[Guide] How To Protect Your Finances & Identity During Trial Periods

[Zwielicht]

It's been a while since I've written up an original guide for all of you!

Many websites and companies offer trial periods where you can provide them with your credit card details for a "free trial". They expect you to either forget that you provided these details to them so that they can charge you or for you to become a genuine customer. The former reason is one I personally find upsetting because these companies have a habit of making it very difficult to cancel before the free trial is up.

In the past, some people used CC generators, which just mimics the details of a credit card. There's nothing illegal about this and many use these generators to test sandbox environments.

These largely no longer work these days as the problem now is that websites verify the authenticity of the card details you provide them before giving you the free trial. They usually do this by sending a $0 authentication to your card to confirm it works. You can argue they're well within their rights to do this, except many of these companies have a habit of charging early or selling your data.

Currently, the way around this is to use a virtual card. You can do this through your bank, but if you prefer not to use a bank like me, you can use something like Privacy.com. This particular site allows you to create one-time use cards that you can set a spend limit of $1 to so that you can get free trials. Since the amount is lower than what many of these companies try to charge for their subscriptions, the companies find themselves unable to charge your card.

Something neat about using this method is that the companies will get desperate and even offer you the product or service at a reduced amount. This way, if you do like what you're using, you can get it even cheaper!

The most recent website I used this method on was for something @Impulse wanted to try, and they actually sent discount offers like this. Of course, she ended up not wanting to use them because the service sucked and they tried charging the card after 48 hours instead of 72 hours like they said they would.

Remember, these companies are always using shifty strategies, so don't feel bad about giving them a taste of their own medicine.

 

[ggmopa]

Any idea if Privacy.com works with non-american cards now? I remember trying to use it a while ago but they said my card has to be american.

Over here (and in some part of Europe) we have revolut and starling. And Juni for business accounts. All three are good for different reasons. But are built-in bank / e-money account services - haven't come across anything that work the same way as Privacy.com

 

[t2van]

Use a pre paid card for trials. Load what you need and forget about it.

If you need the service again reload the card and go again.

 

[Zwielicht]

Any idea if Privacy.com works with non-american cards now? I remember trying to use it a while ago but they said my card has to be american.

Over here (and in some part of Europe) we have revolut and starling. And Juni for business accounts. All three are good for different reasons. But are built-in bank / e-money account services - haven't come across anything that work the same way as Privacy.com

Last I heard, it still doesn't work for non-American cards.

Use a pre paid card for trials. Load what you need and forget about it.

If you need the service again reload the card and go again.

Yeah, using that might work better if you have some extra cash to get a pre-paid card or if using privacy.com isn't feasible if you're outside the US.

 

[polecat]

It is smart idea. I know some people do that for many different purchases and also means it's basically impossible to steal your money if you just use virtual cards.

Another card you may like Paypal actually do their own card so for example if you get paid say $200 for something today you can easily use it in shop or other places but because it's bit odd compared to other banks for the card details, some online websites may not work on

 

[Champagne]

Great write-up. Other options for one-time cards are Wise and Revolut. They offer similar features to Privacy.com and also work on some free trial websites.

 

[roydan]

Not the type of article I originally thought I'd read lol.. I miss interpreted the word 'trial'.

Thanks for the guide