en/] lets you create as many virtual credit cards as you want, and you can delete them right away after using them. I now create one for each online transaction.

I imagine phone numbers will eventually be treated the same, specially once eSIM gets more and more common and the number is not tied to a piece of plastic anymore.

In Canada, as I assume is the same as US, even a new phone number will get bombarded with spam calls as soon as you turn it on.

I really like the idea of the post and would love to have phone numbers work like Nubank's credit card, and I would be able to create a new number (already tied to my information), use it on less reliable things, then delete it once it was over.

[araes]

Thanks. I had never heard of this and I'm surprised its not widely available in America. How does the actual process of creating a new virtual credit card every time work?

Ex: I go to Ebay / Amazon / Alibaba / Walmart / Etsy / Newegg / NoNameSpecialtySite on my phone/desktop/both and make an order. Lets say I make two in a day. One from phone while at work and one from desktop at home. How does that actually occur, and does, Amazon for example, then show me as using a long list of defunct cards? If I make 30 purchases a month, do I have 30 defunct cards on file? Do they freak out about the "we see you're using a new card" all the time, or "you look like a card thief to our algorithm"?

[hugocbp]

You just go into the app and click "Create card". Within seconds it will show you the number, expiration date and security code. And you can name it.

Then you use it like a normal card, so on the retailers it will be just like you use a physical card.

For example, I wouldn't have one card per purchase for Amazon, but one virtual card for Amazon that I would switch every few purchaces or something like that.

I haven't had any issues with this and have been doing it for a few years now.

[londons_explore]

In the UK, this is already possible - Lebara Mobile lets you get a new number entirely for free with immediate esim delivery.

Side effect is that lots of companies now ban Lebara Mobile because the fraud rate from their whole range of numbers is really high.

[WirelessGigabit]

Privacy.com does it too, like Blur.

And Capital One has it too, less configurable though.

BofA used to have it. I remembers that it was a Flash popup window. But it's gone now, guess it was cheaper to sunset than to rewrite in Javascript.