Rick's Daily Tips

Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!

  • Home
  • Rick’s Bio
  • Advertise
  • Privacy Policy
  • Rick’s Tip Jar
  • Get My Tech Tips Newsletter
You are here: Home / Tech News / How to safely shop online by paying with a virtual credit card

How to safely shop online by paying with a virtual credit card

Posted on November 14, 2019

882
SHARES
ShareTweetSubscribe

credit-cardAs you probably know, several major retailers have recently had their computers hacked and their customers’ personal and financial data stolen, leaving hundreds of thousands of people nationwide worried about having their identities stolen.

In an effort to prevent this from happening to their customers, many banks have begun offering virtual credit cards that are tied to a real credit card account.

The details vary from bank to bank, but all virtual credit cards work pretty much the same way.

The bank simply assigns you a temporary credit card number that’s tied to your real credit card account, along with a balance and expiration date set by you.

For example, if you have a VISA credit card account with a $5,000 credit line, you can request a virtual card with its own credit card number with a low maximum credit amount and an extremely short time span before it expires.

This virtual card will be tied to your VISA account with the purchase amount billed to that account and deducted from the $5,000 credit limit.

After you have received your virtual card number, you can use it online to make a purchase, pay a bill or complete some other type of online transaction without having to give the merchant your real credit card number.

That way if the merchant’s servers get hacked, the thieves cannot steal your “real” financial information because the merchant never had it stored on their computers in the first place.

Not all banks offer this service as of yet, but more of them are doing so every day. If you like to shop online, you owe it to yourself to check with your credit card’s issuing bank to see if they offer virtual credit cards.

Bonus tip #1: This post explains how to shop at Amazon an pay cash for your purchases!

Bonus tip #2: Want to make sure you never miss one of my tips? Click here to join my Rick’s Tech Tips Facebook Group!

If Facebook isn’t your cup of tea, I invite you to sign up for my Rick’s Daily Tips Daily Update Newsletter.


Want to ask Rick a tech question? Click here and send it in!

If you found this post useful, would you mind helping me out by sharing it? Just click one of the handy social media sharing buttons below.

882
SHARES
ShareTweetSubscribe




Popular…

How do I ask you a tech question?


Step-by-step guide to completely ridding your PC of viruses and other malware


10 reasons why I recommend buying tech gear from Amazon


Advertise

Guest Post Guidelines

Want to ask me a tech question?

Handy Tech Resources

Privacy Policy

Computer Tips
Smartphone Tips
Blogging Tips

Tech Q & A
Reviews
Tech News

Write for RicksDailyTips.com

Scam alerts
Downloads

Copyright © 2022 RicksDailyTips.com

Affiliate Disclaimer


Rick's Daily Tips is hosted by InMotion Hosting. Click here to find out why.