Privacy API: Programmable Payments

https://developer.privacy.com

by doomrobo • 8 years ago

119 68 8 years ago

developer.privacy.com

cocacola13• 8 years ago

I've been using Privacy for a few years now; pretty satisfied with it.

kingbirdy2• 8 years ago

Would you mind giving a few examples of use cases you've found for it? Looks interesting, but I'm not sure what I'd actually do with it

doomrobo2• 8 years ago

Not the parent, but I can give some uses of my own.

* All kinds of recurring payments. I pay for email, Dropbox, Patreon, and my VPS with cards that have monthly or yearly spending limits.

* One time payments everywhere I don't have an account and don't want an account. I had to pay dues for a university club recently and I went through a super sketchy university website and payed with a burner card. 3 months later I get a "rejected transaction" email from Privacy telling me that someone tried to use my card at a Walmart. This isn't a common occurrence for me but it was nice to not have to cancel my real credit card.

shashanoid• 8 years ago

Allows you to have a cap on any card you create, so you have protection against getting overcharged or if you want to help someone out with purchasing something, you won't give them your original card right? Create a privacy credit card, have a cap on it and give it...etc

dawhizkid• 8 years ago

I use it frequently too (the chrome extension is great). Best use case is using temporary cards for subscriptions or sites you don't use frequently and don't want to give out your actual credit/debit card.

cocacola13• 8 years ago

1. If I want to subscribe to something that could have a recurring payment, I use a burner card to make sure that the recurring payment won't go through.

2. Less often, I use it if there's a trial that catches my eye but I don't want to give them my actual info. I use a single use card in this case.

3. On perhaps less reputable sites where I certainly don't want to give my info. Again, I use a single use card in this case.

4. I use it across all my subscriptions because I can easily see how much I'm spending in a given month (specific to subscriptions).

The cap and single use is the one of their best features; you can assign it any value you want and if it hits that, it won't allow other transactions.

While I'm not familiar with it, I've heard that Citi cards also have the same Virtual Accounts, so you could use that as well.

dwynings• 8 years ago

My most common use-case is SaaS trials that require a credit card upfront – I set the limit at $1, so I don't have to worry about cancelling my trial before they autocharge me.

igetspam2• 8 years ago

I use it for everything.

I have unique/monthly limit cards:

  * My kid's swim class has a unique card.
  * Wife's phone (setup before Google started rejecting their cards)
  * Cable bill
  * Netflix
  * Personal AWS bill
  * Gymboree
  * Monthly self-storage

Recently closed one-time cards:

  * Online grocery order
  * Delivery food order (leave some padding for tip)
  * Online clothing retailers
  * Charitable donations paid via CC
  * Tickets to DisneyWorld
  * Every penny that goes through PayPal because I don't trust them for a second

Literally, anything that we pay for over the phone or online.

One place I'm especially happy to have it is my vet. They're really bad at billing. They've double billed me twice. Now I keep a dead card on file (they want a card) and give them a new one with a hard limit every time I have to pay a bill. No more double billing and I can see when they're screwing up.

sjroot• 8 years ago

This looks pretty cool. Does Privacy have any services besides the browser plugins? That idea is similar to a couple past projects that didn't last, but this looks very promising regardless.

Side note for Privacy's front-end people-minor scrolling issue: https://imgur.com/ic5I3hz

leetbulb• 8 years ago

I use the Android app as well. It saved me in a pinch a few days ago when I had to pay for my doctor visit and was unable to find my bank card.

cocacola13• 8 years ago

I know they have an iOS app.

_eht2• 8 years ago

I imagine more services will start popping up with API access on the road map.

boling1114• 8 years ago

Thanks for the heads up! Fixed :).

mholt3• 8 years ago

Privacy is awesome - one of the few services I highly recommend to anyone who makes purchases or pays bills online. Slick interface, product just works (except once when I pre-ordered something from Best Buy and that's because Best Buy had a very weird authorization flow that did two charges, instead of an auth + charge) -- and the benefits are great. Best of all, merchants cover the costs, so it's totally free as a consumer (edit: meaning, no monthly fees, etc -- of course merchants have to cover their card processing costs still). Their support is great, too.

I do wish their referral or spending perks were a little more enticing but the privacy benefits are still great overall.

Will be thinking about how I can effectively use the API...

EDIT: Woah, this is REALLY cool:

Similar to the transaction event, auth stream decisioning will allow your system to dynamically approve and decline authorizations.

https://developer.privacy.com/docs#auth-stream

I smell a two-factor purchase flow in my future... (edit again: maybe not)

lisper2• 8 years ago

so it's totally free

No, it isn't. A hidden cost is not the same thing is a non-existent cost. One way or another, you are paying for this service. Having the money only show up on the merchant's statement does make it a little easier to bury your head in the sand about it, but at the end of the day that money is coming out of your pocket one way or another.

mholt3• 8 years ago

A merchant has to cover card processing fees whether I use Privacy or not: my costs are exactly the same whether I use Privacy or a physical credit card.

doomrobo2• 8 years ago

I smell a two-factor purchase flow in my future

Unfortunately I don't think that'll be possible. The docs say that there's a 2000ms cap on the auth stream response time. I don't think that's likely to be raised significantly, since I'm pretty sure their card network backend has a similar requirement.

mholt3• 8 years ago

Darn -- I saw that but was hoping that's just a limit imposed by Privacy that could be lifted, perhaps in 2FA scenarios -- but if it's network-enforced, I guess that rules that out.

boling1114• 8 years ago

Hey HN! One of the founders here. We're really excited to share this today. It's just a start, but this is something we’ve wanted to release for a long time now :).

We believe that data portability and an open ecosystem will be table stakes for all fintech companies. You should have granular, differential control of your data. You should be able to grant access to specific functions or aspects of your financial account without wholesale sharing your account login information. You should be able to verify your identity without sharing other personal information.

We ultimately intend for this API to be full read / write capable, including the ability to read transaction data, set rules programmatically, verify identity, create & manage virtual numbers, and transfer funds.

That said, security is core to what we do at Privacy.com and this extends to our API. We want to empower people to build applications on top of our API that delight users, without compromising their privacy or security. We would really value your feedback as a user, developer, or information security professional!

wyattjoh• 8 years ago

Would really love to see Privacy.com come to Canada now that Plaid announced support[0]!

[0] https://blog.plaid.com/plaid-in-canada/

boling1114• 8 years ago

We'd love to as well! Unfortunately we don't have a public timeframe we can share yet :(.

HEHENE• 8 years ago

This is wildly cool. I signed up when I saw your original post here on HN and have used it occasionally. In the last week or so I have started using it religiously for every online purchase. Now I'm in the process of moving all my recurring charges to Privacy.

You have absolutely delighted this user, and your API is just the icing on the cake. Keep up the great work.

boling1114• 8 years ago

Thank you!

osrec• 8 years ago

Hi, we have a fair few US users of our accounting app (https://usebx.com) - would you consider providing early API access to our devs so that we can integrate with your service?

ikeboy5• 8 years ago

I used privacy but had issues after transactions were let through when cards were closed /paused. When I tried disputing them, my account was closed and disputes denied.

Why does your marketing claim falsely that transactions cannot happen on a closed card? Why did I never get emails when the disputes were closed, having to reach out to support to find out what happened?

I still have yet to receive any documentation for why the disputes were closed despite requesting that multiple times. Your disputes process is badly broken (at one time, I was told I couldn't dispute because there was "maintenance on the dispute process".)

boling1114• 8 years ago

Hey there! I'm really sorry to hear about the negative experience.

I can't speak to a specific case on a public forum. However, you are correct that in very rare cases, merchants can push through transactions without prior authorization - it's against card network rules, and it’s typically a simple chargeback to win. Even in cases where we don’t win, we typically cover out of pocket.

I’m happy to look into this. Can you shoot me a note at bo@privacy.com?

lgregg2• 8 years ago

Do you not support firefox? I visited your site but it's just a blank page, so I tried chrome and it worked perfectly.

boling1114• 8 years ago

Uh oh - thanks for the heads up. Could you share what version of FireFox / OS you're on to help us repro?

politician3• 8 years ago

It looks like Privacy.com is build on top of Plaid.com for handling the backend ACH processing. Plaid.com exposes a ton of personal information to its customers like Income, Assets, and Employment Verification. What is the scope of your engagement with Plaid?

Do you recommend that users should protect themselves from Plaid.com personal data harvesting by setting up a secondary checking account to use with Privacy.com that is trickle-fed from a primary checking account?

boling1114• 8 years ago

Hi there! We use Plaid for instant bank account verification and for balance information (to ensure we don't accidentally trigger an overdraft). We don't utilize the Income / Assets / Employment APIs. We don't use them for ACH - We build our own NACHA files in house.

Plaid itself takes user privacy really seriously (part of the reason why we're working with them). They don't resell any of your sensitive data.

A secondary checking account is A-Ok with us. Many of our users do this. The only thing I would say is to be careful to use a bank that doesn't assess overdraft fees. We also are allowing micro-deposits for our more security conscious users on a limited basis (drop me a line bo@privacy.com and I'll set you up). Lastly, card top ups is something we're also looking hard at.

As you can tell, unfortunately there isn't a perfect solution yet - we're trying to be a part of that solution.

whockey• 8 years ago

Hey! Co-founder of Plaid (plaid.com) here. We take privacy extremely seriously, I'm actually an early privacy.com user and major fanboy. Privacy only has access to the information needed to authenticate your bank account and make sure you don't get over-drafted. They don't use any of our income or assets products.

throwaway2016a• 8 years ago

This seems to be consumer oriented but I can see some definite business use cases.

Giving employees card numbers for instance and limiting what they can use it for. I know plenty of CEOs of small business that have their credit card copied down by at least a half dozen employees. Then if there is an unexpected charge there is no way to see who it was.

I can also see using this to automatically fill out my expense reports for me. Or make sure I don't forget to fill it out.

corobo• 8 years ago

Just in case this doesn't swing that way, I've had my eye on pleo.io for a while for that purpose if that helps any

arisAlexis• 8 years ago

or you just run a monero node and programm against it for free :)

iM8t• 8 years ago

Privacy.com is available only for the US. Anything similar available in Europe?

chrisacky• 8 years ago

https://monzo.com/ is UK, but you can't create virtual cards. It's not really an equivalent product.

worez• 8 years ago

I've been looking for a good alternative in Australia and haven't found one yet. If anyone knows one that works in Australia, I'd appreciate it if you let me know.

ikeboy5• 8 years ago

I used it for several months. I closed cards and they let transactions through anyway. When I disputed them, they first ignored, claimed disputes wasn't working when I asked for status updates, denied disputes, then closed my accounts, and refused to refund the invalid charges.

I would not recommend them. Their marketing is dishonest, claiming that transactions cannot go through if the card is closed, while in truth merchants are able to "force post" debit transactions even when closed.

igetspam2• 8 years ago

Weird. That's the exact opposite of my experience. I've had a number of odd rejections that led me to reach out to a couple vendors (hey Amazon, I'm looking at you!) because there were small transactions attempted against closed cards. I've had a few hiccups for things like creating multiple cards to use with PayPal (there's an avenue for fraud there, apparently) but I've been able to get those resolved quickly every time. I have nothing but good things to say about their offering and it's nice to see they're opening a read API (I'm hesitant about write keys).

My only complaint right now is that some vendors (Google specifically) reject their card numbers because they're pre-paid and they've made a decision in the last year or so to stop accepting them. I know for a fact this is a new thing because I'm paying for a Fi account and a Google Music account using privacy numbers. When they finally expire, I'll stop giving Google money altogether.

boling1114• 8 years ago

I'm really sorry to hear about the negative experience. This is surprising to me, and I’d be happy to look into the specific case - can you drop me a note at bo@privacy.com?

orliesaurus• 8 years ago

I use privacy for all my Steam purchases, it's awesome! Thanks Bo!

social_quotient• 8 years ago

What’s the monetize model for these guys? I’d normally think it was mining the data but with the name privacy I’m hoping not.

Do they somehow get part of the merchant fee?

boling1114• 8 years ago

Yes, we take a portion of the merchant fee (similar to regular debit or credit cards).

We don’t monetize by selling your data.

tombowditch• 8 years ago

Any UK alternative for Privacy? :(

Privacy API: Programmable Payments

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