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Comment by pbreit | Hacker News Reader

Disposable credit card numbers have been around for decades. The user experience has historically been miserable. Maybe this will be better. Doubt it.

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Absolutely, virtual cards have been around for years. But we've researched the space extensively and did not find a product we like or could use consistently. So we built Final. Some of the better products out there exist for customers outside of the US.

>Some of the better products out there exist for customers outside of the US.

Would appreciate if you could give some examples for non-US customers, at least for another point of comparison.

In Sweden I can do this...you launch a desktop or phone app, tell it what limit you want on the card and when you want it to expire, and it gives you a number w/ CVC code that you can use instantly.

Same in France. The US is just behind.

Portugal has MBnet, with a web interface and an Android app, as I recall. It works as advertised.

I can attest. It supports both "one shot" cards as well as multi-use (with a time limit, up to one year), both with a limit on how much they can be charged.

That said, I don't think it has an Android app, just a mobile website. The app that shows in Google Play is just a shortcut to the website (built by an unaffiliated developer).

And of course, it doesn't even any of the notification stuff, it's just a gateway to your regular bank account. Nor does it have physical cards.

Yeah, I mistook it for the Caixadirecta app, it's a different thing.

MBnet is made by SIBS, the same entity that controls all the ATM.

yes, MBnet is awesome. but sometimes some sites don't accept it (when they test the card doing some transactions first), I wonder if Final will have the same issues.

That used to happen but I haven't experienced that in a while. Even before the introduction of multi usage virtual cards.

intesa/sanpaolo/bci/cib/whatever (has a ton of brands in europe) has virtual cards with time-based expiration (at most 12 months) or single use.

I am reasonably sure ING and unicredit did that too some years ago.

I've thought about the feasibility of such a service for a long time, but I always figured you'd run out of numbers. If there are nine digits available (16 - 6 - 1), that's 1,000,000,000. If you have, say, 100,000 customers, that's 10,000 per customer, which would quickly get used up if they're using one per transaction.

Couldn't you reuse a disposable number given some time interval?

I don't know enough about how it all works, but perhaps -- because the number isn't valid on its own -- giving the number to a different customer, with a different name, effectively invalidates its previous use and means it can be safely reused.

Some information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_payment_number

As an european I'd like to know which are the best product (until you open your business) :-P

It's been around, but the most user friendly way I found was through a Paypal plugin but they indespicably removed that years ago. Been looking for a more convenient method ever since. Signed up for Final, looking forward to it. Finally someone that wants to get this right.

I loved the Paypal plugin. Never understood why they discontinued it.

I think it was because it violates some patent and they have to pay to add that functionality. If that was the reason , I'm curious how they are getting around the issue.

It may sound appealing (not to me, at all) but it's just not a very good user experience.

Look up MaskMe - among other services like alternate phone numbers you can give out to spam/signups they have disposable CC numbers

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