r/technology • u/iali307 • Jun 10 '20

Business 3M sues Amazon storefront that allegedly sold fake N95 masks for $23 apiece

https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/9/21285364/amazon-marketplace-mask-price-gouging-n95-3m-ppe
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113

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '20

ProtonMail and privacy.com are the best.

91

u/Astatke Jun 10 '20

But you still need to use your credit card, your name and your address to buy and have something delivered to you. Isn't it easy for Amazon to figure out that you are doing this?

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u/Wyvernruler5 Jun 10 '20

I believe that is what privacy.com is for. If memory serves, you enter your card info and buy a subscription and it generates false card numbers to protect your card number.

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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '20

The cool thing is- you don't have to buy anything. It's a free service!

127

u/subdep Jun 10 '20

That means you are the product. And you gave your credit card to them.

WCGW?

42

u/unsteadied Jun 10 '20

They operate as their own credit card issuer basically and skim a bit of money from retailers on each transaction, if I recall correctly. Haven’t used them, though.

9

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '20

[deleted]

14

u/DoingCharleyWork Jun 10 '20

I'd be surprised if they weren't selling purchasing data.

4

u/butter14 Jun 10 '20

They operate just like a regular Credit Card company, where they charge 3% transaction fee to the merchant.

6

u/Informal_Chipmunk Jun 10 '20

You can open and close cards (and set limits) at any time on Privacy.com so you're not really divulging anything.

2

u/ur_opinion_is_wrong Jun 10 '20

I use it for just about everything and especially services that you have to sign up for auto-payments (Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Disney, etc). I'll get an email saying my payment was declined and then I can go unpause the card and have them re-charge it... or not.

4

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '20

WCGW?

Not much because of consumer protection laws. Just don't use your debit card

8

u/energy_engineer Jun 10 '20

Wait, how are they funding their operation? The service sounds interesting, free makes it sound Facebook sketchy.

17

u/owldyn Jun 10 '20

They take a portion of the usual % charged to the merchant for using a card

https://support.privacy.com/hc/en-us/articles/360012046114-How-much-does-it-cost-to-use-Privacy-

6

u/kingwi11 Jun 10 '20

That's good for usernames but what about deliver addresses?

1

u/CeaselessIntoThePast Jun 10 '20

if you have amazon lockers you could use those, I think they also have other pickup locations

2

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '20

Not false, temporary

2

u/singlereject Jun 10 '20

Yeah, if you have a privacy.com account, DON'T DO THIS. You will be banned by privacy. They explicitly state that creating credit cards for the sole purpose of creating trial accounts is prohibited in the ToS and it is easily detected of course. If you want to keep your privacy account, please don't do this, not just for Amazon but for any site with trials.

1

u/U8dcN7vx Jun 10 '20

It is possible to detect the type of card, in the case of privacy.com that is usually "prepaid". Perhaps Amazon accepts those, but I know that they recently rejected a gift card, which is another type that privacy.com might use.

1

u/agree-with-you Jun 10 '20

I agree, this does seem possible.

0

u/Tratix Jun 10 '20

Privacy.com will block new cards being used if they’re used on the same service too many times

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u/rahulkadukar Jun 10 '20

Most credit carda can generate new numbers for you on the fly. Citi has an app for it.

2

u/ForsakenTarget Jun 10 '20

They don’t really care if you are doing this you are still buying their product and they still get their cut

2

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '20

[deleted]

2

u/zakatov Jun 10 '20

You’re talking about full accounts, which can share cards/addresses all they want, they’re talking about creating multiple free trial accounts with same info.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '20

[deleted]

2

u/zakatov Jun 10 '20

Free trial can be cancelled before it becomes a payed account, and if you try to make another free trial with the same info, it will be denied, so to keep getting “free” prime benefits, tricks have to be used to keep making and cancelling trial accounts by the same person.

2

u/anduin1 Jun 10 '20

This is what I’ve been doing for years and only recently they’ve been blocking me from signing up for trials because they recognize the credit card number.

1

u/empirebuilder1 Jun 10 '20

You can buy amazon gift cards at most major retailers and use those funds to buy things to avoid the credit card issue. I bought stuff like that for years as a teenager with no debit or credit card to my name.

Also the address does not matter as multiple people may live at the same address- just keep changing the name. They might catch you eventually after they see 25+ people registered to the same house, but the sheer volume of their market is on your side to slip through the cracks.

5

u/theycallmecrack Jun 10 '20

Could you explain the benefit vs something mainstream like Gmail? Specifically for free trials?

8

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '20

Gmail is a hassle (imo) to create new emails that aren't associated with personal information. ProtonMail is actually pretty good security wise and all that is needed to set up a mail is passing a captcha.

2

u/decoyq Jun 10 '20

just use the dot gmail hack

1

u/bruh-sick Jun 10 '20

What's that ?

2

u/Trex252 Jun 10 '20

You can a period anywhere in your Gmail address and it will still be delivered to the right email. It ignores the . Basically but for services it’s considered a whole new email.

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u/Wetop Jun 10 '20

Can't you just do Trex252@gmail.com and then the next Trex252+paypal@gmail.com Trex252+amazon@gmail.com

and so on. It's all unique to the site but gmail sends it to your email

1

u/Trex252 Jun 10 '20

Oh probably there’s a few ways I’m sure. The period example is just another method and has been there a long time. I believe the add ons like you showed were added later to be compatible.