Hi all, this is not going to be a very informative post, but just wanted to share a strange ban and see if anyone here has any light to shed on it or similar experience.

On 2/12, I signed up for Privacy.com (Doctor of Credit review here) so I could generate temporary credit card numbers (linked to bank account, but they have a 1% cashback program) mainly for the purpose of signing up for trials and such without having to give out my real credit card number and address.

Immediately after signing up and connecting my Wells Fargo bank account, I received an email saying, “For your security, your account is pending review by our staff before being activated. You’ll be notified within 1 business day by email when the review is complete!”

I never got an email. No phone calls either.

On 2/18, I tried to create a temporary credit card on the site, but it kept saying, “contact support@privacy.com.” So I emailed them and said I was unable to create a card.

This was their response:

Thank you for your interest in Privacy.
Our team has concluded a review of your application and we are unable to approve your account.

For security purposes, we have deactivated the account and transactions with Privacy will not be permitted. Any new accounts you open will be closed.

Due to the proprietary nature of our business, we are unable to share additional information.

Sincerely,
Privacy.com Team

Completely vague, no information on how to correct whatever it was that prevented approval of the account. Not only that, I can’t even delete my bank account log-in credentials from the site, so I’ll have to go and change the password there since they are still logged in to my bank account.

There are two datapoints I found on Reddit with the same vague email. I contacted them back and have not received any more information, just like the Reddit datapoint.

Update 3/19/18: I’ve now emailed and tweeted them twice and they have continued to ignore me.

It’s pretty annoying to use Citi and BOA’s virtual account numbers, but I guess I will have to keep using those until I find another Privacy.com alternative. It is really a bummer since their Chrome extension and app would have made it so much better/faster to get a temporary card number to use. If you know of any alternatives, let me know! I’m currently exploring another one.

Update 9/11/18: I tried again after getting in touch with the company’s Co-Founder and CEO. He asked me to create an account and he would manually approve it for the security check. Success!

[Update – also banned from Ingo, check processor for MileagePlus GO]

Interestingly, today I was also denied from activating my MileagePlus GO debit card (Doctor of Credit review here). Their email stated:

After conducting a review of the registration information and check image you provided us, we are not able to fully meet the necessary processes that comply with our standard security and regulatory requirements and as a result, cannot activate your Ingo Money account.

We apologize for the inconvenience.
The Ingo Money Team

I contacted Netspend, and they wrote:

Dear Cardholder,

Thank you for contacting Netspend Customer Service!

I am sorry that you were having issues in loading a check in your account. Please be assured that the mobile check load is available feature in your account. However, we are experiencing temporary difficulties in mobile check loads. We have our IT department currently working on the issue and we expect to have the issue resolved as soon as possible. I apologize for the inconvenience this may cause you.

Thank you for choosing Netspend.

This is strange since other people I know have not received the same email as me. Well, I will update if it everything turns out fine.

Update 3/19/18: my United MileagePlus GO account works just fine, I’m just not allowed to deposit any checks into the app. That’s fine with me since depositing a check in the app seems to take forever, so direct ACH is way better anyways.

Everything I gave both companies was real, personal information. Any idea if the two bans are related or what may have caused it? The only other things I can think of that I’m banned from are PayAnywhere (kind of like Square), Target online purchases, and eBay purchases (future post coming on the eBay one).