[AStonesThrow]

> create virtual credit cards

I was forced into this behavior by Google Pay/Wallet, and I found it extremely precarious.

With one of those virtual cards I purchased an item at a high cost, and unfortunately I had to go through a cycle of factory reset and reload everything to my phone. This necessarily wiped the "virtual cards" stored there.

Thereafter, I went back to the merchant for a refund, and we found that a credit to the "original card" was impossible because I "no longer possessed" the original card! I was rather infuriated that it would be this easy, but Google assured me there's no error and this is how it works. Google claims that they're protecting our privacy, but I basically did not ask to be enrolled in these virtual cards and, when we trust the card processors, this is a disadvantage and honestly, kind of insulting to our relationship.

This glitch cost me a long, long time as I needed to wait for a paper check to issue in the mail. Therefore, I would urge caution and being fully-informed of the corner cases, before anyone tries to use a virtual card for any serious transactions.

[incognito_mood]

Have never had any of those issues with refunds or reversals using privacy[dot]com virtual cards, fwiw

[AStonesThrow]

Well, the trouble lay in the fact that the virtual card[s] were tied to the Android device, and when I was forced to factory-reset it, the cards went along with that. If I had not had catastrophic system trouble then it would not have been noticed (and I would've been less wary).

If your virtual card is not contingent on something like that, I'd say it's more robust. If the only way your virtual cards get destroyed is your say-so, then that's fine. But if they are, by design, ephemeral, I would say that is a different design goal, and while using an ephemeral card to pay for food or gas may be just fine, paying for a pair of glasses or other durable thing, and then expecting a refund much later on, that's perhaps risky and should be avoided where possible.

The whole point of a financial account is its stability, so that we're able to account for transactions over time. I understand that a credit/debit card is, by nature, more ephemeral than most accounts, even having an expiration date, but it infuriated me that Google sort of mandated these "virtual card numbers" and imposed them on every account I loaded into Google Wallet, rather than asking me if I needed protection or not. In an environment where I trust those vendors where I'm doing business, it only hurts both of us to virtualize those account numbers, and invalidate them at the drop of a hat!