virtual account numbers
 

Hi does anyone know if there is a credit card company other than citi that offers virtual account numbers for single transaction use? thanks

I have heard only Citi has it. if you are buying an airline ticket on a non-US airline, you need to show the card used to purchase the ticket.

Discover has it, for what it's worth.

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Has anyone here at FT actually used a virtual number? And, how did it work out.

I was thinking about using one for a periodical subscription, since, now, many periodicals are eagar to automatically renew your sub, as a purported "convenience." Hopefully, a virtual number would not permit the periodical to charge my credit card next year.

I used Citi's virtual account numbers many times. I used it for a recurring thing, but it surprisingly showed up on my next statement even though the virtual number expired.

AMEX's blue credit card had them back in 2001. I haven't had the card since then and haven't looked at my other AMEX credit cards so YMMV.

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I've used them (with Citibank) many times and not had problems. Pretty much any online merchant that wants to try to get you to agree to some sort of recurring payment can be placated with a virtual account which can have an expiration date (or a manual cancellation) of your choosing. I have heard others report that they have charges show up even when the virtual account is closed/expired; that hasn't happened to me.

Particularly handy is that, even before the charge goes through, you can look at the virtual account and see that the authorization has been obtained (the available credit on that virtual account decreases by the amount of the authorization.) That lets you see which merchants actually authorize the card in real time when you place the order, and which ones wait until later.

Thanks all for the prompt replies

BofA also provides this service.

Hi all,

Fidelity also has virtual account numbers. I've used the Citibank and Fidelity ones quite a few times. Never a problem.

I've had to replace 3 cards in 2 years due to fraudulent activity. The last one really p** me off:

http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthrea...100&highlight=

At this point I only use virtual account numbers for online purchases except for sites that I really, really trust.

Realistically, your number can get stolen in a variety of different ways. You are in a restaurant in the US and you hand some stranger (well, you've gotten to know them because they've waited on you for an hour) your card and they go into a back room out of your sight for a few minutes????

In France, it's against the law for them to take your card out of your siight so they have hand held units that swipe your card by the table. Great.....until you find out that there are people who drive around in vans (they do this in the US too - outside of shopping malls) who pick up the wireless signal being transmitted by these devices and cash registers.

Wouldn't be great if your everyday card could be a continually re-generating, one time use number? Now we could put more people to work back in banks just to keep track of it all. They could pay their salaries with the money banks would no longer be doling out on fraudulent charges.

I guess my point is that I use the virtual accounts all the time with great success but realistically, anything can happen anywhere.

I want to generate a virtual number for the first time through my Citi card. I have to download something to do so? And can't use Firefox? Help. Please.

I have no problem with Firefox for virtual account numbers.

I also have no problem with FF. There are 2 ways, you can either have the app on your desktop (download) or visit the website via signing in to your citi account and going to "virtual account" under "tools and services". All the options are there.

Edit:

You reminded me to download this on another computer. I had difficulty and had to download and install the app via IE but subsequently have no problem using it in FF.