PayPal Testing “Virtual” Prepaid Credit Card
By Liz Morris
Online payment company PayPal is beta testing a new PayPal Virtual Debit Card that allows its users to disguise their debit or credit card numbers behind temporary card numbers that the virtual card creates. PayPal members supply their real financial information to PayPal, which in turn generates one-time-only numbers that can be used for individual online transactions, with the one-time-only numbers being tied back to the real credit card numbers of the buyer.
Virtual credit card numbers are nothing new; Citi and Discover credit card holders already have the option to use them. PayPal’s offering would widen the number of credit card customers able to use such a service, as it is not tied to a particular credit card or debit card issuer.
For more on how virtual credit cards work, see our December, 2005 report Using Virtual Credit Cards in the Fight Against Identity Theft.
