The Ultimate Guide to Safe and Anonymous Payment Methods in 2024

Anonymous payment methods are more important now than ever, knowing that everyday the bad guys keep on breaching the database of merchants we trust with our data.

Causing stories like financial fraud and identity thefts, we can’t even tell if our data are been shared by some guys somewhere on the darkweb?

Well don’t let us guess and take the risk, instead we will start using anonymous and untraceable payment methods for goods and services online.

When it comes to anonymous or private online payment methods, there are many options to choose from.

Anonymous Payment Methods in 2024

1. Use Masked or Virtual Credit Card
2. Prepaid gift cards
3. Anonymous Payment Apps
4. Paysafecard
5. Cryptocurrency Payments
6. Extra Kits Needed for Anonymous Payments

Let’s jump in;

1. Use Masked or Virtual Credit card

We don’t consider this as an 100 % anonymous payment method, because on a virtual credit card, every transaction you make is seen by the virtual card service.

The virtual credit card is just a way of performing transactions using a fake card and fake details which is created virtually.

So to create a virtual credit card, we will use Privacy.com or Abine, UK residents, can use Curve.com, Here are the pros and cons of using this method;

Pros:

• You can hide our identity from the merchant where you are purchasing goods or services.
• You can set spending limits on cards, this helps us prevents unauthorized payments.
• You can delete our virtual cards any time, so they can no longer be used if you do feel it has been compromised in some way, in any event of a data breach.
• You can create burner cards that expire after a transaction.
• You can lock our card access to the first merchant we’ve used with, preventing unauthorised access by third parties.

Cons:

• You can only use them online and not in physical transactions.
• The virtual card service knows your identity

Note: Don’t use your real details like real name, phone number or address when buying prepaid card anonymously.

2. Prepaid gift cards

Prepaid gift cards are considered as an anonymous payment method, you can use it to purchase items over the internet.

I will say Prepaid gift card offers better privacy than cryptocurrency, Want to know why?

Well, when you purchase a gift card in person, You will be paying the vendor physically and you won’t be dropping any of your information during the purchase, meaning any prepaid card you buy and use online can’t be traced back to you.

Also you can buy prepaid cards online, but you have to make sure you don’t insert your correct credentials when purchasing the prepaid gift card online.

You will need to use burner emails while buying them, so they won’t even have anything on you.

Pros:

• its considered a safe anonymous payments method and its fast.

Cons:

• Often rejected by many online vendors i.e not widely accepted

So What happens when we exhaust the money in our card? This thought must have crossed your mind already.

Well, the card goes into the bin when all the money loaded into it is used up.

Although some prepaid cards do get reloaded anonymously with cryptocurrency, it is okay if they don’t require you to provide your ID to reload your card.

Examples of prepaid gift cards are Vanilla gift card, google pay etc.

3. Anonymous Payment Apps

Anonymous payment apps help us make semi-anonymous transactions online, they are very flexible payment options.

These apps are widely used across the internet and can be used to perform many online transactions as well as sending money to other people around the globe, it is also considered to be a flexible means of payment.

Examples of those apps are Cash App, Venmo.

Cash App

Cash App is an anonymous payment app, it allows you to make untraceable money transfers and also request money.

With a unique $cashtag username, i.e don’t use your real name as your $Cashtag!.

Cash App makes sending money around easy, making you anonymous to those who you are making transactions with, but Cash App gets to know you, because you need to connect your bank account to the App to fund your cash app wallet.

You are limited to a daily spending limit of $250 without identity verification, also you can request for money by entering someone’s phone number or their email.

It is also possible to withdraw using a debit visa card.

CashApp is very restrictive to some extent and it adds a sufficient barrier to your privacy when you make purchases online, the fun part is that Cash App supports Bitcoin trading 😁.

Note: CashApp is linked to your device and that can also compromise your anonymity, so we consider you to use 2FA, a dedicated PIN to safeguard your transactions.

Pros:

• We don’t need a bank account to use CashApp

Cons:

• Our funds aren’t FDIC-insured

Venmo

Venmo functions as a digital wallet, it can only be an anonymous payment app based on how it is used.

Venmo is more like Paypal, you have a weekly limit of $5000, Venmo can be an anonymous intermediary for out transactions.

Pros:

• It is widely available and easy to use (through PayPal checkout)

Cons:

• it is not 100% anonymous

4. Paysafecard

Paysafecard is an anonymous payment app the comes with the benefits of cash and online services, with the Paysafecard app you can look for both online and offline vendors of paysafecard vouchers in many countries.

If you happen to pay for Paysafecard vouchers offline with cash, we can consider it anonymous as there is no means to trace voucher numbers to you, because you don’t have any personal identity info to be used.

They claim to be the world’s most popular online prepaid payment method, so with your 16-digit PIN printed on it, you can purchase goods and services from thousands of merchants that accept Paysafecard.

Paysafecard are money per card is limited by their denominations of $10, $ 25 to $100, but you can combine upto 10 cards for larger purchases.

Paysafecard are mostly accepted by online games sites and licensed online gambling parlors, its really hard finding Paysafecard vendors.

Pros:

• When you buy with cash, the voucher can’t be linked to you.

Cons:

• It’s really difficult to find a physical retailer in some countries (particularly the US and Canada).

5. Cryptocurrency payments

When cryptocurrency (cryptos, for short) is mentioned, the first thing that comes to your mind is bitcoin, well you are correct.

But bear in mind that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies transactions are recorded in a public ledger called Blockchain and anyone in the world can see the transactions.

But we can still consider it safe, because it doesn’t show details of who is a making the transactions in this way;

On 18/01/2024 Mr Null paid for a burner phone from Burnerlee for $5.00 at 1:00:00.

Instead, it’s something like this:

On 18/01/2024 someone sent 0.000005 BTC from wallet address X to wallet address Y at 1:00:00.

So you see, none of your personal information will show up in these records.

Also, note that there are groups of people that are working hard to de-anonymize cryptocurrency transactions so they can identify the parties involved.

The process is more complicated in real life though, So it’s necessary that you understand that bitcoin is not fully anonymous.

But wait, not all cryptocurrency are the same when it comes to privacy, look at crypto coins like Monero.

They solves the privacy problems with cryptocurrencies, due to the fact that it is truly an untraceable payment method🙈, Monero to the world 🚀

Security Tip: Use cold wallets like Trustwallet/ Metamask instead of hot ones to store your money and always use a VPN when performing online transactions, you can check our guide on the best VPN for privacy.

Cryptocurrency prepaid cards

Some crypto services providers provide their users with an option to use prepaid crypto cards, i.e using your cryptocurrencies to pay for goods and service online.

Instead of dealing with an organization that accepts cryptocurrencies directly, they provide you with a card to make the purchases and we are paying through our owned cryptocurrency.

The cards can be physical or virtual, example of cards are Bitpay Card, this option strengthens your privacy.

Pros:

• It is widely supported online, and if handled well it can be completely anonymous.

Cons:

• Some payments takes long to process; utility offline is limited
• Cryptocurrencies don’t have a stable market, therefore having dramatic market fluctuations.

Kits you might need for Anonymous Payments;

If you happen to be in a country or region where you can’t access some services like Cash App, Venmo or Privacy.com, then use a VPN(Virtual Private Network).

It is a privacy-protecting service and it will help you get virtual access to another country, then you will be able to use the services by being virtually present in those countries.

You can check our top-recommended VPNs here and select one that has a large server network, good support and fast internet speed.

Services you might want to pay for anonymously:

VPN:

In some countries where all the banks are government owned, this means they have permanent records of your transactions, if there is internet censorship in your country.

Then a VPN subscription record on your bank account is good evidence that you are trying to bypass the censorship and you might be flagged as a suspicious individual.

There are some VPN services that now accept cryptocurrency as payment.

Porn:

This is widely banned in many Islamic countries, so imagine if your personal finance transaction has the record of you paying to a porn site, it seems embarrassing right?

One way to keep your records clean is by using some anonymous payment ways that are not linked to you at all.

FAQ About Anonymous Payment Methods

How can I send and receive money anonymously?

You can receive money anonymously using cryptocurrencies like Monero, Bitcoin, Litecoin.

But if you want to get the payment out of your Crypto wallet, you’ll have to give up your bank account number and some other information through p2p trades.

Else you have go sell your crypto coin to your local bitcoin stores to exchange it for cash

You can also send money partially or completely anonymously if you follow the above guide, you can send money using gift cards, cryptocurrencies or cashapp or venmo.

is cash app anonymous?

Yes!!! Cash App does not show your details except your $cashtag username.

Information like your card number, available balance, location, email id, and phone number are not visible to the sender or any third party, but cash app it self can see those details, so we consider it SEMI-anonymous.