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Comment by rsync | Hacker News Reader

There is really no reason to use your real name and address for anything online - perhaps only airline tickets and government agencies (eftps, ftb.ca.gov, etc.).

Remember: Visa/MC cannot verify cardholder name. They pretend that they can and merchants believe that they can but there is no mechanism to do so.[1] If the numbers match up, you can use "Mickey Mouse".

No online retailer/merchant/provider has ever seen our real name (or real address). We created a pseudonym and attached it to a PO BOX in our town and a twilio phone number.

This doesn't solve every problem but it does solve the simple issues of identity theft and impersonation or (very low level) attackers correlating our activity to other activities.

YMMV. IANAL.

[1] There is some weird "verified by visa" thing that does attempt to confirm identity but I've only seen it once in the last 12 years ...

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For card payments, yes there is no verification but for bank transfers, at least here in the UK, "confirmation of payee" is a thing and wrong names are rejected [1].

[1] https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/confirmation-of-payee

How is this relevant?

> There is really no reason to use your real name and address for anything online

> wrong names are rejected

How isn't it? Unless you're saying 'there is really no reason to participate in e-commerce', which is... true I suppose...

No, I also thought that this was somewhat irrelevant ...

None of my e-commerce involves bank transfers. I would decline it as a payment method. I have no idea why anyone would be doing this.

It's probably very dependent on your local e-commerce environment.

Here in Germany I linked my bank account to Amazon, PayPal, local mobility service providers, etc.

Maybe 90% of my online transactions are bank transfers, 10% are debit card transfers.

Maybe the comment changed or I just skim-read it, but I'm not sure I understand now.

Anyway, in the UK billing name & postcode are/can be verified on card payments.

Bank transfers no basically never happen, too manual; exception being something like (Transfer)Wise - you set it up online, then transfer to their account in local currency, they transfer out of their account in another country to your intended recipient account in that local currency.

Direct Debits are a common ~'bank transfer' but recurring way of paying for utilities & subscriptions here though. Can (and these days normally would) be set up online.

> No online retailer/merchant/provider has ever seen our real name

Is there some way to extend this idea to physical goods delivered to your home? Occasionally something happens that requires you to go to the post office, or UPS depot, or FedEx depot to pick up your package. And they always want to see ID that matches the name on the package. Even if you have the delivery notice, it’s not enough. They still want ID.

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