- You see this?
This is the credit card number I used,
just yesterday to pay for some landscaping work.
Yes, that is the real expiration date
and the real security pin.
This credit card, well, this is the one I use
to pay for my Netflix subscription.
But, before you get any ideas,
I'll go ahead and spoil your fun by telling you
that I've already closed these accounts and open new ones.
You're welcome to try those cards if you want,
but they won't work.
Now, how am I easily closing
and opening credit card accounts
without damaging my credit score?
Or waiting on a bank for weeks to send me a new card?
Welcome to the world of virtual credit cards.
And if you've never used one before, you're in for a treat.
You're not only gonna learn how they work in this video,
but you'll discover how to set them up yourself for free,
and learn an interesting new way
to protect your financial transactions online.
(mysterious sound)
(air whooshing) Welcome to All Things Secured.
My name's Josh.
And, just last week,,
I had a lawn care company send me an invoice
for work done on one of my rental properties.
This company accepts credit cards but they're old school,
and they don't yet have an online portal on their website.
I'm located outside of the country,
so they asked me to send my credit card information
via email.
If you know me by now,
you know that this send up a ton of red flags,
they're a reputable company, I'm sure,
but sending my info over email?
Yeah, I don't think so.
That's just asking for some sort of fraud.
So instead of sending them
my actual bank issued credit card,
I sent them a unique virtual credit card.
This card was limited
to the exact amount of the invoice they sent me,
which means the company couldn't run the card
for more money, even if they wanted to.
And it was single use.
So, the credit card was automatically closed
once the transaction was made.
That's the credit card number I showed you
at the beginning of this video.
And that's the power of a virtual card.
Even if the Lawn Care Company has their database hacked,
even if I give you and every other viewer of this video,
all the card info, it doesn't matter.
And, you can't say that about the credit card
that's in your wallet right now, can you?
And before I get to all the details,
you wanna know the best part?
The best part, is that for most of you watching this,
it's absolutely free to get this set up.
Now, kick things off.
I wanna show you my virtual credit card dashboard.
I'm using privacy.com, but this isn't a sponsored video.
And I'm also testing another service called Blur.
Unfortunately, at the time that I'm recording this video,
I don't see any other consumer options available.
And even these two are for US citizens or US residents only.
I know, that sucks for all of you
that are my international viewers, I'm really sorry.
If you know good alternatives
for those other parts of the world, please leave a comment
so that other people can check those out.
Anyway, let's go back to my dashboard.
Here, you see all the virtual cards
I've created on the left,
as well as any transaction activity here on the right.
I'm showing you on my computer,
but they also have an iOS and Android app I could use.
And creating a new card is as simple
as clicking new card here on the left,
giving it a nickname,
and then selecting any limitations I want.
And this is where things really get interesting to me.
Unlike any other credit card I have in my pocket,
with a virtual card,
I have the ability to set a monthly limit, a yearly limit,
a per transaction limit, a total spin limit,
or simply make it a single use card.
And just a little side note here,
you can't combine those limits.
You can't say, a per transaction limit
and then a total yearly transaction limit,
which I wish you could do, but that's for later.
But anyway,
so if I'm creating a card for my Disney+ subscription,
which currently costs me $8.65 when you include tax,
I will set a $9 monthly spending limit.
I can name the card,
I can even assign it a cute little logo.
And then within seconds,
you'll see that I have a new credit card number.
Now, I'll stop here and explain that,
during the setup process,
before everything you're seeing here,
I connected my chase checking account
via my debit card as a funding source for privacy.com.
So, any purchases I make through my virtual card,
are debited from my bank account one by one.
This doesn't get added to my credit card bill,
and I have to have cash in the bank to make these purchases,
and that's important to note.
That also means that by using a virtual credit card,
I'm missing out on any points
or miles that I might otherwise be trying to accumulate.
So, if you're one of those point hackers,
that's obviously bad news for you,
but privacy.com does offer a 1% cash back option
for it's paid pro members, okay.
So, back to the dashboard one more time.
I can take a look at each virtual card in detail
to see what transactions have taken place,
and then easily pause or close the card.
This level of control with my finances and online payments,
it gets me fired up, I love it.
Have you ever lost your credit card,
or had any sort of fraud before?
If so, then you know just how annoying it is
to contact your bank, have them close the account
and then wait for weeks while they issue
and mail you a new card, right?
You lose a little bit of the liability protection
that traditional credit cards offer,
but you make up for that
by setting exact limits on that liability.
In other words, sure.
I don't have protection
if someone steals my Disney+ credit card and uses it,
but since I've set it to a $9 monthly limit,
that's pretty much the extent of what I might lose.
As far as practical uses go,
I'll tell you now that I am not using a virtual credit card
for every single transaction I do.
And I'm slowly moving my subscription services
to these virtual cards that I have full control over
when my subscription ends.
If I can't easily find
that cancel subscription button anywhere,
I just close the card.
Take that you online services
that try to make it hard to unsubscribe from your service.
Oh, yeah, the one more thing
that I wanna think is really super cool.
You guys already know
that I'm a long time user of 1Password,
as my favorite password manager.
Well, 1Password and privacy.com
have integrated with each other,
and so now they make things even easier.
So, check this out.
When it comes to adding my billing information,
because I've already set up the integration
between my 1Password account and my Privacy account,
I can have 1Password automatically create
a new virtual card with privacy on the spot
when I'm trying to pay for something.
It's a super convenient feature.
Anyway, give virtual credit cards a try,
and let everyone know what you think in the comments below.
Do you think they're as cool as I do?
Or are you less enamored?
Do you think there's some sort of security risk
I haven't found yet?
And since you've made it this far to the end of the video,
go ahead and punch that like button.
I've heard rumor that you'll get hacked if you don't,
just saying.