Hey, so I am UK-based, as you likely guessed. What’s the next best thing for people looking for an alternative to Privacy.com as a UK national. The burner card with 1 time transaction is great!
I am 16, perhaps I’d have to wait some time, but it would help others and be good to know.
P.S: If you are 18+, there is Revolut who offer Visa Virtual and MasterCard Disposable - I’ve used my dad’s for a Discovery+ trial.
Cheers
Merlin “Xenoid” Wizard 
Monzo plus I think is a pretty great UK alternative to privacy.com
Revolut is another.
I think Monzo Plus has the superior virtual card experience, though the polish lacks some features, which I’ve no doubt will eventually come. Monzo Plus virtual cards I would say have potential to eventually surpass the feature set of privacy.com particularly as they could become augmented by Monzo’s other features, like pots.
Zen.com are another interesting player with virtual cards too, but their functionality is very bare bones.
Hey Tom, it seems we both have half decent surnames 
That Plus feature does in fact seem alluring, given Legacy banks charge fees to make money anyway - with a lot of their accounts… for currency and whatnot, where as Big M does not.
I’m assuming I’m not eligible until 18 right? Even whilst willing to shell out for Plus’ fee.
I do agree, perhaps eventually you’ll be able to link up a Card to a Pot, for the purposes of budget.
I’ll have a look with Zen. KYC sucks at 16 lol, and…yeah
ZEN can only be used by adults (over 18 years of age) who use a passport, ID card or residence card.
Oh well. In the words of David Gahan and Martin Gore, “It’s just a question of time”.
Given that there’s no insurance of any kind with Plus, I don’t see why it wouldn’t be available to those under 18 too. Worth checking in app. It’s likely your best bet at 16.
Edit: from the terms and conditions
First things first, you need to be 18 or over, have a Monzo current account and be a UK resident to get Monzo Plus. You must keep your Monzo current account open.
Looks like you may have to wait for that too. 
I’m not 16 for a couple of months. I just figured for simplicity’s sake it was easier to state such, as to get advice for then right.
Unfortunately even twinned with the lack of any insurance product, it is still for Over 18s.
£60 a year too. I thought it was £4 for some reason, which is £12 cheaper.
I take it my provisional will do the trick?
Provisional should be fine!
There’s also iCard who offer virtual cards too. You also need to be 18 to sign up for those.
It’s a shame there’s nothing useful like this for folks who aren’t 18 yet.
It is! I currently feel quite disillusioned with my Barclays account. Whilst the App is decent, their Customer service is decent (due to age, gotta get in touch to send money via an online call).
BUT. With Visa they have zero way of opting out of VAU (their account updating thing if you get a new card)
This means if you have a free trial there’s no way of force-stopping it if the merchant uses Visa…
I’m sure banks are supposed to let you opt-out, but Visa kept emailing me cut-paste replies off, “contact your issuer”.
Where do I stand? Also my friend who uses Monzo, turned it off for MasterCard, in app instantly.
Cheers (hey @N26throwaway you’re not available in the UK anymore )
I believe it’s the same with MasterCard too! It’s what makes virtual cards so useful these days!
Hah! I was when I signed up here! This was only ever meant to be a throwaway account because I thought I’d discovered Apple Pay had been switched on before it was announced. Ended up sticking around when they closed down! 
I am now Barclaysthrowaway, though of course it loses the niché appeal as Barclays has been ‘building tomorrow’s bank’ long prior to when I was first around!
Is there a way to disable VAU, some banks offer it via a phone call, Visa is being useless. Surely they should uphold that Barclays should allow me to, issue being, I cannot figure out if they are obligated to or not.
Cheers,
I’ve been with Barclays for the longest time. My oldest account is my Barclays one. I went off them over the Apple Pay situation. I’m also not too keen on how their digital banking has evolved over the years either. I used to see them as industry leaders, but not anymore. NatWest/RBS seem to be leading the way now when it comes to traditional banking.
I’m not sure on this! I could have sworn Monzo used to have a toggle for it in app, but I can’t find it now! If it is possible to be turned off, they should bring back the toggle for it, so there’s no need to have to ask them.
I meant on Barclays end, I’m not full Monzo just yet. Though I’ve had a look on gov.uk and I can get the wheels in motion very soon.
Apple Pay? They support it, it is Google Pay they don’t lol, though I am thankful for that, as I use GrapheneOS and I do not have any Google APIs or Libraries on my phone apart from any included in the Android Open Source Project, with some probably stripped out by Daniel Micay (the dev)
I’m assuming back in the day they had a negligible attitude towards AP yes?
Have you ever tried Video Banking, It feels like the future man
Also any luck with VAU on Barclays? Just had a chat to a friend and he states that you’ll get the toggle if/when you order a new card 
Cheers
Yep. They were only major bank not on bored at launch. They were trying to push folks onto bpay instead. It took a lot of backlash and complaints from customers before they changed course, and it took them a long time after promising before it finally arrived.
I haven’t, but Barclays do some really cool stuff here. There’s also a feature in app where you tap to call and it puts you straight through to a human and pre authorises you. So they greet you by name when you answer and get straight to work with your query. It’s very slick.
Not something I’ve checked. Haven’t been using my Barclays account for the last few years. Some income goes into it but gets transferred to Triodos.
I’ve used that myself (I was 14, guess what, wasn’t supposed to have it).
I requested my account’s “notepad” under SAR (GDPR thing) and there was a video advisor fretting about why my Children’s App had the adult features 
I got the idea I was treated with skepticism, but I had a ‘Direct Call’ exactly as you described, they’ll have no doubt logged it, so… well then.
I truly wonder what the outcome was of them raising it, but there’s no notes further on said subject 
Do you know if Visa issuers, have to allow you to disable VAU, some do, some don’t…?
Video is similar, if you’re going in through App, it is equally as slick, people moan about it crashing but disabling ‘battery optimization’ for it fixed that for me. Due to my age my details don’t prepopulate though I was recognised once nonetheless haha!
This is hilariously crap, though predatory.
If it was really that easy I wouldn’t be taking GCSEs
@N26throwaway It looks like they stole my bank account balance in the right. Weirdly they were registered on Twitter in March so relatively new, and licensed in Malta for “gaming” in the United Kingdom…
Yes stealing my Barclays balance, aka photoshopping millions, is legal and A-OK! Jes Staley is chuffed.
I’ll take this off topic but would genuinely be curious why you think so – I admittedly haven’t given NatWest a go since 2017 but reading things Barclays seem the most fintechy. They have cheque imaging, merchant logos and location, budgeting, 24/7 chat (I know of at least one neobank that could learn from this), digital receipts, and so on.
The only RBS advantage I can think of is the cardless cash withdrawals and coming soon dark mode. But maybe I’m biased because I’m being paid by my Barclays more than the interest I could earn from the highest fixed saver available
I take it you’re either Premier or Blue Rewards? What do you think of that shoddy BMB app above lol?
Blue Rewards with a mortgage which is an extra £5 so at the end of the month I’m £8 up.
Those screenshots are terrible but then these apps are famous for it. Fake screenshots and fake people with fake reactions
They are supposedly registered with the Gambling Commission thing in Malta and licensed to sell games in the UK. I doubt they are licensed to fake Barclays stuff . Jes… where are you man
I’m judging purely from screenshots and what I’ve read about NatWest’s features. It could just be your typical grass is greener perspective, but I just like the look of what NatWest are offering a lot more.
The ability to withdraw cash without needing my card, a better iPad optimised app, and nicer, cleaner aesthetics in general, dark mode. Barclays used to be so good at this pre-iOS 7 and it’s a real shame to witness what feels like them progressing their UX backwards.
I agree with all these points, to be honest, and I also think Barclays have a fairly bad UI with today’s standards. I’m sure I mentioned it in the other thread about Barclays catching up. I hope once they kill Pingit, the UI will come across to the main app, and we’ll get a bit more consistency in the design language
