Creating a One-Time Use Credit Card With PayPal

If you do a fair amount of shopping online, you’ve probably thought about what happens with your credit card information from time to time. Most of the time, it’s ‘conveniently’ stored for you so the next time you shop with Company X the transaction will go even smoother. This is a terrible idea. What happens when (not if, when) the site is compromised? What if the company is a fly-by night? What if you have a keylogger installed on your computer?

There are a ton of bad things that can happen when you submit personal information from your computer. This is why I love the one time use credit card option that PayPal offers. I’m going to show you how to set up the PayPal Firefox extension, and help you generate your first one-time use credit card!

Few of things to note: 1) Obviously you need a PayPal account to do this. 2) The plugin currently only works on Windows systems with IE 6/7, or Firefox 2.0/3.0. 3) You can still generate one time use cards if you’re on Linux or Mac, you just can’t use the plugin. 4) I’m going to be using FireFox for my example and you should too.

Getting/Installing the Plugin

1. Get the PayPal Plugin
2. Once you’ve downloaded it, double click the .exe file. You should see the installer start up
   
3. After the installer completes, open Firefox (or IE) and click on the new PayPal logo in the upper right. Choose the ‘Continue Setup’ option
   
4. The plugin will redirect your browser to a new page. Click on ‘Get Started’
   
5. Next choose a security image. My recommendation is to choose something that no one would associate with you. Click the image and click ‘Save’
   
6. Now you will be asked to login
   
7. If you’re using the security fob, you will be asked to enter your PIN. If not, ignore this step. You can also read more about this here.
   
8. You’re done, if you go to the same PayPal drop down icon in Firefox, you should now see all the options are available to you
   

Generating a Credit Card

1. The next time you are about to pay for something online a PayPal box will drop down and ask you if you want to generate a card
   
2. The plugin will automatically create a card number, an expiration date and a CVC number
   
3. If you want to force PayPal to generate a new card for you, simply go to the plugin and choose ‘Generate Secure Card’
   

Conclusion

I use this method for all of my online shopping. I also pay all my bills online, and instead of putting my credit card info online, I simply generate a new card every month for every account. I never have to worry about my information being stolen and waking up to a bank account with no money in it or a credit card that’s maxed out…not that I don’t already have those problems even without someone stealing my information….

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