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Comment by dealforager | Hacker News Reader

I use Privacy.com for this reason and to not worry about my cards getting leaked. I create a card per-subscription and set the monthly limit to exactly the cost of the subscription. When I want to cancel, if it's not easy I just destroy the virtual card.

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I was going to subscribe to my local paper but didn't when the subscription form said that a phone number was required and that by subscribing you agree to receive calls and texts about "offers that might interest you". This seems like a horrible tactic in general and even more so when your main product is available for free. If it stops being available for free I'm still not likely to agree to that. No respect == no money from me.

Cancelling a card and not paying a bill doesn't mean you no longer owe the underlying debt. A real company like the NYT will still pursue collecting the debt

You typically get charged in advance for periodical subscriptions. If the charge doesn't go through, they simply won't send you the paper anymore.

What collection agency wants to collect a $4 bill?

It’ll be months worth of them, and there are plenty of cheap agencies that will make minimal effort, report to the credit bureaus, and wait for you to come to them begging to get it off because you can’t get a mortgage.

I'm confused how they make money, the free plan has up to 12 new cards a month which seems like a lot. Even on the lower pro plan the cashback can exceed the $10 per month you pay.

I'm not sure but what I've read is that they keep part of the fee that usually goes toward rewards or points in other cards. I don't mind this at all because I think they are providing an amazing and much needed service that I've been wanting for years. Their apps and web extensions are also great. Last time I had to cancel a card because some website got hacked it took me weeks to resolve and change it everywhere I needed. I would happily pay let them have all of the rewards to not go through that again. Sorry if I sound like a shill, I swear I have no relationship with them. I just really like the service.

It does look great, I'm not a US citizen so can't use it and the banking landscape is very different over there which could be how they make money like you said.

Just as any other card issuer, they should be getting something like 1%-2% (depending on location and merchant type and card type) from all purchases as interchange fee from the merchant. Assuming their processing infrastructure is efficient enough, that should cover all the expenses and allow for some profit even for customers with small turnover.

I LOVE Privacy.com!!!

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