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I think people are over-thinking this offering a little too much. People who are asking if the company will resist a subpoena, or if all customer data will be i

I think people are over-thinking this offering a little too much. People who are asking if the company will resist a subpoena, or if all customer data will be irreversibly encrypted, are expecting too much. The main purposes of this product are to be able to mask your marketing data (name, address, phone) to businesses, and to mitigate damage in the event of a data breach (any stolen card numbers are useless). It's not going to prevent a government entity from subpoena'ing your records and finding out what you've bought. Also, if you're buying anything that needs to be, you know, shipped or emailed to you, you're kinda going to have to give a valid address. Under the default settings, they also include the merchant information in the feed back to your bank, so your bank still gets all of the info on where you're shopping and what you're buying. Finally, I am very skeptical of their claim about walking away from subscriptions and trials. Sure, in theory, you make it much harder for vendors to track you down, but by law, you're agreeing to pay for the company's services when you accept their agreement, and if they do bother to subpoena your information and come after you, if they find out that you presented them with a fraudulent name, phone number and address, I don't expect that would go well for you in court.

bisRepetita 11y ago
This is a very fair point. Still, I would hope that it would make it harder to link a purchase to an identified individual. If I assume the US is a country where the laws and constitution is respected, then only a formal subpoena would link the credit card transaction to the individual. Hopefully snooping would not.
boling11 11y ago
That's fair, if you're doing something illegal that may result in a subpoena, this is not the product for you. However, that doesn't mean what we're doing isn't meaningful. We just think that you just shouldn't have to share your personal info with a random merchant you want to buy something from. This notion that passing along your billing info is going some how substantially cutting down on fraud is ridiculous. It's anti-privacy in the guise of being anti-fraud. And yes, it's fair, if you skip out on a gym contract, you do risk getting taken to collections. We're mostly talking more about the ticky tack, deceptive recurring billing fraud. We can do better. We'll make the language clearer on our home page.
- rsync 11y ago
  "We just think that you just shouldn't have to share your personal info with a random merchant you want to buy something from." FWIW, this is, and has been, possible with regular credit cards for as long as I've used them (20 years ?) Nobody anywhere checks the name on a card. Nobody. Not amazon, not google, not a small online retailer, not a large one. Nobody. Zero. I made up a default fake name ten years ago and have used it consistently for everything from DirecTV[1] to my daily-used Amazon account to magazine subscriptions. Yes, of course they have an address (not my home, but an address I control) and of course a global observer (or just my bank) can correlate and index everything I purchase ... but not any of those vendors. [1] Yes, this does indeed imply that I paid them the big up-front payment instead of allowing them to do a credit check with my name and social. This is a very rare downside, however.
  - matthewarkin 11y ago
    Only American Express offers name verification to merchants. When it comes to address verification, only the numeric data gets checked. So for an address "123 Main Street" would match "123 Bryant St" as well
- URSpider94 11y ago
  Hey, I'm all for your service. I was a big user of Discover's one-time card numbers before they went away, just for the peace of mind of not having to worry about having my card number stolen. I will very probably sign up for Privacy and use it. My point was that we have a lot of tinfoil hat crypto currency believers in the audience here tonight, and this is maybe not the panacea they were hoping for - it's not the second coming of Silk Road or anything.
  - boling11 11y ago
    I hear ya - hope you give us a try :). Would love to get your thoughts!
    - URSpider94 11y ago
gizmo686 11y ago
>Finally, I am very skeptical of their claim about walking away from subscriptions and trials. Sure, in theory, you make it much harder for vendors to track you down, but by law, you're agreeing to pay for the company's services when you accept their agreement. I am not sure about this. One could argue that you by signing up for the recurrent payment (or the free trial with automatic payed renewal), you merely consented for the company to automatically sell you another months subscription. If they are unable to do so, then they have every right to cancel your subscription, but it is not obvious that they have any right to require you to buy it. This becomes even more clear when you relize that, even if you used your real card, you would still be able to cancel before they charge you, and they would have no recourse.
- michael_storm 11y ago
  What? You didn't "merely consent" to anything; you agreed to their terms and conditions, which state cancellation criteria. There's no "one could argue" here. Commercial law is well-established. Of course they have recourse: taking you to collections. Have you... have you ever not paid a bill before? I'm very confused how one could think this.
  - gizmo686 11y ago
    If we are talking about something like a phone bill, where you may incur charges during billing period and pay at the end, then you are correct and the company can take you to court because you are in debt to them for services provided that you have not paid for. If we are talking about subscriptions where you pay for a month of service up front, then there is no debt. If they fail in charging another month to the provided credit card, then they are under no obligation to renew your subscription. Assuming they do not, then you have not recieved any service that you did not pay for. Their only claim is that you promised to by another month; however this claim is weak because you could have properly canceled your subscription before buying the next month anyway (and, in most cases, you would still get access until the period you had paid for anyway).
    - michael_storm 11y ago
ipsin 11y ago
I think it's just a sign of the appetite for real financial privacy, which is not possible in the U.S. because of money laundering and "know your customer" laws. There's no such thing as a "prepaid, anonymous credit card" that can't be linked to you as a person.
- exclusiv 11y ago
  Yes there is. You can buy prepaid cards at grocery stores or malls, although privacy generally erodes when you want to ship.
  - ipsin 11y ago
    Are you sure? I've looked at these, and every single one that I investigated involved some kind of activation process that meant giving up identifying information (or lying, which I'm not willing to do).
    - darksim905 11y ago
      AMEX gift cards => pay cash => leave => enjoy. when paying with said card? provide address, fake name, 3 digit code on back of card "A HAPPY CUSTOMER4U" as name on card. Done.
      - ipsin 11y ago
        Thanks for the tip. I'm not familiar with the laws around providing a fake name or address, but it's good to know that's an option. (My concern is that, if there's any kind of issue on the payment processor's end, it seems like the use of the fake identity could be misinterpreted as criminal fraud)
        ryanlol 11y ago
        > it seems like the use of the fake identity could be misinterpreted as criminal fraud How could that possibly be the case? Who's being defrauded?

bisRepetita 11y ago

This is a very fair point. Still, I would hope that it would make it harder to link a purchase to an identified individual. If I assume the US is a country where the laws and constitution is respected, then only a formal subpoena would link the credit card transaction to the individual. Hopefully snooping would not.

boling11 11y ago

That's fair, if you're doing something illegal that may result in a subpoena, this is not the product for you. However, that doesn't mean what we're doing isn't meaningful. We just think that you just shouldn't have to share your personal info with a random merchant you want to buy something from. This notion that passing along your billing info is going some how substantially cutting down on fraud is ridiculous. It's anti-privacy in the guise of being anti-fraud. And yes, it's fair, if you skip out on a gym contract, you do risk getting taken to collections. We're mostly talking more about the ticky tack, deceptive recurring billing fraud. We can do better. We'll make the language clearer on our home page.

rsync 11y ago
"We just think that you just shouldn't have to share your personal info with a random merchant you want to buy something from." FWIW, this is, and has been, possible with regular credit cards for as long as I've used them (20 years ?) Nobody anywhere checks the name on a card. Nobody. Not amazon, not google, not a small online retailer, not a large one. Nobody. Zero. I made up a default fake name ten years ago and have used it consistently for everything from DirecTV[1] to my daily-used Amazon account to magazine subscriptions. Yes, of course they have an address (not my home, but an address I control) and of course a global observer (or just my bank) can correlate and index everything I purchase ... but not any of those vendors. [1] Yes, this does indeed imply that I paid them the big up-front payment instead of allowing them to do a credit check with my name and social. This is a very rare downside, however.
- matthewarkin 11y ago
  Only American Express offers name verification to merchants. When it comes to address verification, only the numeric data gets checked. So for an address "123 Main Street" would match "123 Bryant St" as well
URSpider94 11y ago
Hey, I'm all for your service. I was a big user of Discover's one-time card numbers before they went away, just for the peace of mind of not having to worry about having my card number stolen. I will very probably sign up for Privacy and use it. My point was that we have a lot of tinfoil hat crypto currency believers in the audience here tonight, and this is maybe not the panacea they were hoping for - it's not the second coming of Silk Road or anything.
- boling11 11y ago
  I hear ya - hope you give us a try :). Would love to get your thoughts!
  - URSpider94 11y ago

gizmo686 11y ago

>Finally, I am very skeptical of their claim about walking away from subscriptions and trials. Sure, in theory, you make it much harder for vendors to track you down, but by law, you're agreeing to pay for the company's services when you accept their agreement. I am not sure about this. One could argue that you by signing up for the recurrent payment (or the free trial with automatic payed renewal), you merely consented for the company to automatically sell you another months subscription. If they are unable to do so, then they have every right to cancel your subscription, but it is not obvious that they have any right to require you to buy it. This becomes even more clear when you relize that, even if you used your real card, you would still be able to cancel before they charge you, and they would have no recourse.

michael_storm 11y ago
What? You didn't "merely consent" to anything; you agreed to their terms and conditions, which state cancellation criteria. There's no "one could argue" here. Commercial law is well-established. Of course they have recourse: taking you to collections. Have you... have you ever not paid a bill before? I'm very confused how one could think this.
- gizmo686 11y ago
  If we are talking about something like a phone bill, where you may incur charges during billing period and pay at the end, then you are correct and the company can take you to court because you are in debt to them for services provided that you have not paid for. If we are talking about subscriptions where you pay for a month of service up front, then there is no debt. If they fail in charging another month to the provided credit card, then they are under no obligation to renew your subscription. Assuming they do not, then you have not recieved any service that you did not pay for. Their only claim is that you promised to by another month; however this claim is weak because you could have properly canceled your subscription before buying the next month anyway (and, in most cases, you would still get access until the period you had paid for anyway).
  - michael_storm 11y ago

ipsin 11y ago

I think it's just a sign of the appetite for real financial privacy, which is not possible in the U.S. because of money laundering and "know your customer" laws. There's no such thing as a "prepaid, anonymous credit card" that can't be linked to you as a person.

exclusiv 11y ago
Yes there is. You can buy prepaid cards at grocery stores or malls, although privacy generally erodes when you want to ship.
- ipsin 11y ago
  Are you sure? I've looked at these, and every single one that I investigated involved some kind of activation process that meant giving up identifying information (or lying, which I'm not willing to do).
  - darksim905 11y ago
    AMEX gift cards => pay cash => leave => enjoy. when paying with said card? provide address, fake name, 3 digit code on back of card "A HAPPY CUSTOMER4U" as name on card. Done.
    - ipsin 11y ago
      Thanks for the tip. I'm not familiar with the laws around providing a fake name or address, but it's good to know that's an option. (My concern is that, if there's any kind of issue on the payment processor's end, it seems like the use of the fake identity could be misinterpreted as criminal fraud)
      - ryanlol 11y ago
        > it seems like the use of the fake identity could be misinterpreted as criminal fraud How could that possibly be the case? Who's being defrauded?