disposable credit cards
Imagine I want to buy something from a less than big-name retailer online. Could be anything from a custom piece of electronics, to a custom set of mittens. I’m not comfortable giving them my real email address, but for some reason, I hand out my credit card number, expiration date, and security code. If they cared to, they could commit some fun-time credit-fraud, and I just gave them the gun to shoot me.
Why haven’t banks embraced the use of one-time-use credit card numbers? Think about it. You go to your online banking page, request a temporary number, paste it into the retailer’s site. The number works only one time, and could even be keyed to the vendor’s domain. The banks get a great tool for not only preventing fraud, but tracking fraud that may be attempted.
We know they can roll out changes like this to vendors with comparative ease. They implemented widespread use of the ccv code with little noticeable trouble. They could even create a new format for the numbers, and require a new entry field for vendors.
I hear you out there saying, “But Tucker, what you’re recommending means Visa/MC/Amex/Discover have to get together with the various banks distributing their cards and the vendors as well to coordinate this whole thing!” That’s true. But think of the billions of dollars the industry loses to fraud every year. And think of the public relations benefits. I know I would move to a credit card vendor that gave me this feature in a heartbeat.
UPDATE: Apparently, I’m just using the wrong credit cards. Sounds like some banks do offer this, on selected cards.