OK To Give Real Name To Mail Order Houses??...

[doctordoctor]

...this is a bit of a naive question, but I'm wondering how all you feel about giving out real names to adult mail-order houses, membership porn sites, etc. online...I'll admit I've already thrown my name and credit card number all around various porn sites, but the recent "favorite mail-order DVD" post here got me thinking more about this issue...privacy concerns, credit card numbers, etc....I haven't had a problem yet from my credit card dealings, but just wanted to see how comfortsble you all are doing that....yeah, I know some of you will say don't give it out if you're paranoid, but my horniness gets the best of me...

[eastbayguy]

Here are a couple things I do for some degree of protection on this front. May or may not work for you. But, this at least gives me the feeling of a buffer between my real life and online transactions.

 

I have a separate credit card for online transactions only. The credit limit is only $500. So, even if something really bad happens, the damages would be quite limited.

 

The bill goes to one of those Mailboxes Etc places. Mailboxes Etc doesn't charge much for a tiny PO box. You can have shipments go to a Mailboxes Etc location via US Mail or any shipper. The advantage is that someone is always at Mailboxes Etc during business hours to accept shipments. That's not the case at the house.

 

While I rarely use this for porn, I do a fair number of Ebay transactions, Amazon and so forth. It is nice to have a buffer between me and any unsavory character that might try tracking you down via a shipping address.

 

--EBG

[eastbayguy]

Here are a couple things I do for some degree of protection on this front. May or may not work for you. But, this at least gives me the feeling of a buffer between my real life and online transactions.

 

I have a separate credit card for online transactions only. The credit limit is only $500. So, even if something really bad happens, the damages would be quite limited.

 

The bill goes to one of those Mailboxes Etc places. Mailboxes Etc doesn't charge much for a tiny PO box. You can have shipments go to a Mailboxes Etc location via US Mail or any shipper. The advantage is that someone is always at Mailboxes Etc during business hours to accept shipments. That's not the case at the house.

 

While I rarely use this for porn, I do a fair number of Ebay transactions, Amazon and so forth. It is nice to have a buffer between me and any unsavory character that might try tracking you down via a shipping address.

 

--EBG

[+ deej]

If ANY mail-order merchant is aware of and vigilant in observing privacy requirements, it's porn merchants. They're probably MORE careful than the average merchant, if anything, because they know they're perpetually within an inch of being shut down.

 

The only e-fraud I've personally experienced had nothing to do with the adult industry. I got a call one day from customer service at buy.com to clarify an "order I'd placed". It took a while to convince them I hadn't placed any order. I think it was the shipping address in Moscow that clued them in. (The one in Russia, not the one in Idaho.)

 

By the end of that phone call, I had their chief fraud officer involved as well as Citicorp's head of fraud investigations.

 

I never did get an official explanation of what happened, but I did read 2 weeks later that OfficeMax had been hacked and customer data had been compromised. I'd just purchased desk chairs from OfficeMax.

 

As others have said, use a separate credit card with a low limit for e-commerce, and get a separate free email address to use too. (It'll cut down on the spam your "real" email address gets.)

 

I'm not the least bit hesitant about buying online, porn or non-porn. Heck, Amazon.com is probably the biggest single line item in my househould budget! But I also minimize risk and annoyance.

[+ newatthis]

separate credit cards for online transactions

 

Citibank has a very nice feature for its mastercard holders -- virtual credit card numbers. It provides a low-limit, one-time use credit card number on demand for use in online (and, I suppose, phone) transactions. The billing still goes to your regular account. Just be careful not to use them for things like airline reservations where you may be asked to produce the actual credit card when you check in.

 

The details are explained on their web site. Click on virtual credit cards (that's approximate; I don't have the site in front of me) in the upper left hand corner once you've logged in.

[eastbayguy]

>If ANY mail-order merchant is aware of and vigilant in

>observing privacy requirements, it's porn merchants. They're

>probably MORE careful than the average merchant, if anything,

>because they know they're perpetually within an inch of being

>shut down.

 

The bulk of porn/adult sites use virtual merchant accounts through one of the big billing services like CCBill. If one of the big guys is involved, the chances of being scammed are very low. I have had some trouble in the past with adult sites, but nothing recent.

 

The risk is higher (my opinion) if one of the big, trusted billing companies is not involved in the transaction.

 

--EBG