Here’s My Number 1 Tip for Credit Card Privacy

There are times when you might come across a $1 freebie or a service offering a free trial that charges your credit card after the trial ends. You could use your regular credit card and hope you remember to cancel before the trial is over, which is what I'm sure a lot of people do.

But did you know there's a free service that lets you get around all this by generating real, disposable credit card numbers with any spending limits you set?

Free Disposable Credit Card Numbers

Let me introduce you to Privacy.com! This is a free service where you create an account and then link it to your bank account using the same security platform that others like PayPal and Venmo use. From there, you're able to create up to 12 free digital credit cards per month.

With each card, you can set a spending limit. Say there's a $1 freebie, like that racing car sweatshirt I posted a few years ago. What I'll do is create a new card and then set a $2 spending limit on it (just in case there's like a $.05 tax or something.) If any charge above $2 is attempted on the card, it will be automatically rejected! So even if that freebie company down the line decides to become a scam company and charge $100 to all their customers out of the blue, you're completely safe and won't have to deal with their nonsense!

One of the features I most use is the “single-use” card, where it closes after you make a single purchase. So if you use it to sign up for a free trial of something, that counts as the single use and then you can't be charged again later down the road! The card will simply process the first phantom “charge” of $0 for the trial, then it will automatically close the card since its single use has been fulfilled. Any future attempt to charge the card will be denied, like if you forgot to cancel your trial, which has happened to all of us at least once.

You can also choose to “merchant-lock” a card. This prohibits the card number from being distributed to a 3rd party for fraud. Let's say you're going to make a few purchases on Shopify, so you turn on the merchant lock setting. This will block any attempted charge that doesn't originate from Shopify.

Additionally, you can easily pause or close a card with a single button click.

Privacy.com is a service I've been using for years. I most recently used it to generate a credit card with a $1 limit so that I could signup for a free trial of Fubo TV and watch my beloved Seattle Mariners storm through the playoffs in October. Despite canceling my trial ahead of time, Fubo tried charging me $75 a few times. Since I set a small spending limit on the card, the attempts were rejected and then my trial cancellation was finally automatically acknowledged by Fubo. I didn't have to get involved with my bank or credit card or open any support ticket, yet I was still able to watch Seattle come within a few outs of making their first ever World Series.

Avoid Surprise Charges & Protect Your Money

One last feature I'll point out is that by using this service, you protect your real credit card information in case of any future database hacks or leaks. Legitimate companies get hacked all the time, like Target, Ticketmaster, and Marriot. You can enter your email address into services like Have I Been Pwned to see all the places where your information has already been leaked onto the web. By using a Privacy.com card, you don't have to worry about your financial information being spread that way.

I can't stress enough how valuable I find this service and am continually amazed that it's totally free.

If protecting your online shopping is something that interests you, I hope you'll make a free Privacy.com account and let me know what you think of it in the comments!