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Hiten Shah

Privacy.com - Get a new virtual card for every transaction

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Privacy.com is an innovative way to protect your personal information over the internet. Are you feeling uncomfortable using your credit card online? Privacy.com has the perfect solution - it creates a virtual card that masks your bank statements for your online payments.

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Ben Tossell
Only available in the US at the moment but I really want to try it 😭
Greg Gilbert
@bentossell Looks very useful. Doesn't your bank offer a similar service? That's something pretty "standard" in France. Without the browser extension of course..
O O
@bentossell entropay is a pretty similar alternative that works worldwide!
Jince Kuruvilla
@gregoiregilbert @bentossell not here in the US - this is pretty much an unheard of concept
Mohit
@j_nce @gregoiregilbert @bentossell Citi does offer cards where you can generate tons of virtual cards
Rahul Bansal
@gregoiregilbert @bentossell We have similar services in India by banks but they don't work for subscriptions. And it's subscriptions I often forget to cancel! :(
Boling Jiang
Maker
Hi all - Privacy.com co-founder here. I’m super excited to announce that we’re live in the US, after being basically heads-down for the past 20 months. We’ve been neck-deep on the card issuing side of payments (BIN sponsorship, ACH, processing, AML / KYC), so happy to field any questions on that front. Give it a try - we'd love to hear your feedback. Thank you! P.S. Your first $5 donation to watsi.org is on us :)!
Andy Davis
@bolingj this looks great. congrats. when can we expect to see this service hitting the UK?
Boling Jiang
Maker
@mrandydavis It's in our long term roadmap, but unfortunately no firm timeframe yet :(.
Jordi Mon Companys
@bolingj When will you be available in Europe? Will you be SEPA compatible?
Yulian Kuncheff
@bolingj Congrats on this. I have been waiting on something like this ever since Paypal shutdown their version of it. I plan to sign up shortly and give it a shot. I hope you guys solved the 1 issue that I have had with the paypal one in ages past is that some sites would see the card as not real or invalid or non-existent. Hopefully you guys got that kink worked out. P.S. Just finished signing up, I love that your Chase linking happened instantly. The second I hit next, it already had my 2 accounts ready to choose from. Superbly done. I assume you guys are using Plaid? as Yodlee is vastly slower in that department (used to work in a Fintech startup)
Boling Jiang
Maker
@daegalus Thank you! We are using Plaid. They are the best :).
Yassine el Kachchani
That's the kind of products that make you smile 5 seconds after landing in the homepage. Few words, 1 illustration and boom: you feel a pain going away. Great job Boling.
Boling Jiang
Maker
@kachchani Thank you!
Petr Bela
@kachchani I concur. The entire onboarding process from sign up through linking a bank account to paying on Watsi is absolutely beautiful.
Chad Whitaker

Privacy.com is perfect for free trials. No more setting a calendar reminder to cancel your account.

Just create a burner card with a $1 limit, and the whole cancellation process will work itself out. 😬

Pros:

Prevents your credit card from being stolen. Perfect for free trials.

Cons:

Can't be used for in-store transactions like Final.com

Aimee Smiley
What's Final.com?
𝔏aurent 𝔇el ℜey
Great execution. Just curious though, is there way to track the transaction to the original credit card or is it some sort o encrypted? And BTW, that's a great domain you have. How did you get it? 🙈
Aashay
Is this similar to Final (https://getfinal.com/)?
Joe Blau
@fletchrichman @big_aash Funny story. I met the Final guys at a YC hackathon (without knowing who they were) the day after their public launch and one of the guys described their product to me. I was like "Oh that sounds like Final" and he goes "Yeah dude that's us!" Upon further inquiry I realized that at that they actually had not built anything and were trying to build a team.
John Shelley
@big_aash I'm sure the founders can elaborate more, but Final, on top of browser support, plans to have a physical card and mobile support as well. Full card replacement. It seems like Privacy is just a browser based solution? I could be wrong, but either way its great to see a solution like this actually available! (I worked along side the Final team during Techstars Boulder back in '14)
arfrank
@joe_blau @fletchrichman @big_aash A lot has changed since then, we've gone deeper into payments, and specifically cards, than we ever thought we would, and we've also built a team. Do you know which one of us you met?
arfrank
@jpshells Thanks John, plus being a credit card, and a few other things we're working on. It's been a while.
Collin Duncan
Is there an iOS app? Safari extension? Looks like an awesome service btw!
Boling Jiang
Maker
@bleachedsleet Thank you! The iOS app is coming soon! We're just pending Apple approval right now. Safari extension is on the roadmap as well.
John Shelley
Boling Jiang
Maker
@jpshells @bleachedsleet It's probably going to be in another few months, but we have Android in the pipeline too!
Brody Berson
I really like the idea of this, but wish you could connect it to one credit card instead of a bank. I still would like to get reward points from my credit card on purchases made online...
Dmitry Suholet
Haha this product can stop gym membership slavery 😄 Love it.
J. Christian Bernabe

Privacy is an awesome solution for protecting your privacy/security when you shop online. As cyber breaches continue to be par for the course, I can see this service being of great use for those of us who are security-minded. Please integrate linking credit cards to create burner cards!

Pros:

I love the idea of burner cards, especially if you are into protecting your security and privacy. The Chrome extension is great too.

Cons:

I wish you could create burner cards with credit card accounts, not just with debit cards. I'm waiting for this feature to arrive.

Aaron Hanson
I suppose this means I could view all of my SaaS subscriptions from one place!? If so, I might self implode from excitement.
Boling Jiang
Maker
@crixlet yes! 😎
Jack Smith
this tool looks awesome. I previously paid Blur $5 a month for such functionality, but they started adding in stupid fees and were slow to adopt ACH. @bolingj how do you handle merchants issuing refunds to the cards?
Boling Jiang
Maker
@_jacksmith Thanks! Refunds will go directly back to your funding account.
Brian Roach
@_jacksmith same boat here. Dropped Blur when they started tacking on the $2 fee per transaction. They lost a long-term customer overnight. Really was a shame. Stoked to try this one out tho.
Jack Smith
@anodigital yeah, I had been using them for a long time as well. I even requested access to their ACH beta program but months later they still wouldn't onboard me. such a shame. The annoying thing with Blur is that they also tried to do loads of other things like mask all your passwords, so the chrome extension was very intrusive.
Jerry Becker
Love this idea of isolating transactions from a security standpoint. Does this have any impact at all on a user's credit report?
Boling Jiang
Maker
@beckerjs Nope - we don't pull a credit check.
Jerry Becker
@bolingj : How about on the other end? Will a user's credit be affected due to the ownership of many more cards?
Boling Jiang
Maker
@beckerjs Nope!
Andreas Duess
@beckerjs @bolingj The money doesn't come from a credit account. It's closer to a chargecard model, from what I read.
Danny Fiorentini
How about the underrated genius of the logo though? 💯
Duane Wilson✌️
Glad to see this concept come back around! Hopefully, you do it right. in around 1997-98 the bank I was at launched a version of this, called one-time account numbers - it was very popular even though you had to come to our website, enter all the details of the transaction and get a unique one-time account number to use for that specific transaction on some merchants website... It was cancelled once we had enough data to see exactly what people were using it for... internal code name 'kid porn card' though it was more often drugs... still, lots of porn too. Since you are touting privacy of the transactions how are you monitoring for illegal activity? Eventually, the Feds are going to ask for transactions details. It didn't go well when the NSA asked the encrypted email service for a key they could not (would not) provide - they took the service down. It's a cool idea and could likely stop all kinds of common fraud though banks do a very good job of shutting that down immediately these days. Github is the only website that causes me a problem, every single month I get a fraud alert for that account, they have way too many chargebacks apparently :D @bolingj Given that browsers store card numbers for you so auto-fill is already easy enough plus how good card issuers are these days at real-time fraud protection what is the specific problem that the company is attempting to solve?
Boling Jiang
Maker
@helloduane Thanks for the thoughtful post! First off - for folks doing something illegal that may result in a subpoena, this is not the product for you 😬. As a US financial services product we do have to abide by AML / KYC. Broadly speaking, there's 2 points that we think are compelling: 1) We just think that you just shouldn't have to share your personal info with a random merchant you want to buy something from. This notion that passing along your billing info is going some how substantially cutting down on fraud is ridiculous. It's anti-privacy in the guise of being anti-fraud. 2) We like the idea that multiple numbers puts the control back in your hands as a consumer. You can track down and see exactly which merchant stole/leaked your info. You don't have to update all your cards at every site every time your card is used fraudulently. And lastly, you can set limits per card, so you don't have to deal with some shady merchant billing you without consent or slipping in a hidden charge (it happens alot!). Hope that helps!
Duane Wilson✌️
@bolingj lol - yes, that's true - it's not for people doing illegal things but they will do them, and FYI if you are doing something stupid like that then use CASH :D It's a hard thing to say that I should not trust merchant 1 when you are the middle man in the process that is unknown. I would have to have more trust in your company than PayPal, Stripe, Braintree, etc... or Apple/FireFox/Chrome (not that I have much trust in PayPal mind you..) If it were launching in China, Iran, Middle East, etc. then I would agree more with you on the privacy stance.... Ultimately your bank doesn't care what you do as long as you pay your bill (hopefully only a portion of the balance and if at all possible paid late) As for tracking down which merchant did what, the bank, police are going to do that for you - you don't need to worry about it. In general you are covered, bank issues a new card, refunds your money, etc. There is no point knowing it was the car rental place because the employee who stole your card already split or is already in jail once you find out about it from the bank who calls/tests to tell you about a suspicious charge from Cheap'n Easy Car Rental Service Inc. right? None the less will be interesting to see how this goes. Best of luck to you!
Patrick Thompson
Signed up but disappointed that, much like all services that tie into bank account, only the large corporate banks are supported. :(
Brandon Bachman

I often use this service to help friends out with small transactions. Where a credit card is needed, most services will accept digital debit.

I can also use these digital debit cards to bind with other digital payment service, at least with Google / Android Pay in my experience so I can put a bound card on hold if Google's digital payment scheme becomes compromised by hackers; then unhold or close and make a new card to bind a new card onto it once issues with the service had been resolved.

For purchases which are of a more dubious nature, or would put into question what you are doing with your money it's also a good way to obfuscate your transactions and make it so you're not revealing all fo your purchasing history to advertisers, should you use your real debit or credit card on a website which would harvest your payment information.

It's a good way to ensure the safety of your money and transactions. Whenever you can, use it; I've had no regrets with it.

While I had not used the service for a year as of this writing, Iam going to continue using it until it's either discontinued or infeasible for how I use it.

Pros:

Payment secrecy, self-made gift cards, account security, responsive support

Cons:

Cannot be used where prepaid debit isn't alllowed (i.e. PayPal)

Joe Blau
This is awesome. It reminds me of a tool like 1Password; Instead of relying on websites to keep your password safe, you just give them a burner. Now I can do that with my credit card!
Boling Jiang
Maker
@joe_blau Thanks Joe!
Christopher Smeder
Whenever I see a compelling product that depends on my sharing my bank account number I am always disappointed. In a world where database breaches are the norm, having your bank account number shared with numerous startups opens me up to a very costly kind of fraud http://www.nbcnews.com/id/791415... I'm really jelous of the sanity around bank account transaction the european countries enjoy. In the US, incredibly we have zero security around this. Once someone has your account number they can drain your whole bank account. I first learned of this danger from Donald Knuth's writings here http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.e... Any plans to add support for using a debit card (even with a fee? I'd be willing to pay)?
Jay Hemmady

I've generated dozens of virtual cards - some limited to a small $$/mo and others are one-time use only. Everyone one of them is tied to a particular vendor so if stolen I'm well protected

Pros:

What they offer - virtual credit card numbers w/ strong boundaries

Cons:

An extra step to make purchases - harder so on mobile but not as much on desktops