w00t-ga:
OK, I think I've found the closest thing available to the now defunct
PrivateBuy service.
Due to the financial disclosure requirements introduced to the US
financial industry by the Patriot Act, the only 'virtual' credit card
services remaining in the US are the ones offer by American Express
('Private Payments') and CitiBank ('Virtual Account Numbers'). Neither
of these meet your needs, as neither are a true 'prepaid' credit card.
Both link to your physical card for a certain time period, meaning
that it is stil possible for your actual credit card to be abused
during that time by an unscrupulous merchant, or by someone stealing a
merchants' records.
The only virtual prepaid credit cards remaining, therefore, are the
ones that fall into the 'offshore' category. The primary hotspot for
this activity is actually Latvia, for the reasons mentioned in the
Comment below by harijs-ga. After reviewing the fee schedules for
physical credit cards issued by the same Latvian banks, I can
appreciate why virtual cards are so popular!
Unfortunately, all of the Latvian issued cards require that you fund
the card using a wire transfer.
My search did, however, lead me to the following website, based in the
UK, where a large variety of virtual prepaid credit cards are
referenced:
CreditSolve UK - Prepaid Mastercard and Visa Credit Cards
http://www.creditsolveuk.com/prepaid.htm
Only one of the cards on this page meets all of your criteria:
ePassporte. You can apply for this card online, verify the funding
credit card online, and load the card online. The only catch is the
relatively high reloading charge of $5 per $100 or portion thereof
that you load onto the card. However, as there is no initiation fee,
and a very low annual fee of $5/yr beginning with the second year,
this can be a better overall deal than the other options available to
you that involve either wire transfer fees, or high monthly
maintenance fees. You can find out more about the ePassporte card at:
ePassporte Home Page
https://www.epassporte.com/secure/epassporte.cgi
Compare ePassporte Virtual and Electron Visa Cards
https://www.epassporte.com/secure/epassporte.cgi?req=vecompare
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Other cards to look at, but that I do not recommend, include:
CaribPay
https://www.caribpay.com/
- only their 'deluxe' prepaid MasterCard can be used online, their
regular card is actually an ATM card
- not virtual, physical card issued
Wired Plastic
http://www.wiredplastic.com/
- not virtual, intended for in-person use, unsure if it can even be used online
- can fund via credit card through PayPal
- relatively expensive fees, including an onerous $6.95 monthly 'maintenance fee'
---------------------------------
It is really too bad that the financial community has not come up with
a technological solution to the requirements of the Patriot Act, to
permit virtual prepaid credit cards to flourish again. Their utility
for controlling online fraud equals, if not outweighs, the potential
for them to be abused by terrorists and subversives.
I hope this information is useful!
Regards,
aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher |
