How to Protect Yourself Online With Disposable Credit Card Numbers

Making an online purchase is an exercise in trust. After all, to buy something online, you have to reveal enough information about your credit card that the recipient (or anyone who gets a peek) could also use the card to buy things. That’s a problem! Fortunately, there's a way to protect online payments you make by using a masked credit card number instead of your real account number. When you use a masked credit card number, you get a new, unique credit card number with an expiration date and security code. This new number gets linked to your normal credit card account, but the seller never sees your real card details. You can sometimes put a limit on spending for the new number you create, give it a specific expiration date, and freeze or cancel it any time. This is an excellent way to secure your financial information.

Many people don't know they can mask their credit card number when making a purchase, even though a lot of credit cards offer it. Plus, in the last few years, there has been more emphasis on getting people to use token-based systems for secure transactions instead, sometimes called "virtual credit card numbers" (a term that, confusingly, also applies to masked credit card numbers, even though the two systems are different). Still, masked credit card numbers have unique advantages. If you're trying to stay on top of your personal finances, it's a great perk to learn about and use.

What Are Benefits of Masked Credit Card Numbers?

Using a masked credit card number is safer than using your real card details any time you're shopping online. It's especially useful when you want to buy something from a website that you've never used before and you aren't sure of its reputation or security history. How safe is its payment processing? In a case like that, you can generate a new number for the purchase in a matter of seconds and then, as soon as the payment goes through, disable the number you created. That way, no one can ever charge that masked number again.

Another advantage is you can easily generate a masked number that you can give to an authorized user so that they can use your credit card account securely and with ease. The recipient has the freedom to use the card for the purchases they need, and you can disable the card when they're done. With a business account, you can give an authorized person a masked number that's good until a certain date or valid only up to a certain dollar amount. They can buy whatever they need and you can trash the number when they're done.

With many banks that offer this service, you can generate a new masked number every time you make an online purchase, or you can create one number for each website where you shop. It's up to you how to manage them. 

Credit Card Masking Services

Whether you have credit card masking already included as part of your credit card services depends on which bank issues your account. You'll have to check. Let's look at three major banks that offer credit card masking, plus one software product that anyone can use to add credit card masking for an additional fee.

Abine Blur Premium

Abine Blur is a security app and password manager that offers a range of protection, including masked credit card numbers. It also can mask your email address when you give it out online, such as when you sign up for a promotion. You need the Premium version of Abine Blur to create masked credit card numbers, which costs $39 per year, plus $2 for each masked number. Alternatively, you can pay $99 per year for Abine Blur Unlimited and not pay extra for each number you generate.

American Express Go (for Corporate Accounts)

If you run a business, there may be times when you want to give an employee, contractor, or other associate the ability to use your credit card account, but only temporarily or for up to a certain amount. American Express Go allows corporate account holders to send a masked (or "virtual") credit card number to someone else to use. You can request to have a physical card sent to that person, too. The recipient can use the virtual card number online right away or store it as a payment option in a mobile payment app. The account holder can put a dollar amount limit on the card as well as an expiration date. All charges are consolidated onto the primary bill. Beyond making a new, unique, and secure credit card number for these purchases, there are other benefits. For example, 1) the recipient of the virtual card doesn't have to front their own money and 2) the account holder doesn't have to worry about reimbursing anyone.

Capital One ENO

Capital One ENO is a service for Capital One cardholders that generates unique masked credit card numbers for online purchases. ENO has other features, too, such as alerts for potential fraudulent charges as well as reminders before free trial periods for products or services are about to end. To use the credit card masking feature for online shopping, you must install a plugin for ENO in your web browser. Then, you log into your Capital One account and the plugin automatically recognizes when you land on a checkout form. It offers to create a new masked credit card number for you, or if you already have one for that particular seller, reuse the one you have. If you use the number, the plugin automatically fills in the credit card form fields. To manage all the numbers you've created, click on Manage in the plugin, which takes you to the right page in your Capital One where you can disable, freeze, or rename the numbers.

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Citibank Virtual Credit Card 

Some Citibank credit cards offer virtual account numbers as a benefit to membership. To find out if your account offers it, you need to sign in and navigate to your benefits page. If it's offered for your account, you may still have to enroll to receive this benefit. Once you have it, you can create unique masked credit card numbers with their own CVV codes and expiration dates, which you then copy and paste into the form fields when you shop online. At one point, Citi offered a Windows app that could automatically fill in the masked number on checkout pages for you, although it's unclear whether the app supports the latest version of Windows and whether it’s even still available.

Use All the Security Tools at Your Disposal

Virtual credit cards don't get much attention lately now that token-based services, such as Google Pay, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Visa Checkout, Mastercard Click to Pay, and other newer services have stolen the spotlight. Those services all make payments more secure, too, but in a different way. They prevent the seller from seeing your credit card number at all, not even a masked version, so the seller absolutely cannot use it again. They're also super convenient, which may be their real draw. That said, token-based services (not to mention intermediaries, like PayPal) do not offer the same flexibility and control that you get with virtual credit card numbers. They all have their time and place. If you happen to have multiple security features at your fingertips, it makes sense to learn about each one and use them as appropriate for your needs.

For what it's worth, credit card companies do protect you from fraudulent charges, even if you don't use any special security product with it. If you report that you never authorized a charge to your account, the bank will most likely reimburse you and help resolve the matter. Sometimes it can take a few days or weeks, however, for the company to fully investigate the problem and put an end to it. Preventing yourself from ever getting to that stage in the first place can save everyone time and hassle.