Three Uses for Anonymous Prepaid Credit Cards

Posted on : 12-06-2010 | By : Rachel Rogers | In : Credit Cards

Tags: Cards, Credit Cards, Prepaid Credit, Prepaid Credit Cards

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Are you familiar with anonymous prepaid credit cards? Have you even heard of them? It’s not a huge surprise if you haven’t — they’re not overwhelmingly popular in the industry. But they do have their uses.

First of all, what are anonymous prepaid credit cards? Basically, they’re exactly what they sound like: you put down money to charge up a card which then functions like a gift card you can use anywhere they accept credit cards. Now, the big question: where, why, and how would you use these things?

Use #1: As a gift

Anonymous prepaid credit cards make fantastic presents, whether you choose to give them in place of gift cards or completely anonymously. They are excellent choices for charitable donations, too: instead of dropping a case of lima beans at your local food bank, why not give them a prepaid credit card so they can shop when and as they need to?

Use #2: To protect your identity during online and phone transactions.

Identity theft is a major concern these days, and it gets worse every hour. That makes online shopping, or anything using the telephone, a major concern to a number of people. But while there are many ways to make online shopping safer using any transaction method, an anonymous prepaid credit card makes it virtually impossible for someone to steal your information — after all, there’s none to steal!

Use #3: When you don’t want your purchases tracked

There are times when you just don’t feel like having your local department store track and monitor your purchases so they can send you junk mail and spam later on. Use anonymous prepaid credit cards and they’ll have no idea who made the purchases, so they won’t be able to use your preferences to bombard you with advertisements.

Having said that, keep in mind that anonymous prepaid credit cards are not a perfect solution to every situation. The biggest problem with them (aside from the obvious fact that they don’t actually function on credit, meaning you need the cash to back them up) is that since they’re anonymous, they don’t count toward your credit history or score. And as you know, you need that information to vouch for yourself in future situations.

So while anonymous prepaid credit cards make excellent ideas in these three cases, don’t make the mistake of using them every time you make a purchase.