Privacy.com: Protect Your Real Credit Cards
Credit card processing is the largest barrier in the research peptide space. Predatory processors close them down suddenly, leaving them scrambling for new options to satisfy customers. The limited choices, the “new solutions”, the “workarounds”, etc. can create a security risk to our data. To protect yourself, use privacy.com.
What is Privacy.com?
A free U.S.-based financial service that generates virtual credit cards that we can use in place of our real debit or credit cards when shopping online. Free tier users can generate up to 12 cards per month and limit them to a single purchase or to a single merchant. Valid transactions are routed to your connect bank account. On top of the card type, you can also protect yourself with spending limits, real-time alerts, and you can pause of close cards anytime.
Setting Up An Account
- Head over to https://privacy.com
- Select “Sign Up” in the top-right corner
- Enter Email – They will send an activation link to your email
- Choose whether this is a business account or a personal account
- For business accounts, an additional verification process occurs and can take up to 5 business days. I myself had multiple inquiries from privacy.com before they would activate my account. Personal does not have quite the same level of verification and accounts can be established within a few minutes.
- Answer a quick question on the purpose of your account
- Enter a valid phone # – they will send a verification. Phone #s can only be used for one account.
- Enter personal information
- Connect bank account via Plaid. Learn more about Plaid here: Plaid.com
- Agree to their Terms and Conditions
- Choose optional upgrades (not needed)
- Choose to enable Privacy Mode or not
- If enabled all transactions to your bank account will say “privacy.com” – I recommend this.
Creating a Virtual Card
- Click “New Card” on the lefthand side of your dashboard:
- Choose your card type
- Single-Use Card: This is a one-time use card and is only good for a single transaction.
- Merchant-Locked Card: Once a transaction is logged on this card, that is the only merchant that will be able to charge the card. I recommend this option, as it will give us better insight if it is later compromised. However, peptide vendors change credit card processors all the time, which means this card may not work from month to month, even for the same vendor.
Note: Spending limits should increase as you establish a history of use. You may also request an increase here: https://support.privacy.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=1500000782701