Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Linux Friendly One-Time Credit Card Providers?

Posted by timothy on from the for-that-deep-down-private-feeling dept.

PoochieReds writes "My credit card company has just introduced some pretty foul new rules (shortening grace periods, raising fees, etc.), so I've started shopping around for a new one. I use this card for most of my purchases and pay off my balance at the end of each month. One thing that my old CC company had was the ability to use one-time CC numbers. This was really handy for Internet and over the phone purchases, and I like the safety it provides. The downside was that this co. used a flash-based app for this feature. Does anyone have recommendations of a CC company that can provide one-time CC numbers via a regular browser-based web form?"

12 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. Research? by shibbydude · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How exactly can you throw "Linux-Friendly" into the question when this is really a Flash problem. I hate flash as much as most people but really you should do your own research, i.e. call some banks and ask about their online banking. I know my bank, UMB, does use a form-based system. I am sure it is not terribly hard to find a bank that does not have a flash interface, it just seems that every ask-slashdotter has no idea how to use a phone book.

    --
    We're only gonna die from our own arrogance, that's why we might as well take our time...
    1. Re:Research? by Detritus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Like your average customer service drone is going to even understand the question, let alone know the answer.

      --
      Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
    2. Re:Research? by passthecrackpipe · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "It does not look like the usual linux friendly configure/make/make install" You seem to confuse "Linux Friendly" with "I only compile from source". You rpersonal ideology and computing habits aside, those two are not the same thing.

      --
      People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
  2. Flash based in linux? by dubious9 · · Score: 2, Informative

    If it's flash, why can't you use it in Linux? Flash is one of the few plugins that firefox will install with it's auto-plugin thingy.

    Anyway, I've never heard of disposable CC numbers, it does sound handy. I think I'll have to look into too.

    And for the "why ask slashdot, when you can google it in two minutes" aswer, it looks like, American Express, and MBNA offer them, but without signing up, I don't know what kind a mechanism they use. The PCworld article says something about "Orbiscom's O-power" application, but I can't find technicle details on it. Orbiscom's clients page says that most of the bigger CC people are dabbling in this sort of tech.

    Have fun.

    --
    Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?
    1. Re:Flash based in linux? by pyros · · Score: 2, Informative

      citibank had the same thing (flash applet or standalone application). but recently i've had problems using it in firefox on windows, haven't booted linux in a while so i'm not sure about that. Discover card has is too, and i haven't had any cross-platform problems with that.

  3. Hope you're getting money back... by evilquaker · · Score: 4, Informative
    If you use your credit card for most of your purchases, and you pay off the balance each month, you should be getting 1% cash back on all your purchases. Here are some recommendations:
    • Discover: 1% cash back on purchases (after your first $4K in a single year, 0.25% or 0.5% before that). No limit on cash back.
    • Citi Platinum Dividend Select: 1% cash back, 5% at supermarkets, gas stations, drugstores. Limited to $300 back per year.
    • Chase PerfectCard: 1% cash back, 3% at gas stations. No limit on cash back per year.
    As for the one-time use numbers, how do they offer you any protection? You're only liable for $50 if your card is fraudulently used, and many CC companies waive this. As long as you check your statements every month (you do this, right?), you shouldn't have to worry. It's the retailers that carry the risk of fradulent purchases.

    --
    To within half a percent, pi seconds is a nanocentury. -- Tom Duff
    1. Re:Hope you're getting money back... by artifex2004 · · Score: 2, Informative
      As for the one-time use numbers, how do they offer you any protection?

      The bank knows the original card number, of course. AFAIK they're subject to the same (waived) limits. One-time numbers are usually set up with a max credit line, as well. So you can say, okay, I think I'm going to spend $100 online for Mother's Day at Amazon and some gourmet food place, and you generate the number, and regardless of whether only the authorized merchants or Harry the Hacker gets the number, no more than $100 total can be charged. Anything less, of course, stays in your account.

      Thing is, this is really a marketing tool. If he reads his account agreement carefully, he'll probably discover that it doesn't matter if someone grabs his real credit card number from a hacked server, or is listening in on his cordless phone call. His liability should still be the (waived) limit. He's just working a little harder to make it less likely it'll get out, to save the hassle of having to call and dispute and get a new number and change his auto-bills, is all.
    2. Re:Hope you're getting money back... by swillden · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Thank you for illustrating well the tragedy of the commons. One-time use CC numbers help reduce fraud. Fraudulent charges, while not directly charged to the account of the defrauded customer, will eventually be paid for by consumers. Whether it be by higher prices from the merchant or by higher interest rates and fees on the part of CC companies, the entity that absorbs the cost of the fraudulent purchase will pass that cost on to the consumer.

      I disagree that this is a tragedy of the commons situation. In this case, althought it's true that the cardholders as a group ultimately pay for the fraud, it's also true that the cardholders as a group ultimately pay for whatever technology is used to limit the fraud. Further, the card issuers and merchant acquirers do see the fraud as a negative item on their balance sheets, and when it gets large enough to justify spending money on more technology to limit the fraud, they do so, whether that be one-time numbers, microprocessors in cards, cardholder photos in cards or whatever. They do it because the fraud reduction is pure profit for them, at least until all their competitors are doing it, too, at which point the savings start to be passed on to cardholders.

      The merchants are part of this equation as well, since deploying technology to accept new, more secure, forms of payment costs them money, but also saves them money in terms of reduced fraud.

      "Tragedy of the Commons", on the other hand, describes a situation where it is in everyone's best individual interest to behave "badly". In this case, the banks and merchants both have direct fiscal incentives to implement technology to reduce fraud, and these incentives are actually *strengthened* by the fact that cardholders can safely assume that whoever foots the bill it won't be them... not directly, anyway.

      In short, don't worry about it, use what is convenient to you. It's the job of the banks and the retailers to manage fraud, and they are actually quite good at it.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    3. Re:Hope you're getting money back... by PatHMV · · Score: 2, Insightful

      All those little things you mention (calling to dispute the bill, getting a new number, etc.) are a real hassle and take time and effort which could be devoted either to billable hours or fun instead of dealing with credit card bureaucrats. And it can be a real problem if your account is hacked/stolen right when you really need to use it. Suppose you're on vacation in Europe, go to pay for your rental car, and find out that your credit limit is maxed out. Do you really want to deal with that on vacation? Plus, of course, if a lot of people used one-time numbers, there would be a lot less credit card fraud, which in the end would mean lower rates for all credit card users. So I hardly consider this a "marketing tool" only. If my card company offered it, I assure you I would use it regularly.

  4. Re:Quality Control by BrokenHalo · · Score: 2, Informative
    Flash might be hard to install on Linux. I haven't tried in a while.

    Mmmm-mmmm... it sounds like you've never tried. Flash binaries have been readily installable in most of the more mainstream browsers (with the exception of Lynx and Links ;-)) for at least ~7 years.

  5. Leave MBNA go to Citibank by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm 99% sure you are talking about MBNA.

    I just got a notice in the mail from MBNA a few days ago. It made me wonder if I had suddenly something bad had happened to my credit report and they were sticking it to me - a common practice among credit card lenders. Since it sounds like you got the same thing, I guess they are doing it everyone.

    I have been using MBNA's ShopSafe one-time use credit card generator for at least 5 years now. At one point they rolled out a new version that broke with firefox (or rather, it stopped supporting a bunch of convenience functions, like drag-and-drop of the credit card number). MBNA's tech support was inane, they were not even allowed to run a copy of the shopsafe software in front of them while talking on the phone, strickly "did you remember to plug in the internet" level. Netscape, not to even mention Mozilla, was so far beyond their comprehension it wasn't even worth trying.

    So I did some research and found out that the entire system was provided by a third party company that specializes in new kinds of credit and payment systems. Unfortunately I did not bookmark their website, and their name was so generic sounding that I can never remember it. But what I did learn is that MBNA, Citi, Discover and AmEx were all clients for this same service, but AmEx dropped out circa 2002.

    So, given all that, I've elected to go to Citibank, especially since they have a 1%/5% cashback card too. I have not been able to find out if Citi's cards have the same terms as MBNA is just now instigating, but I am hoping it won't matter. I intend to drop my spending with MBNA to $0 for two months and then call them up and tell them that if they want my business back, I want the old terms back.

    --
    When information is power, privacy is freedom.
  6. Re:citicards.com by pyros · · Score: 2, Informative

    the citi tool is written in flash.