6 ms·

How did you pay?

sunbum 4y ago
Mullvad lets you pay with just an envelope of cash via the mail if you want.
fudgefactorfive 4y ago
Apparently you can literally mail them cash with your randomly generated user id on a card and they'll top up credit for you.
deleted 4y ago
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actionfromafar 4y ago
At least before, one could pay in cash in envelope.
- eitland 4y ago
  Cash in envelope is still welcome.
Maxious 4y ago
> Which payment methods do you accept? > We accept cash, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Monero, bank wire, credit card, PayPal, Swish, Giropay, Eps transfer, Bancontact, iDEAL, and Przelewy24. > Can I really pay with cash? > You bet, and please! Stay anonymous all the way. Just put your cash and payment token (randomly generated on our website) in an envelope and send it to us. We accept the following currencies: EUR, USD, GBP, SEK, DKK, NOK, CHF, CAD, AUD, NZD. https://mullvad.net/en/pricing/ https://mullvad.net/en/pricing/
- andygeorge 4y ago
  ah yes, notoriously-anonymous physical mail
  - generalizations 4y ago
    I mean, just don't put a return address on it, and drop it off in a random post office box.
    - chrisdhoover 4y ago
      They never caught Zodiac
    - callahad 4y ago
      All standard British stamps now have unique Data Matrix codes on them, which means you also have to source your stamps anonymously.
      - rvnx 4y ago
        Can bet 99.99% that Mullvad throws the envelope in the trash and just forgets about it. So, yes, there is a theory that someone may go in the trash in Sweden, finds the envelope, the stamp (and it has to be a british one), investigate who bought the stamp, get the assistance of the shopkeeper in UK (without raising suspicions), successfully reviews tons of security cameras footage to find who bought, etc. And still don't know which activity to link it to. A perfect waste of public resources if the NSA really does that, when all they needed to do is to purchase a VPN provider or fund Tor and claim to be no-logs VPN ;)
        noirscape 4y ago
        Their official policy is to iirc put the envelope and the letter into a paper shredder after it's been processed fwiw.
        e4m2 4y ago
        > Can bet 99.99% that Mullvad throws the envelope in the trash and just forgets about it. Better yet, they shred it: https://mullvad.net/en/help/no-logging-data-policy/#payments https://mullvad.net/en/help/no-logging-data-policy/#payments.
deleted 4y ago
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kklimonda 4y ago
They also have vouchers you can buy from Amazon, which I find a nice alternative to sending cash in an envelope.
- lxgr 4y ago
  At that point, you can probably just pay by credit card: If your aim is to frustrate invasive ad trackers and profilers on the web (and you assume that Mullvad isn't outright colluding with these), that should be good enough to break any links. On the other hand, if you don't trust Mullvad's assertion that they delete the link between accounts and credit card payment records after 40 days [1], what makes you think you can trust them to not keep a record of individual scratch cards sold on Amazon, which Amazon can then correlate to an order ID and by extension account and shipping address? At a higher level, if somebody can convince Mullvad to collude in that manner, they can likely also just ask them to outright hand over your traffic flows and connection data.
  - kklimonda 4y ago
    How would they do that? Those are shipped directly from Amazon, and don't have any external markings that could be used to link specific card to amazon account. Unless the idea is that vouchers arrive at amazon in some additional packaging and then are repackaged after linking voucher to the account. By the end of the day I agree, if you have any "real" reason for using VPN you pretty much have to implicitly trust your provider to not keep any traffic flows and connections that could correlate traffic to your IP, but not even sending money in envelope saves your from that.
  - r3trohack3r 4y ago
    I think it goes something like this: If your worried about anything in a 40 day window the credit card <-> account_id is a liability Amazon doesn’t know the redemption code on the gift card. So Amazon knows that you purchased a Mullvad gift card, but can’t associate the transaction with a Mullvad account. Likewise Mullvad knows service was paid for with a gift card (possibly that the gift card is from a lot sold on Amazon). But they do not know which Amazon transaction the card is associated with. Unless your behavior and the behavior of others deanonymizes the Amazon purchase <-> redemption your account should be indistinguishable from any other that purchased a Mullvad gift card from Amazon in that window of time.
ursuscamp 4y ago
I use https://vpn.sovereign.engineering https://vpn.sovereign.engineering to pay with Bitcoin. You can pay a Lightning invoice to get a voucher which is redeemable on the website. You get an extra layer of privacy, and also don't need to wait for an on chain transaction.

How did you pay?

Mullvad lets you pay with just an envelope of cash via the mail if you want.

Apparently you can literally mail them cash with your randomly generated user id on a card and they'll top up credit for you.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

actionfromafar 4y ago

At least before, one could pay in cash in envelope.

eitland 4y ago
Cash in envelope is still welcome.

Maxious 4y ago

> Which payment methods do you accept? > We accept cash, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Monero, bank wire, credit card, PayPal, Swish, Giropay, Eps transfer, Bancontact, iDEAL, and Przelewy24. > Can I really pay with cash? > You bet, and please! Stay anonymous all the way. Just put your cash and payment token (randomly generated on our website) in an envelope and send it to us. We accept the following currencies: EUR, USD, GBP, SEK, DKK, NOK, CHF, CAD, AUD, NZD. https://mullvad.net/en/pricing/ https://mullvad.net/en/pricing/

andygeorge 4y ago
ah yes, notoriously-anonymous physical mail
- generalizations 4y ago
  I mean, just don't put a return address on it, and drop it off in a random post office box.
  - chrisdhoover 4y ago
    They never caught Zodiac
  - callahad 4y ago
    All standard British stamps now have unique Data Matrix codes on them, which means you also have to source your stamps anonymously.
    - rvnx 4y ago
      Can bet 99.99% that Mullvad throws the envelope in the trash and just forgets about it. So, yes, there is a theory that someone may go in the trash in Sweden, finds the envelope, the stamp (and it has to be a british one), investigate who bought the stamp, get the assistance of the shopkeeper in UK (without raising suspicions), successfully reviews tons of security cameras footage to find who bought, etc. And still don't know which activity to link it to. A perfect waste of public resources if the NSA really does that, when all they needed to do is to purchase a VPN provider or fund Tor and claim to be no-logs VPN ;)
      - noirscape 4y ago
        Their official policy is to iirc put the envelope and the letter into a paper shredder after it's been processed fwiw.
      - e4m2 4y ago
        > Can bet 99.99% that Mullvad throws the envelope in the trash and just forgets about it. Better yet, they shred it: https://mullvad.net/en/help/no-logging-data-policy/#payments https://mullvad.net/en/help/no-logging-data-policy/#payments.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

kklimonda 4y ago

They also have vouchers you can buy from Amazon, which I find a nice alternative to sending cash in an envelope.

lxgr 4y ago
At that point, you can probably just pay by credit card: If your aim is to frustrate invasive ad trackers and profilers on the web (and you assume that Mullvad isn't outright colluding with these), that should be good enough to break any links. On the other hand, if you don't trust Mullvad's assertion that they delete the link between accounts and credit card payment records after 40 days [1], what makes you think you can trust them to not keep a record of individual scratch cards sold on Amazon, which Amazon can then correlate to an order ID and by extension account and shipping address? At a higher level, if somebody can convince Mullvad to collude in that manner, they can likely also just ask them to outright hand over your traffic flows and connection data.
- kklimonda 4y ago
  How would they do that? Those are shipped directly from Amazon, and don't have any external markings that could be used to link specific card to amazon account. Unless the idea is that vouchers arrive at amazon in some additional packaging and then are repackaged after linking voucher to the account. By the end of the day I agree, if you have any "real" reason for using VPN you pretty much have to implicitly trust your provider to not keep any traffic flows and connections that could correlate traffic to your IP, but not even sending money in envelope saves your from that.
- r3trohack3r 4y ago
  I think it goes something like this: If your worried about anything in a 40 day window the credit card <-> account_id is a liability Amazon doesn’t know the redemption code on the gift card. So Amazon knows that you purchased a Mullvad gift card, but can’t associate the transaction with a Mullvad account. Likewise Mullvad knows service was paid for with a gift card (possibly that the gift card is from a lot sold on Amazon). But they do not know which Amazon transaction the card is associated with. Unless your behavior and the behavior of others deanonymizes the Amazon purchase <-> redemption your account should be indistinguishable from any other that purchased a Mullvad gift card from Amazon in that window of time.

ursuscamp 4y ago

I use https://vpn.sovereign.engineering https://vpn.sovereign.engineering to pay with Bitcoin. You can pay a Lightning invoice to get a voucher which is redeemable on the website. You get an extra layer of privacy, and also don't need to wait for an on chain transaction.