Staying anonymous using gift cards?

G

GoodEnuff

Member
In another thread, someone mentioned using a gift card to make purchases on Amazon. I pay cash for everything except internet purchases; for those I use a credit card. Which I dislike because Amazon can tell you (and who knows who else) about all of your past purchases.

It never occurred to me to use a gift card. Pay cash for a gift card and use that for internet purchases? Are there limitations on doing that? What's the catch?
 

GoodEnuff said:
It never occurred to me to use a gift card. Pay cash for a gift card and use that for internet purchases? Are there limitations on doing that? What's the catch?
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I've used gift cards for online purchases for years. Visa works nearly everywhere, Visa Vanilla has trouble some places. AmEx.... Noooooo!!! I used to use them exclusively and had quite a stack of them to last for a few years... expiration like 8 years ahead. Then suddenly a lot of places online stopped taking them for security reasons... I'm still trying to use them up... it's not a real big issue because target.com, bestbuy.com, cvs.com, and vitacost still take them, but I buy Visa now.

What made me do that was unauthorized charges on a regular card years ago... had a lot of vacation money stolen from a debit from a place in India. Took forever to get it back from the card company, so I looked for an easier way. I never buy a gift card larger than I wouldn't mind "losing" so my Visa's are for $200 although I'll probably be upping that. All of my AmEx were for $500 each but I rarely do that now.

I should add that while retailers generally take the Visa gift cards, a couple of my utility places don't. Oh, and I buy my groceries and household stuff at WalMart... so I buy WalMart gift cards so that I don't need to put my bank card number online... they don't delete after use.
 

Oh, two more thoughts... my gift card usage is about not having to deal with ID theft/recovering unauthorized charges and not about staying anonymous. I have an Amazon account loaded with gift cards I was given and bought, but I'm not seeing how using a gift card would keep you anonymous.... they'd still have to know who you are to send what you order. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding that part?
 
Anything can be tracked. A lot of financial information has been tracked since the dark ages but consumers were not aware of it and did not have the current resources.
We charge everything we can. Water and taxes get paid by check. Yes, these cute little colored papers still exist and I refuse to pay fees. No auto debit or other access ever!
We used the same card for 40 years. Customer service is well trained. Potential fraud calls often come in while a transaction is in process or can still be blocked. Large or out of area purchases I call in. The recourse option has been a big plus for me. Last winter a vendor gaslighted us with a fire place insert. The biggest one was after the general 30 day period and 25k.
The bonus money is my Amazon play money and allows for out of budget items particullarly spur of the moment presents.
Having an assortment of cards would be a hassle from gas station to hotels to groceries. I have a hard enough time keeping track of an occasional gift card after a store return. There is a sock heaven and a gift card heaven.
 
People make a lot more egregious errors in protecting their identities online than by using credit cards for purchases.

Sure, we can get caught. I did myself. But it turned out that a Florida retailer selling online was printing out credit card info and handing it off to temporary workers from Africa on "student" visas to process these "online" billings. One of them was crooked, and turning that info over to other "students" to use to buy junk and pay their own bills.

You catch that by checking your statements and following up calling the bank's fraud department.


As far as using money laundering ("gift") cards goes, excessive use can set off alarms. Merchants track this sort of thing far more than normal credit card usage because they are tied to criminal and illegal alien use.

You also forgo things like cashback rewards, discounts, and improving or maintaining your credit worthiness history.


I'm not sure why honest people get so wrapped around the axle like this, worrying about unimportant things and not dealing with the important ones.
 
GoodEnuff said:
In another thread, someone mentioned using a gift card to make purchases on Amazon. I pay cash for everything except internet purchases; for those I use a credit card. Which I dislike because Amazon can tell you (and who knows who else) about all of your past purchases.

It never occurred to me to use a gift card. Pay cash for a gift card and use that for internet purchases? Are there limitations on doing that? What's the catch?
Click to expand...
I have used Amazon gift cards for awhile because my hobby is fish and yes spend some serious money on tank related stuff and my wife would complain so went the sneaky way and used Amazon prepaid card but you know no fooling them and she filed for divorce , lol but had nothing to do with my fish hobby .

Either way there is no catch and no extra fee , you buy the card at CVS / Walgreens register it on gift card section of your Amazon account and buy what you plan to buy , you do not lose money as remaining funds transfer over to another card if you buy another card in future or your regular credit card .

Granted you have to keep in mind shipping , so if you want to buy lets say an item worth 50 dollars you do not get a 50 dollar card ,

I figured out cost of what going to buy and buy card for 20 or 30 dollars more and again the balance you do not lose . I do not use Prime .

I have blinding hate for Vanilla Visa but CallMeKate likes them but my experience with them was card was hacked before I bought it and took me 6 months to get refund and think Amazon no longer takes them and plenty of other places no longer take them as co is being sued .

I do not work for Amazon and not the most comp savvy person going but for me Amazon gift cards work great .

Edit : Let me add that yes Amazon knows who you are and of course what you are buying because you must have an account the only plus is you have paid in advance not on your regular credit card so if you share your credit card with spouse they will not know but they will when box arrived they open it and see you spent 400 dollars on fish tank led lights , lol .
 
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I try to avoid purchasing through Amazon, although sometimes that just isn't practical. Their customer service is good if something you purchase arrives broken, is not what you thought, or you just want to return it. They are great about that. However, I have found they do not have some specialty items like mini-blind brackets, oil lamp chimneys made from a certain type of glass, fabrics, and a piece of trim for my vehicle.

I can definitely see why a credit card would be better than a gift card if you need to dispute a charge.

As for privacy, yes, I am unapologetically adamant about that. I started that when my retirement account was hacked.
 
NotCompSavy said:
I have blinding hate for Vanilla Visa but CallMeKate likes them but my experience with them was card was hacked before I bought it and took me 6 months to get refund and think Amazon no longer takes them and plenty of other places no longer take them as co is being sued .
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Well no... actually I said that the "Vanilla" do *not* work sometimes online. What I use is the regular Visa gift cards available in practically every retail shopping place I visit... and been doing it for many years without issues.
 
GoodEnuff said:
In another thread, someone mentioned using a gift card to make purchases on Amazon. I pay cash for everything except internet purchases; for those I use a credit card. Which I dislike because Amazon can tell you (and who knows who else) about all of your past purchases.

It never occurred to me to use a gift card. Pay cash for a gift card and use that for internet purchases? Are there limitations on doing that? What's the catch?
Click to expand...
The catch is that you're still not anonymous. They know exactly who bought that gift card.
Maybe not but I wouldn't be surprised.
 
GoodEnuff said:
If you pay cash for it, how can they know that? Must it be "registered" or something??
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No, they do not have to be registered to use. It is *advised* that you register in case you need to recover funds/dispute something, but I've never done that because my cards are always for under $500. I wouldn't have a problem registering and I wouldn't care a whit that I'm connected to that card because I only shop and pay bills... but it just seems like too much trouble for a few hundred $$ that will be used up quickly.
 
hearlady said:
No, I mean this. You purchase a gift card anonymously. Then you buy something online with it. They don't have credit card information but they do know who you are and are still tracking your purchases. 🤔
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Ah, gotcha. I thought you meant purchase the gift cards online. I've never worried about being anonymous, just about not having the funds hijacked/skimmed. If I'd ever want to be fully anonymous, I wouldn't know where to start... but wouldn't have any reason to do that either.
 
hearlady said:
No, I mean this. You purchase a gift card anonymously. Then you buy something online with it. They don't have credit card information but they do know who you are and are still tracking your purchases. 🤔
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NO... not so... you can use any name you like on Amazon or any online reatailer.. want to call yuorself Donald Duck you can.. Percy Pig.. fine... Tryxcry Fr5tmn...also fine.. you don't even have to have the item sent to your house, you can opt for an Amazon pick up point or a PO box number ... but even if you do sent to your house it's just being sent tto an adress rather than a person..per se....
 
CallMeKate said:
Well no... actually I said that the "Vanilla" do *not* work sometimes online. What I use is the regular Visa gift cards available in practically every retail shopping place I visit... and been doing it for many years without issues.
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I had no idea a Visa gift card as all I have seen are Vanilla Visa and Master card .

When I bought on ebay would use them but ebay like a lot of places stopped taking them so IMO both cards useless as so hacked BEFORE you buy them that most vendors no longer take them .
 
It is pretty much impossible to be completely anonymous. Many possessions are somehow recorded or registered with some government entity, i.e., house, car, firearms, fishing and hunting licenses, permits for federal and state campgrounds, your drivers license and auto insurance, voters registration, the list is very long.

A few years ago, I sold my then house and leased a place where everything except electricity was included in the rent. Nice. I went to vote and realized I had not changed my address. The people there asked me if the correct address was "xxx". Yes, it was. I asked them how they got it because I had not yet changed it on my drivers license. They said they communicate with other entities. The only entity it could have been was insurance or electric company. Oh, and credit card/banks. And it had been changed in the drivers license database, too. That was a bit scary.

If social credit scores become the norm, it will be an interesting world.
 
GoodEnuff said:
It is pretty much impossible to be completely anonymous. Many possessions are somehow recorded or registered with some government entity, i.e., house, car, firearms, fishing and hunting licenses, permits for federal and state campgrounds, your drivers license and auto insurance, voters registration, the list is very long.

A few years ago, I sold my then house and leased a place where everything except electricity was included in the rent. Nice. I went to vote and realized I had not changed my address. The people there asked me if the correct address was "xxx". Yes, it was. I asked them how they got it because I had not yet changed it on my drivers license. They said they communicate with other entities. The only entity it could have been was insurance or electric company. Oh, and credit card/banks. And it had been changed in the drivers license database, too. That was a bit scary.

If social credit scores become the norm, it will be an interesting world.
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Staying anonymous now borders on impossible .

I know a guy into that homesteading who lives between Florida and Georgia , off grid sort of speak with solar , a well , etc . He retired with serious money went a bit bonkers and paranoid could not pull it off with all the technology now it is impossible .

Do not rule out money orders to buy online from places that take them but yes again you need a real address . I buy caladiums from local Florida farmers to far to drive to and use money orders .

I do not like using my real CC and do not unless a must .

Edit : Whatever you like on Amazon I would think a vendor who takes money orders is out there .
 
Why not using your real CC is the way to go in my neck of the woods even identity theft is through the roof .

I recently saw another 73 year old bald plumber who looked just like me and he was telling bad jokes , lol my jokes ae terrible but all kidding aside CC fraud here is rampant so I use prepaid cards .

South Florida is a hot bed for credit card fraud and identity theft​


 
Whether you use a gift card or not, merchants still need to know your name and obviously shipping address, so I don't see how that could provide anonymity. I like the fact that Amazon keeps my purchases on record.
 

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