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Credit cards on/off

 Turn your cards on and off at will
  (+14, -1)(+14, -1)
(+14, -1) 		  [vote for,
against]

A credit card only needs to "work" a small portion of the time. Say my credit card number is stolen from some website with less than secure practices. No problem. At cardlock.com, I can turn on/off each of my credit cards at will. For the most part, my cards will be "off." When I plan to travel or shop, I turn them on. When they are "off" no purchases can be made. Period (in case you didn't notice the little dot) This seems so simple. Pehaps the idea has come and been dismissed a thousand times?
—wbtown, Mar 07 2007

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       The only issue I can see is paying by card for goods ordered by post; you have no idea when the merchant will request payment.
—angel, Mar 07 2007
   

       Nice idea, but the domain is already taken.
—spiraliii, Mar 07 2007
   

       bloody bloody brilliant I would buy that.
—the dog's breakfast, Mar 07 2007
   

       Not bad, but..   

       I'd be a little concerned as to how you intend to keep track of turning millions of credit cards on and off without running the risk of identity theft.   

       [+] anyway, since that's not my problem, but it would be nice to see some ideas on this trick.
—ye_river_xiv, Mar 07 2007
   

       What angel said. I like expiring multi-number credit cards better for that.
—jutta, Mar 07 2007
   

       Regarding security. The best way for the site not to get hacked is for it to not store ANY credit card numbers. It would be a messanger service only. It would send a message from the consumer to the credit card service. The credit card companies already have the mechanism to turn a card off - ever been late on a payment? The real problem is how to authenticate the user/number - that's why I posted it "half baked" and not on some venture captial site. About the recurring fees; that could be a problem. Perhaps you keep one card - with a low limit - "on" most of the time. The other cards are kept "off" until needed.
—wbtown, Mar 08 2007
   

       Surely a user-modifiable limit would achieve the same thing. Keep it low most of the time; pump it up when going on holiday or to the track.
—Texticle, Mar 08 2007
   

       //The only issue I can see is paying by card for goods ordered by post; you have no idea when the merchant will request payment.//   

       on/off/exceptions. Exceptions could be - Allow a charge from this merchant once - Allow a charge from this merchant on an ongoing basis.   

       Anyone on the list can charge your card even if it is 'off'
—sprogga, Mar 08 2007
   

       What sprogga said. This should be used in conjunction with the variable limit credit card idea
—TheLightsAreOnBut, Mar 08 2007
   

       [sprogga]: That loses most of the simplicity of the notion. It's probably not that big an issue these days; how often does the scenario occur? Certainly, I rarely order goods by post.
—angel, Mar 08 2007
   

       The same system (possibly acting via phone) would let you "turn off" a lost card until you had had a chance to look for it at home, in the car etc. Then turn the card back on if you find it, or cancel it if not. I've twice cancelled cards because I wasn't sure if I'd left them at home or genuinely lost them.
—MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 08 2007
   


 

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