this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2026
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Privacy

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Are all Virtual Card providers careless with privacy? (pawb.social)
submitted 1 day ago by FatherPeanut@pawb.social to c/privacy@programming.dev
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I went looking through different virtual card providers for something that'd let me make a purchase I originally intended to use a prepaid for, yet they wouldn't accept it. This led me to looking into Virtual Card providers as they'd work more consistently.

Problematically, Privacy.com seems overkill on what all it demands as far as KYC standards go, and some suggest IronVest as an alternative because it demands less. Yet, their privacy policy explicitly states they can share your information with advertising partners.

I haven't encountered many providers, but seeing this trend, I wanna raise the question: Is there any virtual Card provider that really cares for privacy, and the privacy-minded?

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[–] moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 5 points 1 day ago

Privacy.com is, legally, a bank. Banks have always had aggressive KYC requirements, but it's only gotten worse in recent years.

I went through the sign up and they made me take pictures of my face with Persona.

Once I did that, I then declined to use this other platform, Plaid for storing my card. Instead I submitted my debit card information directly.

The logged in page said that my account was pending, and would be verified in a 1-2 business days. It's been like 5 days now.

I dug around on reddit, and found someone with a similar experience. They theorized that delayed, or even indefinite account "verification" is a way of soft punishing people who don't submit to every single privacy invasive thing.

I really only wanted protection from fraud, overcharching, and bad merchants, so I wish this was a feature my bank would provide.