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I don’t think that having an invalid c/c absolves you from debts accrued when using services that have traffic thresholds for switching between free and for pay.

This is definitely a limiter for me when signing up for these free sites: it usually is couched with language along the lines of you don’t want your business to be impacted by us turning off your service, but I am not joining as a business, I am joining as a “I am a developer investigating if this is worth it for my business”

I would prefer plans along the lines of “pay us $10 to activate, if you go over traffic we cut you off but guarantee no other charges, if you leave we refund your $10 no questions asked” or “no charge upfront, if you go over the free tier we charge up to $10 once only and then cut you off”

> If anyone knows of other ways to create virtual cards, please let me know.

privacy.com (https://privacy.com, or If you want to use a referral, privacy.com/join/NPNDJ ) is also free and works across any bank/debit card, although just recently they started monetizing by limiting free accounts to creating 12 virtual cards a month, so if you need more it's $10/mo.

https://privacy.com/pricing

> This allows you to get around the credit card wall, without fear of them actually being able to charge the card.

Note that services can see if a card is virtual and might block them from signing up for free trials. Digital Ocean, for example, does this to prevent referral fraud. Netflix also used to block virtual cards from signing up for the free trial when they had one.

Do you know how they detect virtual cards? I have seen some scripts which detect whether card number is valid CC or not. But never heard of validation of virtual cards.

Card numbers all come from BIN ranges, most likely these virtual cards are all issued within some specific BIN ranges (meaning you can tell them apart based on a certain # of prefix digits).

It's not inherit to the card, rather it's pulled via info from the card network (visa/mc/amex/etc). Stripe, for example, returns `card.funding` which is either credit, debit, prepaid, or unknown - blocking anything other than credit or debit isn't bad for SaaS businesses who doesn't want prepaid cards anyways[0]. Outside of that, you can use the IIN/BIN (first 6 digits) to build a blocklist of virtual-card-issuing banks[1].

0: https://stripe.com/docs/api/payment_methods/object#payment_m...

1: https://developers.braintreepayments.com/reference/response/...

> blocking anything other than credit or debit isn't bad for SaaS businesses who doesn't want prepaid cards anyways

It's not clear to me what you mean here: do you suggest SaaS businesses should reject those customers who prefer paying with prepaid cards? Hello, this is me! When I see a prepayment option or even Paypal, I gladly pay, but when you want my credit card info, I wave you good bye!

> do you suggest SaaS businesses should reject those customers who prefer paying with prepaid cards

Not the parent, but: yes, absolutely. Prepaid cards are for making one-time payments. They are not suitable for setting up ongoing subscriptions, and it is entirely appropriate for a merchant to reject them in this context.

> Prepaid cards are for making one-time payments. They are not suitable for setting up ongoing subscriptions

Why? Because from the point of the view of the customer, they are the best fit for that purpose.

> Because from the point of the view of the customer

From the point of view of a legitimate customer who intends to pay for a service, a prepaid card is a poor fit for an ongoing subscription, as it will stop working unpredictably when its funds are exhausted (causing it to start rejecting all charges).

Optimizing for customers who intend to ditch a service without paying for it is not a goal.

I'm sorry, but this makes no sense at all. The only difference between these two scenarios is who is in a position of power. If I use a prepaid card, it's not because I intend to ditch a service, but to control the costs.

A simple example of one of the services I use, Mailerlite. When the funds are depleted, I receive an email from them they were unable to charge me this month and they downgraded me to their free plan, and they will try again in two days. I then charge my card, they charge me and everything is fine. You don't want people like me - fine, you will have less customers. And I'm a very loyal customer, cases like failed payment happen maybe once 2-3 years.

The first 4-6 digits of cards are called BIN (Bank Identification Numbers). Every bank has there own. So if you started your own company called codecutter virtual cards. You will have to get a BIN from Visa & Mastercard. Say your BIN is 5123-45 then all the cards you issue will begin with 5123-45. Anyone in the industry can obtain a list of all who owns' all BINs and the type of cards is it. Gift card, virtual card, credit card, debit card, etc.

> If anyone knows of other ways to create virtual cards, please let me know.

To extend the plea, if anyone knows how to do this in Canada, I’d love to know. As far as I know the services that exist are USA only.

Might be because of clamped regulations[0] - most of these third-party virtual card issuers, including privacy, make money from interchange fees, but when those are reduced (for good reason) it becomes less profitable to support that country.

However, one service that is doing this is Revolut which has a private beta for Canadian users and will provide virtual cards[1,2].

0: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-09/visa-mast...

1: https://www.revolut.com/en-CA

2: https://www.revolut.com/en-CA/legal/premium-fees#card:~:text...

I have Citibank DoubleCash card and I can generate virtual card number for it. Typically it is for one-time use because the expiration date generated is for next month.