Halocard

I currently pay for an existing product like this, I use Halocard. In answer to your questions: I usually separate by category and have a card for highly untrustworthy vendors I personally just fund through my normal card Apple pay is a big thing for me The biggest thing for me was trust, most places seem unreliable and also have constant declines. It's also particular around KYC, big pull to me for Halocard was as someone EU based I didn't need an ssn. Happy to answer any questions as a current consumer in this space!

This is really good feedback, thank you. We've just changed this. You can now transfer whatever amount you like when you select the **Stablecoins (USDC/USDT)** payment method. Over the next 24 - 48 hours we'll update this to apply to the credit/debit card, Apple/Google Pay and Cryptocurrency payment methods too. The removal of the minimum deposit amount will then apply to all payment methods after you've made the initial $100 deposit required to activate your account. Really appreciate you bringing this up.

Hi there and thanks for your question! That's correct, the minimum deposit for a new Halocard account is indeed $100 via all of our deposit methods, including credit/debit card, Apple/Google Pay, stablecoins and cryptocurrency. You can find more information here: [https://support.halocard.co/en/article/how-can-i-deposit-funds-to-halocard-1gp3qkf/](https://support.halocard.co/en/article/how-can-i-deposit-funds-to-halocard-1gp3qkf/) Unfortunately, we don't make exceptions to this, so if that initial amount is too high, we're probably not the right virtual card platform for you. Wishing you all the best and here if you have any other questions.

Same setup with chime here, the old virtual card stays linked to merchants even after you generate a new one, and chime support routes you in circles instead of just regenerating it cleanly. The workaround that worked for me was deleting the old card from each merchant manually before generating the new one, otherwise the merchant tries to charge the old number and chime declines without flagging why. If chime keeps dragging this out, halocard or privacy let you spin up a fresh virtual card outside chime so you can at least keep paying things while you fight it out with their support.

It's an easy fix, just have a VPN and use Halocard. Get a VPN that has you looking to be based in the US, then use a Halocard VCC for the billing and set your custom address to be in the US. Our team is based outside the US and thats what we use. PersonallyI use surfshark for teh VPN and thats been fine, I have a preference for using static IP's because I think it's a bit more consistent (probably overthinking it with that though) and I use Halocard for the billing becuase they provide US issued card meaning high accpetance rate and looks to Claude like it's from the US. Our team uses these and has had no problem, the ease too is that this as a method works across multiple different subscriptions rather than needing a seperate solution for each US sub we have. Can confirm it's been working for the past 4 months no problems

agreed or start using cards with spending limits, I had a friend who would give herself a halocard limited to $100. When she was out she could only use that card. Seemed to fix it but also it relies on you having the strength to not go back and change or adjust things. I think general best advice I've seen is to add friction to things you want to stop doing. e.g. make it harder to buy things, less convenient payment methods etc.

Hello u/EdgwtrLgnd! That's a great question. Halocards are US-issued virtual credit cards that are accepted at all major US retailers including Target. Whether Halocards will work with your auto checkout bot isn't really something we can definitively answer. It depends on how the bot works and the circumstances of the purchase. It's important to separate whether a card ***is accepted*** by a merchant and whether a merchant ***accepts YOUR card at checkout***. Merchants run different checks and balances to prevent fraud, so the question is really: Does your bot emulate a normal transaction or does it emit signs of automation (and therefore potentially fraudulent) behaviour, and is a merchant willing to allow this at checkout? I don't think anyone can answer this question, so it would be up to you to try. *//START MANDATORY LEGAL BLURB* *Please remember to always use any card in accordance with your cardholder agreement and respect the rules and terms of any online store you're transacting with.*

Thank you for the feedback! At the moment we don’t support withdrawals for fraud and compliance reasons. However we’re working on bringing virtual US banks accounts to Halocard which will give all users, provided they’re in a supported US state or country, a US bank account and routing number that can be used for ACH and Wire deposits and withdrawals. We’ll share more details as we get closer to the launch date, but this should provide the withdrawal facility that you’re looking for, in addition to being an additional fee-free method for making deposits to your Halocard balance.

Spent 18 months using subscription tracker apps (tried Rocket Money, Bobby, the Apple one). They were great at telling me what I was paying for. They were useless at making cancellation easier. The tracker would flag a $14.99/month thing I forgot about. I'd go to cancel. The cancellation flow would be: * "Are you sure?" * "Try us at 50% off?" * "Speak to a retention rep" * (retention rep is conveniently 30 minutes wait) * "We'll process within 30 days, you may see one more charge" Three months later still seeing the charge. What actually fixed this for me: switching to virtual cards. I now run every subscription on a virtual card capped at exactly the monthly fee. When I want to cancel, I don't actually go through their cancellation flow. I just delete the virtual card. Next billing attempt declines. They can mark me as "active" all they want, the money can't move. I use Halocard. But theres many options, I know Privacy works the same way, and I heard Capital One has per-merchant virtual cards too if you're already on their stuff. Regardless, theres options so hunt around. Just wanted to flag this becuase the headache wasnt finding the subscriptions it was unsubscribing.

My mum (mid 70s) had her card details scammed three times in two years despite locking the card and having it replaced. Standard advice (don't click links, check senders, use 2FA) wasn't enough because she was getting socially engineered through a mix of channels, ai is making this a worse problem too. What significantly helped in in fixing this was: Removed all saved payment methods from every site I could find. Set up a separate virtual card for all her online and recurring stuff. Capped at £100/month. Locked her real bank card so it only works for in-person taps. I manage the virtual card from my phone. If she signs up for something new, she texts me, I create a new one. The financial damage cap is the key because even if she gets phished or accidentally enters her details on a dodgy site, the most that can ever be charged is whatever's on the halocard. I get an alert and kill the card immediately. About 18 months running with this setup, zero big scam losses (vs three replacements in the prior two years). Adding here because every time I see an "elderly parent keeps getting scammed" post on this sub, the answers focus on prevention/awareness, which often won't fully work for older users. I think minimizing exposure is a significant point too so making sure (if and when they occur) mistakes can't cost you much

It's a credit card number that's separate from your real one. You set a spending limit, you can freeze or delete it whenever you want, and you use it on specific sites without exposing your actual card. For telehealth specifically: if you set the cap to $1, the next time they try to auto-charge it just declines. They can't reactivate the billing or sneak in extras, and you don't have to fight customer service to make stopping stick. A few common options: [Privacy.com](http://Privacy.com) or [Halocard.co](http://Halocard.co) if you're in the US, your own bank might offer one (Capital One and Citi do), Halocard also works if you're outside the US from my understanding. All work the same way for this but there is nuance in that the quality of card matters too. Prepaid vs Debit vs Creditcard have different acceptance rates too. Credit card is best acceptance and prepaid is worst, this is relevant because a card is only valuable if it's not rejected by the processing platform. Theres many things that can affect being declined so I won't go into all that but the card type is something I'd keep in mind. From recollection, some banks and Halocard offer credit cards. Other banks, wise, and privacy, etc offer debit cards. Hopefully that helps, it can be a lot understanding/getting started with them but I've been using them for the last 4 years and I don't know how I lived without virtual cards previously. Still learning more too so recommend doing research yourself always!

Yeah sounds like they're pushing everyone toward the subscription model, which is pretty annoying if you were doing fine without it. The thing that sold me on halocard was the per-card limits, you can set exactly what a site is allowed to charge and it just declines anything over that, which does a lot of what single-use cards were trying to solve, at least for the subscription control side of things anyway.

For anyone reading this thread before booking through a sketchy OTA: Use virtual cards and you'll avoid this bait-and-switch scammy bs. Anything is better than nothing, I use a Halocard for these one-off OTA bookings, set the cap to the originally-shown price plus a small buffer. When the OTA calls back with the "oh actually it's $200 more" upsell, the card just declines the higher amount. They can't charge it even if you've verbally agreed. Doesn't help OP now but it's the cleanest hedge if you can't avoid third-party sites entirely. Hopefully this can protect some other, I only found this out after getting played.

Went through this with my mum, also in her 70s. Multiple cards replaced, same scams kept finding her. What broke the loop was switching her online and recurring stuff onto a virtual card capped at £100/month (Halocard, managed from my phone), and locking her real debit card to in-person only. Worst case now is one charge under £100 before the cap declines, and I can kill the card instantly if needed. Two years on, nothing's hit.

For everyone outside the US, [Privacy.com](http://Privacy.com) doesn't issue to non-US residents. I've been using [Halocard.co](http://Halocard.co) for the same job (UK, but it covers EU, Canada, Aus and most non-sanctioned countries). Same setup, virtual Visa with one-time or vendor-locked options and a spend cap you set yourself. Cap it at £1 and the next Refills reactivation attempt just declines. This reactivation bs is everywhere right now, not just here. Worth setting one up before you need it.

Having a new bank card mess with an auto-renewal is pretty common. I've had this happen a bunch across different cards. What I do now is put my insurance (and anything else annual) on a virtual card I don't touch, Halocard in my case. This ensures the number stays the same no matter how many times my bank reissues my physical card, and I've got the limit set to just above the annual premium so there's no way they can pull a duplicate charge or a non-payment fee. Doesn't help OP right now obviously, but for anyone reading this before it happens to them, it stops the problem at the source.

The bank-blocked-card cascade is the most annoying part of that story. I run my recurring auto-topups and subscriptions through a virtual card (Halocard in my case) for exactly this reason, so my main bank getting twitchy about a weird merchant doesn't knock out my transport. Preload a couple of months' worth, set a ceiling, forget about it. Doesn't fix TFL's policy but would have stopped the chain reaction you had.

FYI from what I understand Privacy com is US-only, they don't issue to Canadian residents. Halocard is the best option in Canada, that I'm aware of, and works basically the same way. The process everyone should be using to keep your finanical information safe is one card per subscription with the limit set to whatever that merchant is supposed to charge monthly. If the number ever leaks or gets skimmed, the card is already at its cap so nothing else can be pulled on it. Combined with the transaction alerts and the lock-when-not-in-use tip above, that should stop most of what she's been hit with.

Asked the same question when I first made one. Short answer: there's no global card database, the number itself has the routing info built in. First digits tell the network which bank to ping, bank checks the account, shop gets back a yes or no. The virtual part is what threw me. It's not a fake number, it's a real card your bank (or a virtual credit card service like Halocard etc) generates on the fly. Tied to your real account but with its own limits and expiry. That's the whole point, you can kill it, cap it, or spin one up per merchant so a breach can't cascade. At another layer of extrapolation from my understanding its handled by the card issuer but I don't know this part too well

Start using virtual cards to run your adspend through. I run each ad account on its own virtual Visa (I use Halocard). One card per ad account with a monthly spend cap. If Meta flags one I regenerate a fresh card in about 30 seconds and keep running instead of waiting days on support. Also makes ad spend way cleaner to reconcile per client. Important to clear though, your card type can matter in this, make sure you use a credit card (secured or unsecured) over debit or prepaid, these have the best acceptance rates.

Good shout on the virtual Wise card backup. Only thing I'd add, if skimming ever worries you, is having a dedicated virtual credit card alongside is nice belt and braces. Wise can be okay but you get up to 3 max I think so you'd go through these fast if they get skimmed, get a provider like halocard etc and for each purchase cap it at what you expect to spend. That way if it gets skimmed somewhere the spend limit stops you from losing any money and you can just delete the card so scammers can't get to you.

Yeah privacy com is US-only so it's a no go from AU. I found halocard as an alternative and it works fine here or at least seems to so far, same pattern of one card per merchant with a locked spend cap. Not as baked into a bank account as Up's virtual cards will be but handles the sacrificial card job without tying everything to one institution. Depends how privacy focussed you are/want to be. Edit missed "will be"

As an FYI though it's worth flagging privacy com is US-only. I tried to get it but couldn't as am outside the US, instead Halocard has been my go-to for this in the UK. If it was used right, in OP's case the first £434 would've gone through and the other 8 charges would just bounce off the limit. Doesn't undo the pre-order mess but at least the rest of the credit card isn't locked up while ray-ban sort their glitch

Hey everyone, Ed here. We've had a massive wave of new sign-ups recently and I'm seeing the same questions in our support channel and across other subs. Rather than answer them piecemeal, here's a simple breakdown of what exactly what Halocard is, what it does and what it costs. This will be the closest thing we have to a reference doc **Halocard** Halocard issues **virtual Visa credit cards** that are USD-denominated, reloadable, and usable anywhere Visa is accepted. The **credit** type is really important as our cards have significantly better acceptance than prepaid and debit cards which means you'll get fewer declines. There's also no hard spending limit and you can spend whatever you've deposited. And Halocards work online and in-person using Apple Pay and Google Pay (if you want a physical card, let us know). **Controls** This is where Halocard pulls ahead of most prepaid and debit alternatives: * **Spending limits** can be set per-transaction, daily, weekly, monthly or yearly caps on each card. * **Billing addresses** are fully customisable per card, which matters for payment masking * **Shared balance** so every card draws from one account balance. Spin up merchant-specific or one-time cards without having to manage individual balances. * **Limit, lock and cancel** instantly from your dashboard. **Funding** You can funds via: * Debit or credit card * Apple Pay or Google Pay * Stablecoins (USDC / USDT) * Crypto (BTC, ETH, SOL) * Bank transfer (ACH, SEPA) For a full breakdown of deposit methods, fees and timing see [How can I add funds to Halocard?](https://support.halocard.co/en/article/how-can-i-add-funds-to-halocard-1gp3qkf/) **Eligibility** * **Need to pass an identity check** which takes about 5 minutes and includes scanning an identity document and taking a selfie: [What we ask for and why.](https://support.halocard.co/en/article/what-details-do-i-need-to-provide-to-verify-my-account-updvue/) * **Need to be a residents in one of the 144 supported countries**, and there are 17 restricted countries that Visa do not allow us to issue to: [Check which countries supported.](https://support.halocard.co/en/article/is-halocard-available-in-my-country-4y4wy1/) * **Need an active subscription** keep your account and cards active and plans start at $12/month for 12 virtual cards. **Supported Purchases** * International purchases anywhere Visa is accepted (175M merchants and counting) * Pre-authorisations (hotels, car rentals, anything that places a temporary hold) * Recurring payments (Netflix, Spotify, AI subscriptions, etc.) * Visa Zero Liability on unauthorised charges (T&Cs apply) * Visa 3D-Secure for online purchase verification **What we don't support** Halocards cannot be used for gambling, cryptocurrency purchases, or other high-risk merchant categories. Visa classifies these by Merchant Category Code (MCC) and we follow that. [Full list of restricted categories.](https://support.halocard.co/en/article/are-there-merchant-category-restrictions-for-halocard-1pb3ofs/) **Fees** * **USD purchases** are $0. * **Non-USD international purchases** are 1.5% + $0.30. This covers Visa's FX and cross-border processing. * **ATM withdrawal** (where enabled) is 1% + $1.00. The ATM operator may charge their own fee separately. * **ATM balance check or declined withdrawal** — $1.00. That's the entire transaction fee schedule. There are no other transaction or cross-border fees. Everything else is covered by your monthly subscription. **Who uses Halocard** You're an international user trying to access US subscriptions, a privacy-conscious buyer who doesn't want every merchant seeing your real billing details, a software developer tired of having your AI subscriptions declined, or a media buyer running multi-account paid campaigns... We built Halocard for you. Brutal feedback always welcome. Drop questions in the comments and I'll answer them all. Ed.

Been doing free trials for years and the only thing that actually stopped me getting caught was using a virtual card with a $0 spend limit, that way nothing can charge you even if you forget. Set one up through halocard a while back and now I just make a fresh card for each trial, if I forget to cancel it just bounces and the service kicks me off. Basically zero willpower required which is kind of the whole point.

Yeah that was my problem with privacy com too, the whole point is separation but it's still pulling from your bank so it shows up there regardless. What worked for me was halocard, doesn't connect through plaid or anything, you just fund it and make cards. They're Visa credit cards not prepaid which is why merchants don't block them the way they do with gift cards, that was the whole reason I tried it.

Same idea, I do this with halocard instead of Revolut, you set a limit on the card that matches the monthly fee so even if they keep trying to charge after you cancel the most they can pull is whatever you've allowed. Once you're done you just freeze it and they can chase all they want. Get a virtual card and then change the card on file to the new card, let the first payment go through and then you can cancel, it won't get you anything back but it will stop it from continuing to happen.

Yeah the UK options are pretty limited compared to what you get in the US. I ended up going with halocard which works from the UK, it's basically virtual credit cards where you can set spending limits per card so they work like proper burner cards for trials and subscriptions. You pay for it but to me its been worth it, best I've found that actually works. I tried wise but as it had a UK BIN some sites didnt accept it.

We had the exact same problem with client card declines killing campaigns mid-flight. The virtual card approach definitely works but you're right about Wise having caps on active cards. I ended up going with halocard after running into those limits, you can set spending caps per card which makes the client billing way cleaner since they literally can't spend more than what you've allocated. No card quantity limits that I've hit so far and the per-card controls mean no more surprise overspend invoices to explain to clients.

That's weird that the fraud showed up on your main card too, virtual cards should definitely isolate that stuff. Sounds like maybe there was some kind of data breach on the issuer side or the virtual card system isn't as separated as it should be. I had similar concerns about bank virtual cards after hearing stories like this, which is why I ended up going with halocard instead since they're actual separate credit cards rather than just masked versions of your main account. The fraud isolation seems cleaner that way, at least from what I can tell. Definitely get that new card though, and yeah deleting the compromised virtual card should stop future charges on that specific number.

Thanks for the question! If your use case is protecting your data and funds by using a Halocard virtual card, you wouldn’t need to worry about your spidey-sense going off when making payments. The whole point of having Halocard is you get complete control to limit, lock or create one-time use cards for vendors you don’t trust. If you just want to know about withdrawals for your peace of mind, we don’t support them at this time. However, we’re in the process of rolling out virtual USD bank accounts to users over the next few months. On selected plans, our customers will have a functional US bank account that will allow you to accept direct ACH deposits and also make third party transfers (including withdrawals), which sounds like it would meet your expectations here.

Hi Ed, I got another question for the community here. Is there a way to withdrawal funds from this account? For instance I put $2000 in to cover a purchase I am going to complete. And at the last min my spider since tingles and tells me not to complete the order with the foreign vendor. Is there a way to transfer the money back to me, either by my crypto, credit card or any other option other than just waiting to get used up by me on Halocard platform?

Capital One's store locking is pretty clever for security. [Privacy.com](http://Privacy.com) does have similar controls from what I remember. For the pre-approval thing halocard lets you set spending limits per card which I've found useful when I want to control exactly how much can be charged, like setting a $50 limit before handing over card details. Not sure if it's exactly what you're after but might be worth a look.

Had similar issues with bank-issued virtual cards just randomly stopping working on certain merchants. Ended up switching to halocard which has been more reliable for me, especially with US merchants like Amazon where I'd had cards get declined randomly before. Since you're in Portugal it should work fine there, I use mine internationally without issues. Worth trying if the MB NET keeps giving you trouble.

That's annoying when the charge goes through but you don't get confirmation. I've had similar weird payment hiccups with event tickets before and usually the confirmation email shows up within a few hours, even if the initial checkout was glitchy. For stuff like this I just use halocard now since you can set the exact limit per card so even if something goes wrong the damage is contained to whatever you set. But yeah definitely keep an eye on your account to make sure you don't get double charged if you try again.

Merchants can't identify whether a card is virtual or physical, but they do differentiate between the type (credit/debit/prepaid) and location the card issued based on the BIN number (first 6 digits). You want to use a virtual CREDIT card with a billing address in the US for the highest chance of acceptance. I use [halocard.co](http://halocard.co) which provides virtual credit cards. They have much better acceptance than debit cards and I've been making payments reliably to Google Ads for the last few months with them. DYOR.

Privacy .com is good for this, been using halocard for the same thing, runs as a credit card rather than debit so you tend to get better acceptance,Privacy .com is good for this, been using halocard for the same thing, runs as a credit card rather than debit so you tend to get better acceptance, and you can cap each card individually which is the main thing for me and you can cap each card individually which is the main thing for me

**My story:** 18 months ago I wanted to buy something online that I didn’t want to appear on my bank statement. I tried a virtual card from privacy (didn’t have an SSN), a prepaid card from vanilla prepaid (couldn’t activate outside US) and a no-KYC crypto card from stealths (no 3DS, blocked by merchant). I didn’t know anything about the payments industry but I’m an Entrepreneur at heart so I decided to start a company to solve this problem. 43 meetings with banks, 7 months of development and 3 compliance audits later, Halocard was born. **What Halocard is:** US-issued, virtual credit cards that are available for everyone, not just US residents. You can: * Create USD virtual cards with custom spending limits * Fund them using stablecoins, debit/credit cards and (soon) your via own USD bank account * Pay online and in-person anywhere Visa, Apple Pay or Google Pay are accepted. **What problems does Halocard solve:** 1. Merchants don’t get your primary banking information. Your payments are masked and you can set custom billing details for every card. 2. Contain the risk of credit card fraud. You can isolate merchants and payments with dedicated and one-time use cards. 3. Global access to reliable virtual cards. The primary options today are restricted to US residents (Privacy, MySudo), require uncomfortable compromises (Plaid, per transaction fees) and have limited acceptance (debit, prepaid). **What Halocard does not solve:** 1. Anonymity. The Visa network can still see your transactions. 2. KYC. We are legally-bound to perform an identity check. 3. Sanctions. We can’t issue cards to regions like Russia, China, India, etc. **How we handle customer data:** * We try not to. Transaction history is called via our issuer's API and KYC details are passed through to our vendor (Sumsub) and removed from our servers. We will never sell data to advertisers, data brokers or third parties. The reality as a licensed Money Services Business (MSB) is we *may be compelled* to provide whatever data we have to Visa, our issuing bank or the government at any time for compliance reasons. **Common questions we get asked:** * **What details are required for KYC?** (1) name, (2) address, (3) DOB, (4) expected spend (5) identity document or SSN, and (6) taking a selfie. We ran a deep analysis to see how we could reduce the steps required to pass KYC but it turns out the [Customer Identification Program (CIP) for Banks regulation](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-31/subtitle-B/chapter-X/part-1020/subpart-B/section-1020.220?utm_source=chatgpt.com) outlines very clearly what the minimum verification requirements are for issuing banks in the US. * **Can I use whatever details I want with your cards?** You can set whatever billing address you feel comfortable for your Halocards and this address should match what you enter online to pass any Address Verification System (AVS) checks that payment processors have in place. * **What are your fees?** Monthly plans start from $12 / month for 12 cards. Adding funds via USDC/USDT Stablecoins is free, ACH/SWIFT transfers (soon) are free and debit/credit cards or Apple/Google Pay has a 5% fee because of the insurance required against chargebacks. Halocards have no fees for making purchases in USD and cross-border purchases include a 1.5% FX fee from Visa. We'd like to give a warm welcome to all the new customers who've joined us by opening an account and creating cards over the last few days... It has been overwhelming. We'd like to continue to ask for your brutal feedback on what you love, what you don’t love and where we can improve. We want your help inform how we evolve Halocard and from the demand we’ve seen so far, we seem to be solving a problem that a lot of people care about. Kind regards, Ed.