What You Should Know About Anonymous Prepaid Credit Cards
Anonymous prepaid credit cards are another name for prepaid virtual credit cards. These are accounts that can be funded for specific online purchases and are truly "virtual" as no physical credit card is issued to the user.
Why Do You Need an Anonymous Prepaid Credit Card?
Only a few years ago, the idea of shopping online was a novel one. Today, major offline merchants vie with online consumer product sites to sell everything from household décor to pet supplies and from beauty products to automobiles.
The pricing is competitive on internet shopping sites. With no necessity to pay high building rents or carry loads of inventory, online merchants can offer rock bottom prices to buyers and often will include free shipping in the deal.
When you use a standard credit card for purchases, everything you do is tracked. Unfortunately, the increase in products sold online and the popularity of such shopping for consumers has been matched with increasing sophistication of online predators. With a prepaid credit card, there is nothing to track as the purchase is not linked to your personally or to your personal finances.
When you apply for a credit card, you routinely are asked for your social security number. You provide that number on the assumption the credit card issuer's site is secure. As headlines tell us frequently, the security of such sites is often an illusion.
When you use a regular credit card you are providing the credit account number and the three digit security code printed on the back of the card. With that information, it is now possible for skilled hackers to obtain the social security number you gave to open that account. They may even be able to access your checking and savings accounts at your local bank.
This may seem an unlikely scenario until you consider that even high security government agency sites have been the target of computer hackers who have successfully taken information from those sites. Huge databases of the names and addresses entered on those highly classified sites have been stolen.
Your privacy is at risk every day. It may not seem like something to worry about unless you have personally gone through the time and turmoil associated with having your identity stolen and credit cards used by an unauthorized person. The laws have been strengthened but have not yet provided an easy way to solve the problem created for those who are victims of identify theft.
Anonymous Credit Cards Provide an Answer
The anonymous prepaid credit card provides an easy solution to preventing your personal information being shared with hackers and thieves. You do not have to provide personal financial information to fund the card as the funds secure the card to the amount of money you provide.
A prepaid credit account can be a card issued by a lender that can be used offline and online or may be a virtual prepaid credit card designed only for internet purchases.
Gift cards are not the answer to remaining anonymous and as many of the most popular gift cards now require entering a social security number. Gift cards have gained popularity in recent years among parents sending kids off to college. A pre-funded gift card can be used as cash and if from a major credit lender, can be used almost anywhere.
Parents have viewed gift cards as a way to limit student expenditures but increasingly the information required by issuers of the cards can leave the buyer open to financial risk if the security of the information is compromised.
The anonymous prepaid credit card can provide the same spending power as a gift card and would be a better alternative if the issuer of the gift card requires personal financial information or a social security number. The prepaid credit cards can be purchased easily from many local merchants.
The initial card is temporary and a permanent card is mailed to the buyer in about 10 days. The card can be reloaded directly from a bank account, can receive a direct deposit from your paycheck or can be refunded with cash at the local merchant.
The charges are minimal for prepaid credit cards and can be as little as $3 to add funds. There may also be a carrying fee of $3 monthly but the charges are far less than the interest added to revolving charge card accounts.
Conclusion
Whether you choose a gift card or a prepaid charge card may depend on the amount of information required by the company issuing the cards. The goal for consumers is to have a way to pay for purchases without risking their private financial information.
The use of prepaid credit cards in the past was limited to those consumers who could not qualify for a standard credit account. That is no longer the case as the popularity of the anonymous prepaid credit card has grown with the increased risk of identity theft.
