I sometimes want to purchase from online sellers of questionable reputation and many of them ask for just credit/debit card details - no options such as Paypal.
Please share your suggestions.
Is there a knowledge base on this category on OZB? I think its good to have.
Best way to Get a Temporary/Burner/One-Time-Use Visa/Master Cards
LOzDayZee on 06/07/2022 - 19:37
Comments
What happened to the family
Haha
Revolute
Revolut
Sidenote: Do companies like Amazon have systems in place to ban Brodens from making multiple Amazon Prime accounts with Revolut?
Just a thought considering what happened to that guy with JB perks
Yes fraud protection systems can protect from temporary card generation.
What happened with JB perks?
Coles and Woolies sell Visa/Master cards.
Sometimes these even come with bonus points.
These prepaid cards will normally have a $5.95 'activation fee' ($50 prepaid Visa gift card will cost $55.95), YMMV though. I buy one of these through a self serve checkout and the fee is tacked on. I go through a cashier and I receive no such fee.
You need to stock up when they have the deals.
I go through a cashier and I receive no such fee.
That is impossible, fee will be add on no matter where you buy it in the supermarket
“Virtual Credit Cards”.
This - check with your existing credit provider for a virtual card option. Many of them provide it for free.
Many? I don't know any in Australia.
post office sells prepaid cards too
I'm going to expand a little more on the prepaid gift card option, because it has been brought up a few times now.
I think prepaid gift cards are (mostly) a bad option for your use case for two reasons:
- Purchase fees
- 3-D Secure
A number of retailers sell prepaid gift cards that operate either on the Visa or Mastercard network. (There are also prepaid gift cards that operate on the EFTPOS network, but they cannot be redeemed online, so I will not mention them below.) Prepaid gift cards tend to come with quite high purchase fees, as you'll see below:
Coles Mastercard gift card
Denominations Available Purchase Fee1 Sold at… $50 $5 Coles $100 $5 Coles $250 $7 Coles Coles sold this prepaid gift card at a 10% discount a few weeks ago. I originally predicted the deal would be back on 19 October 2022, but I am now very doubtful of that…
Coles sold the predecessor with bonus Flybuys points from time to time (e.g. 2000 bonus Flybuys points with purchase of $100 or $250 Coles Gift Mastercards), and my expectation is that this will happen for Coles Mastercard gift cards in the future too.
The international transaction fee is 2.5%.
OnlyONE Visa gift card
Denominations Available Purchase Fee Sold at… $50 $5.95 Woolworths, BIG W, Officeworks $100 $5.95 Woolworths, BIG W, Officeworks $200 $7.95 BIG W, Officeworks $500 $7.95 Officeworks $25-$500 variable load $7.95 Woolworths, BIG W Woolworths (and less so, BIG W) have previously sold the $50 and $100 denominations with 500 or 1000 bonus Everyday Rewards points, but those deals are rarely posted on OzBargain, as the value of the points is outweighed by the purchase fee.
I have also seen OnlyONE Visa gift cards on the gift card shelves at ALDI, but I have only seen them from a distance, so I don't know which denominations are sold there. Apparently, these gift cards are also sold at Kmart, but I don't recall ever seeing them at Kmart.
Do not confuse the OnlyONE Visa gift card I'm referring to in this section with the category-restricted OnlyONE Visa gift cards that can only be redeemed at merchants using specific Merchant Category Codes (MCCs).
The international transaction fee is 3.5%.
Vanilla Visa gift cards
Denominations Available Purchase Fee Sold at… $25 $3.95 Coles, The Reject Shop $50 $4.95 Coles, The Reject Shop, Target(?) $100 $5.95 Coles, The Reject Shop(?), Target $250 $7.95 Coles, Target $400 $9.95 Coles Coles sold the $100 and $250 denominations at a 10% discount in February 2022, but that was only in NSW and ACT, plus that has been a once-off that I do not think will ever be repeated.
Coles used to sell the Vanilla Visa gift cards with bonus Flybuys points, but it looks like the last time it happened was April 2020 (what a time in history).
The terms and conditions state that a $20-$500 variable denomination exists (with a $7.75 purchase fee), but I have never seen one in the wild in Australia.
The international transaction fee is 2.5%.
Australia Post Gift Card by Mastercard
Denominations Available Purchase Fee Sold at… $20-$500 variable load $5.95 Australia Post (In-store and Online) I don't know whether Australia Post allows you to purchase one these gift cards using a Visa or Mastercard card in their stores.
The international transaction fee is 3%.
A wildcard suggestion is…
Special gift cards
Denominations Available Purchase Fee Sold at… Comments $5-$1000 variable load $0 Special.com.au These gift cards are category-restricted Mastercard gift cards, so make sure to choose the correct type of Special gift card for the merchant you're planning to purchase from!
There is no reference to international transaction fees in the gift card terms and conditions, but I wonder whether that is due to Special gift cards not being redeemable at merchants outside of Australia…
Special gift cards also have a mixed reputation on OzBargain (depending on who you talk to). I suggest you look at the comments of current and previous Special deals to get a sense of what I'm referring to.
The big issue for your use case (and something no one has really addressed so far) is 3-D Secure.
3-D Secure is a security feature supported by Mastercard and Visa (and some other payment networks too) and gives a merchant's payment processor the option to request the issuer of the card to ask the cardholder to verify they are the person attempting to make a purchase (and not some random person who has stolen or guessed your card's details). Particularly strict merchants will mandate a card to support 3-D Secure before any payments can be processed.
The issue for your use case is that prepaid gift cards are unable to support 3-D Secure, because prepaid gift card issuers do not (and cannot) keep records of verified cardholders on record. There really is no way to determine which merchants mandate 3-D Secure support until you try to use a card with no 3-D Secure support on a website.
-
Purchase fees are only payable once at the time of purchase. ↩
Should add that most cards without 3DS still can be added to PayPal and used on Amazon.
Thanks for the detailed answer!
Definitely, this information is worth being a pinned page.
Fintechs offering virtual MC/Visa cards: Zip, Revolut, Wise.
Wise
Thanks, everyone for all the valuable information.
Checked Zip, Wise and Revolut - for some unknown reason I felt Revolut easier to start with.
Signed up, added $9.65 via my debit card, created virtual card, paid 9.65 for a seller online (luckily no 3DS asked) - all took less than 10 minutes, no fees.Can't wait whether these virtual cards will work with Didi, Uber, UberEats, Doordash,Google Play etc.
Thanks heaps!Can't wait whether these virtual cards will work with Didi, Uber, UberEats, Doordash,Google Play etc.
Revolut does not work with Uber
Be mindful that a frozen or cancelled card with revolut doesn't mean they won't let charges through to that card anymore.
In certain circumstances revolut allows companies to still charge your account even when the card is frozen and/or cancelled.
Just a word if caution for everybody using Revolut virtual cards: I had a card that I froze for 2 weeks then cancelled the card.
4 weeks after I initially froze the card and 2 weeks after it was cancelled, a transaction came through and Revolut tried to charge it to my account.
Luckily my balance was too low or it would have been deducted from my account!
(I have screenshots to prove all this. Explanation from support is that it can happen …)
Zip pay has this by default