Temporary Internet credit cards

[Barry Du Plessis]

Hi everybody

I was wondering how much effort it would be for the banks to offer
their customers a temporary credit card (electronic only)? I am
thinking of something like the credit card equivalent of the
temporaryinbox plugin for firefox (http://www.temporaryinbox.com/).
In other words, what I want is to be able to sign onto my bank, push a
button and get a temporary credit card number assigned to me. I would
then be able to transfer funds from any of my normal accounts to that
account, and use that account to do an Internet transaction. The
account should time out after (say) 12 hours, and any funds left
should be redeposited into the account where it came from. No actual
hardware should be issued, just the temporary credit card number which
I can use on the Internet, once only, and only for the next 12 hours.
After that, the number should be invalid, and not be able to be used
again.

This would solve a number of my security problems with using a credit
card on the Internet, as well as having to get a credit card for use
on the Internet only (I neither have nor want a credit card for other
use). The banks can implement this with software only, so it should
be quite cheap once the initial system is developed.

Any ideas on this?

Thanks

Barry

[Jaco Kroon]

I'm pretty sure some of the banks (ABSA iirc ... it's been a while)
offers something like this where you get a one-time number that you can
give to online suppliers, but the can only use it once, and only for the
amount you specified to the bank (AND THIS IS IFF I RECALL CORRECTLY).

If I'm not mistaken this is connected to a normal credit card though, so
it doesn't solve all your issues.

I can probably find the person that showed it to me at the time again if
you really want/need more info.

Jaco

[Ian Melamed]

Greetings:-

 

The objective of the Paypal was to cut out the merchants getting details of your credt card and placing this on the database. I usr Paypal for my VOIP service.......My credit card is listed with Paypal. As I list my credit card with only one entity ahould it be abused the source is easy to find.Paypal has received its fair share of negitive publicity but there are other similar services. I just dont like giving my credit card details to a whole bunch of merchants and found this the best alternative. As you can see there are additional costs involved.

 

Greetings

 

Ian

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[Malcolm McLean]

Yep, ABSA offered something like this a while ago, not sure if it is still around. Only catch was that it was a Windows only client.

The best part is that it was able to link to a Credit, Savings or Cheque account, could only be used once, expired within 24 hours of being issued and was only for a specific currency.

Jaco, I was probably the person that showed it to you... How do you think I managed to order from Amazon without a credit card?

Malcolm

[Barry Du Plessis]

On 7/11/07, Malcolm McLean <malcolm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The best part is that it was able to link to a Credit, Savings or Cheque
> account, could only be used once, expired within 24 hours of being issued
> and was only for a specific currency.

Jip, this is pretty much what I'm looking for. Thanks! I'll contact
ABSA and find out if it's still there...

Thanks

Barry

[Jaco Kroon]

Malcolm McLean wrote:
> Jaco, I was probably the person that showed it to you... How do you
> think I managed to order from Amazon without a credit card?

Indeed. Forgot you're on the list.

Jaco