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Comment by Jd | Hacker News Reader

I started using privacy.com for this reason. You can spin up a separate card number for each transaction type with its own limit (e.g. $100/month or $200). You can also just turn them off at will.

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Note: US-only at the moment, Privacy.com isn't available anywhere else.

There are other services, though not as advanced. In Europe you could use Revolut to create virtual disposable cards. They are more useful for one-time payments however.

privacy.com seems like such a sleek solution.

privacy.com looks great. I think the only disadvantage is that you lose all the 2-5% cashback, travel benefits and so on. I wish they could produce card while keeping these benefits but still its good card to have for shady websites.

Depending on who your card is through, some companies started offering this. It's often just hidden in the web UI.

Yep, Bank of America and Citi offer the same service. Not sure about others.

I haven't used SunTrust in a while but I know they offered the service back when I used them as well.

I use privacy.com and my regular card. I use my privacy.com cards for sites where I think security is bad (like our local water company) and for recurring subscriptions on sites that I don't think will be easy to cancel.

It's a good compromise between protection and credit rewards.

Looks great. Not available in my country :-(

What are the downsides? And what's their business model?

Credit card companies and banks receive 1-3% of commission on all of the transactions made throught he card. Banks normally pass parts of these along to the consumer in the form of cashback or other benefits. Privacy.com just uses these commisions as funding for their service. (I've read it somewhere on their site)

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