Linux Friendly One-Time Credit Card Providers?

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?"

Comments

Research?

[shibbydude]

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.

Hope you're getting money back...

[evilquaker]

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.

Leave MBNA go to Citibank

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

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.