Hacker News Reader

Comment by rabboRubble | Hacker News Reader

My credit card company offers a way to generate a one-time credit card number so that I can safely trial a service and have the monthly charges stop after one month. If I want to continue the service, I can provide my real static credit card number.

View on HN

That's awesome, but it unfortunately won't help when a company charges for a full year in advance like LinkedIn does.

Sure it can. The Bank of America system lets you set an upper credit limit on the temporary numbers. While BofA can ignore it at their discretion, if you set the limit at around $100 I suspect they'd deny a $1400 charge.

Mine also let's you chose a maximum amount that can be charged to the temporary card number. I usually add 10% or 20% extra to the expected amount so that unexpected taxes or shipping costs don't block the whole transaction.

I really love the feeling of safety that I get from chosing the max amount, being sure that I won't be overcharged.

I love the points I get from my current cards, but what card is this actually? This sounds like a really killer card I’d use frequently for these use cases.

The service I was writing about is French: http://www.service-virtualis.com/virtualis/index.htm

So unfortunately if you get points I'm guessing you're from North America and probably won't be able to apply.

I haven't searched but there might be such services available to you in a nearer bank.

Thank you for the link (I'm French too), but my bank (BNP) is not on the list :'(

I've done it with a Citi Double Cash card. It's a nice all around card: 2% cash back, price matching, temporary numbers, etc. Don't take my recommendation blindly though, do your own research first of course!

Edit: As a meta-sidenote, it was very difficult for me to write this comment without feeling like it would come across as corporate shilling. I have no connection to Citi and nothing to gain from recommending their card, but there's no way for anybody else to know that, and the issue of selling old accounts is a real one (though don't know about HN specifically). I wonder what the best solutions are to this sort of issue.

Unfortunately only the shittiest of the shitty banks (BofA and Citi) appear to still offer temp numbers. Amex did for a while but dropped it.

All the citibank cards can generate Virtual Account Numbers with time and dollar limits. I use them frequently.

I did this strategy just today with privacy.com which isn't a credit card at all but bills your bank account directly.

Bank of America credit cards have this, they call it ShopSafe. My old Citi card had that although I can’t verify they still offer it. I believe Capital One has virtual credit card number capability as well.

Yup, Citi still has it

US market here... Citi card. For many reasons, I loathe Citi and would like to drop using them, but I keep this card for this one feature.

I found out the hard way that my bank added 10% extra for the reasons you mention. I ended up getting ripped off for a smallish amount on a big transaction because of this.

yes it does, the one time use credit card number comes with an amount of money.

When I order a 20€ item, I generate a credit card number valid for a single use of 20€. If the merchant tries to charge 19.99€ or 21€ or any different amount it will be rejected (and the merchant may have to pay penalty for payment being rejected).

That's super cool, I'd never heard of that. I'd only known of the benefit of some cryptocurrencies bringing that feature

Reply on news.ycombinator.com