[netmau5]

I worry this is the step in between illegal downloads and making anonymity illegal. If they can flag you for downloading unpaid content, it won't be long before they flag you for circumstantial patterns leading to that behavior such as using TOR.

[chimeracoder]

We're already almost there.

Try being truly anonymous on the Internet these days. It's near impossible. Most online vendors won't accept pre-paid credit cards. Many email providers require you to provide a phone number or another email address as "verification".

Even posting on forums is difficult, because while Tor is decent for fetching data, some websites blacklist Tor IP addresses (or, even if they don't, there's a chance you may be sharing an IP address with someone who was banned from a forum).

[smsm42]

Online vendors don't accept pre-paid Visa? This is news to me. How do they even know - it's just a regular Visa card. I've used a number of such online (mostly ones I got in all kinds of promotions) and never had a problem - I didn't even think anybody could do that and I doubt Visa would allow you to do that - to reject pre-paid Visa card. Do you have any source to this claim?

[wmf]

When they ask for a billing address and it doesn't match because the prepaid card doesn't have one?

[sbierwagen]

Most credit card processors have recently cracked down on pre-paid cards. It's almost impossible to pay for web hosting or VPSes using them now.

[chimeracoder]

> Do you have any source to this claim?

Paypal, for one, makes no attempt to hide this: https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/About-My-Account/using-p...

While Paypal will accept it if you provide a Visa-verified billing address, not all will, and that would defeat the point of anonymity anyway.

Visa and AmEx also forbid international payments on prepaid cards, and most merchants nowadays require a verified billing address. (This wasn't the case as recently as 2009).

Remember that a prepaid card is not a credit card - there's no risk of you not paying, because they [Visa] already have your money and yet merchants refuse to take it. It's completely ridiculous.

[wmf]

This sounds more like a problem with the issuing banks. Is there any way for a merchant to know that a card is prepaid? If not, how would they know not to check the billing address?

(Semi-related: Do prepaid cards count as debit for purposes of the regulation on swipe fees?)

[chimeracoder]

> This sounds more like a problem with the issuing banks.

It's a problem with both parties, since both are known to refuse to process them.

> Is there any way for a merchant to know that a card is prepaid?

Yes

> Is there any way for a merchant to know that a card is prepaid?

No

[chimeracoder]

Copy and pasted wrong - just noticed. The 'no' is supposed to be in response to the debit card fees question.