I use PayPal to be the middle man to protect my credit card information when I purchase items online.
Of course I have grown less fond of PayPal and their scammy behavior (plus the password limit is 20, wtf?)
My question; is there an alternative to paypal to buy things online (without crypto as not all stores take such things), such as privacy.com (but for Europe).
Correct mw if im wrong, but I believe privacy.com is for US, Canada region.
My bank doesn’t offer virtual credit cards sadly.
I still hope GNU taler will be more widely used. It’s basically everything you are looking for.
Been looking for such an alternative too, that works in Europe
Looks like we are doomed to use PayPal in Europe. What’s the hurdle to create a PayPal alternative?
The hurdle is that Europe tends to adopt things that are successful in the US, because it is convenient. Even most services and startups based in Europe are more or less copies of US products, with some notable exceptions of highly specialised applications. This unfortunate trend started in the 1970s, when the largest industrial players in Europe thought semiconductors were just a fad and consequently lost their competitive edge. It was seen as less risky to invest in commercially proven concepts than to actually innovate. This continues to bite us in the ass to this day.
https://privacy.com/ for US https://www.revolut.com/ for EU?
Revolut was recently in the news for stopping working on degoogled OSes. And judging by the comments, it is very app-dependent.
Damn, can’t you even spoof the operating system name?
I heard of monzo working with virtual cards but you might need to pay a subscription with other goodies
Revolut exploits their job applicants: https://www.eldiario.es/economia/millennial-aspirantes-trabajar-capten-clientes-revolut_1_1880446.html
Monero
I have a second bank account with a credit card for daily spending and online purchases. It only has a certain amount of money I expect to need for the month. If I need to make bigger purchases I’ll have to transfer the funds to it first.
Also things like Apple/Google/Amazon Pay hide CC info so you could use those instead when they are available.
My bank doesn’t offer virtual credit cards sadly.
If you’re just looking for virtual cards, could you just apply for a credit card with that capability? In the U.S. there are credit card providers that can do that, not sure about Canada but I figured it’d be the same there.
Otherwise the comment from /u/brrt@sh.itjust.works is spot on, all the phone apps like Google Pay already virtualize your card number so you’re not actually sharing your full details with the merchant. Or make your own prepaid debit card via a separate checking account you put a bit of spending money into.