disposable cash VISA
... along the lines of anonymous cash (and contrary to the AntiCash!) ... What does it take to _issue_ bank cards? Can any bank or credit union issue bank cards? What does it take to get the VISA or MasterCard name? It _seems_ that it should be so simple to set up anonymous credit cards. Here is one simple scenario: Mr. Credit Union gets VISA's approval to issue "secure" (prepaid) VISA cards. Mr. Credit Union has a _good_ reputation, and this reputation is important to his business. Mr. Credit Union sets up 1000 accounts with $500 in each account. A bank card is associated with each account. The name on the front of the card is something like "Joe Cash". Miss Customer walks into Mr. Credit Union's place of business and buys one of these cards for cash (the green, paper kind). She chooses one from a fish bowl full of them (ensuring a random acct #). The card would cost something like $505. No exchange of names, no SS #s, no credit checks. Miss Customer uses the card like any other VISA. When the $500 is gone, she "discards". It would be easy for Mr. Credit Union to cheat. Therefore, the reputation is important. Why not? Why can't _I_ sell these sorts of credit cards? Does this truly provide additional privacy? Cort.
On Fri, 8 Apr 1994, cort wrote:
It _seems_ that it should be so simple to set up anonymous credit cards. Here is one simple scenario:
(Details of secured credit card system elided)
Why not? Why can't _I_ sell these sorts of credit cards? Does this truly provide additional privacy?
Cort.
The Feds agree which is why they outlawed such transactions. "Banks" have to comply with "know your customer" rules. Civilians may not realize it but a VISA account is just a bank account like any other save that it usually has a debit balance rather than a credit balance. Issuers have to obtain taxpayer ID numbers from their customers and identification information "similar to what a bank would require to cash a check". This rule has been extended throughout the OECD countries by recent treaty. Even outside the OECD, card issuers have to be conservative because many VISA merchants are not online and one could run up a lot of little transactions if one were interested in card fraud. The issuer would be stuck. Once all transactions can be verified online, this may improve. It is not easy to get permission to issue VISA cards. That being said, *individuals* can use the secured card system to obtain credit cards in names of convenience. It is just hard to do this on an institutional basis. Duncan Frissell "The problem of governance in the 21st Century -- How to regulate thousands of annual transactions carried out by the billions of buyers and sellers in Market Earth."
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Duncan Frissell