Credit cards and privacy: Can I have both?
To start: I was taught in the 90s when I first entered the "internet" that "everything online is public. The End."
I still adhere to that. I am perhaps a bit overly cautious and whatnot, as I will forego convenience to have the feeling of privacy (though in some cases I believe it's just a smokescreen).
That being said, the main premise to my question is this: I have three cards with which I pay for things. I have a debit card which I use for most purchases, a credit card I use for large purchases I can't immediately cover with my bank account, and a credit card for two specific payments. Every December my company gifts all employees a $100 Visa gift card. I tend to splurge on things I'd rather not have show up in my bank account or credit card, because I feel my purchase habits are tracked (similar as to when I put in a local brewery into Waze... and yeah, I use Waze.)
And now to my actual question: is there a credit company, or a method of credit/debit card I can utilize that will not track/share/etc my personal or purchase info? I had never thought of this idea, aside from the gift cards which usually come with some form of caveat (you lose money on fees for a prepaid card, or you can lose your balance if not spent in a certain time frame, etc) until just now I guess. I found privacy.com which looks kind of legit, but ... I'm always skeptical to start.
All that being said, if you could offer any advice or thoughts on the matter, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!
(Edit: the original reason I ask this is because I was thinking that I use Discord a lot and would like to throw a few bucks their way and customize my profile or something "fun" like that, but I do not want them to have my info.)
I'm not sure what you mean. Do the credit card companies track your purchases? Yes. It is, in fact, illegal for them not to. Thank money laundering regulations for that. Do the companies that receive your card payments have your data? No more than you supply. Likely they don't even have your card information themselves, as that is considered PCI and the card networks make you jump through a lot of hoops to store; whatever payment processor they use has it instead.
Privacy.com is legit, and best-in-class by a mile. You won’t regret it.
Free to end users; they just take a cut of convenience fee. You issue new cards on demand and they get locked to a specific vendor - plus you can also lock them to an arbitrary spend rate or amount.
That’s a cool concept! Unfortunately, it’s US only. As written at the very bottom of their page when you open the last FAQ. :(
The only downside I’ve seen is they need to verify you every year. I’ve been with them for over 3 years and this go around they needed a utility bill and a copy of my id. They put my account on pause for about 3 weeks while they verified everything and kinda created a bit of havoc in my life as everything was being declined (due to their hold) and I didn’t want to give my actual card number to anyone. Once resolved life went back to normal and I can sing their praises but damn! My bank doesn’t need to verify my identity and residential address every year.
All in all I love Privacy.com
I've been signed up for 4 years and I don't recall ever having to provide a utility bill or a copy of my ID. I don't use it a ton so maybe that's why. I use it for small things in some cases or for free trials.
That may be the difference. I use it for everything. Each bill I have had a virtual card. Any online payment, I create a virtual card for. Around 60 open virtual cards. I guess they needed to make sure I was legit.
I've used Privacy.com, it works, but I'm also not quite sure that's exactly what you're looking for? All cards are tracable in some way shape or form, since we only have a couple of networks. (I could be wrong, not an expert)
just FYI too, Waze has been owned by Google for like 10 years now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waze
Few clarifying questions:
I'm asking mainly about cards vs cash.
I'm trying to avoid anyone outside of the card issuer having the data.
As @stu2b50 said, it'd be illegal for credit card companies not to track your purchases. One of the reasons why credit cards exists and why there's a push to eliminate cash is to limit the so called informal economy.
For stuff like Discord, you can make the purchase through App Store or, I assume, Google Play Store and have the purchase appear as though you made the payment to them and not directly to Discord. This is a safer way to do things anyway. I don't know how Discord prices the platform's own cut into their own prices, so you might end up paying more, but you'd certainly hide your Discord purchase from your bank statements.
If it's enabled, I try to make all my purchases this way, not because of privacy but because of security. It's the same reason why I never give my actual credit card number to any merchant, but instead I use a virtual card provided by my bank with spending limits.
Another option in the realm of online service subscriptions is gift cards- you can buy gift cards for most online services in physical stores and sometimes even digital codes for purchase online. These would only have “a gift code” linked to the payment card and “a gift card” linked to the nitro card.
The store will probably keep a record of the ISs if the gift cards purchased, but it’s not something they’ll talk to the service provider about, unless there was was some huge amount of fraud or somethjng.
Services like Apple Pay and even just using a tap to pay card at a card terminal can help you stay anonymous. Your credit card company will keep records, but if you use Apple Pay or tap to pay, the information given to the card terminal is unique and will never be used for future transactions.