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.

87 points

I still hope GNU taler will be more widely used. It’s basically everything you are looking for.

GNU Taler

permalink
report
reply
10 points

Looks great

permalink
report
parent
reply
12 points

That looks cool but the issue would be getting merchants to implement it

permalink
report
parent
reply
9 points

Yes I think that’s the biggest issue and currently also the focus of a project called NGI Taler. Let’s see what comes out. Fingers crossed as this would be great for everyone.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

Has Taler moved beyond proof of concept yet?

It’s an amazing concept btw. I read through their paper presented to the European banking system, it was interesting.

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points

Been looking for such an alternative too, that works in Europe

permalink
report
reply
2 points

Looks like we are doomed to use PayPal in Europe. What’s the hurdle to create a PayPal alternative?

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

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.

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points
24 points

Revolut was recently in the news for stopping working on degoogled OSes. And judging by the comments, it is very app-dependent.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

Yes, you can’t use it without the app, I’m on a degoogled android and had to drop them when they made that change.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

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

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

Revolut still works well on CalyxOS.

permalink
report
parent
reply
19 points

Monero

permalink
report
reply

permalink
report
parent
reply
5 points

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.

permalink
report
reply
7 points
*

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.

permalink
report
reply

Privacy

!privacy@lemmy.ml

Create post

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

  • Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn’t great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
  • Don’t promote proprietary software
  • Try to keep things on topic
  • If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
  • Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
  • Be nice :)

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

Community stats

  • 7K

    Monthly active users

  • 3.2K

    Posts

  • 86K

    Comments