Disposable virtual cards and Amazon(.co.uk) incompatibility

I’ve found that disposable virtual cards are incompatible with Amazon(.co.uk, but probably with other country versions as well), since Amazon charges £1 when new card is added and is used for purchases (before the actual purchase). What happens, is that £1 gets charged from the card and card details change (as they should), but the actual payment for the good never goes through (as it should since the card is not valid anymore).

Amazon claims that £1 on a newly added card is for security reasons (for confirming the card is valid and not abused as lost or stolen) and does not actually go through with the claim of £1 and that the authorisation expires within 10 business days. Source: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201895660

So it’s currently impossible to use disposable virtual cards on Amazon (and probably other sites that do a similar £/$/€1 charge?). Amazon website itself is heavily suggestive towards saving the card details in the way its built (card details get automatically saved. You’d need to delete saved card details after use manually if You want to keep the card details off the system for security reasons). I can see disposable cards working only if Amazon is aware of them and discontinues the £1 charge/works around it.

In the meantime, maybe it would be useful to generate a list of websites/merchants that use such a trick for card security for the sake of saving time for people using disposable virtual cards in majority of their purchases? Have that list on Revolut’s FAQ, an independent website/txt file on a github project/wherever. Possibly even have a firefox/chrome extension that warns when user visits a website that’s incompatible with disposable virtual cards (similarly like http://plaintextoffenders.com/ and their extension, which warns that a website sends a confirmation/registration e-mail with the user selected/generated password in the e-mail in plaintext)?

Or, another idea: Allow the user to a virtual disposable card for more than one transaction (depending upon configuration)…

in that case why not just use a normal virtual card enabled only for online payments and block/unblock it when needed?

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I used disposable one on kickstarter
They first took 1£ deposit and rest payment went 4 days later without problem :slight_smile:
Have you actually tried to make purchase?
You probably won’t be able to link disposable card to amazon for reoccuring payments.

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@Ares and suddenly the KS campaign gets cancelled and your money in limbo.

It still can be assigned :slight_smile:
Andreas said that refunds still will be able to process :+1:Not by card number but as far i remember transaction ID
KS campaign running 2nd time , got it first time ,will get it now :joy:

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Probably harder to implement and opens extra vectors for vulnerabilities, but a good idea, nevertheless.

That is an option, however it is more involved (read: inconvenient) and You still need to know where the disposable virtual cards are not working beforehand, unless You use this trick exclusively, without using the disposable virtual cards.

Different website, different experience. Yes, I did try to make a purchase. I got an automated e-mail from Amazon saying “there’s a problem with the payment card” or something along the lines before switching to a non-disposable card and paying for the purchase.
Inability to use disposable virtual cards for recurring payments is mentioned on Revolut’s FAQ and I’m not questioning that.

Would be nice to hear from Revolut officials on this issue and their take on it: whether they’ll leave it as is, working on compatibility or some kind of a register.