There doesn’t appear to be an article linked.
I like the idea also, but I strongly suspect it could result in a criminal conviction.
Without an article linked I don’t know if this is addressed, but credit card processors have a whole service set up to prevent this. Merchants can perform a $1 transaction to verify that the card info is correct and that transaction gets refunded to the card within a day or so. This isn’t considered a charge against the card.
This gets done whenever you check into a hotel or rent a car. I would be surprised if most porn sites (because let’s face it, we are talking about porn sites) did not use this service.
Edited to add: And yes, it would be credit card fraud to do this, plus probably a violation of the CFAA in the hands of an up and coming prosecutor.Not to mention the fact that since the number space for credit card data is limited and there is a chance that you might happen to hit on a valid combination, in which case you would actually be committing fraud,
Edited again now that there is an article link: Generating card numbers is easy - you can find the formula online (and pick which card type and bank you want to impersonate!). You will still risk going to jail to use this, but I am pretty sure that you aren’t going to make it through any signup process without a good expiration date and CVV.
Especially given how the Fed thinks that trivially violating violating a website’s Terms of Service (say, faking your age) can be a criminal violation of the computer fraud and abuse act. Faking billing data seems like something they would definitely consider criminal. Who knows how many different charges a vengeful federal prosecutor could gin up to stack against someone who did it.
Also, no link to the article. There seem to be some teething issues with the website redesign. So far, DNL.
Yeah, I’m in the “no article” and “do not like” camp myself. . .old BB design, please.
Won’t work if they ask for a CVV code.
I always keep used-up gift/rebate cards around for this purpose. They’re valid credit cards, complete with CVV numbers, and their expiration dates are usually a very long time in the future (got one the other day that expires in 2020).
A completely empty gift card wouldn’t work if they did a $1 test fee (as edgore notes), but a gift card with just a dollar remaining on it would.
Yep, and they are going to ask for a CVV. The way that all of this stuff works is that they get the full CC info up from, do a test authorization against that, then toss the CVV (theoretically, assuming they comply with PCI) then retain the CC # and EXP. associated with your account.
Nobody is going to just ask for the CC up front, then come back later and say they also need a EXP and CVV, which is the only way this scam would work. Since the merchant isn’t allowed to store the CVV they are going to do a test authorization right away.
That gift card scam though - that would totally work and I doubt you could get in legal trouble for it, though they would probably send you to collection if you used any services that they later attempted to charge to the card in excess of $1.
How about getting one of those cards that allows you to create one-time-use “online numbers” with fixed limits and limiting that number to $1?
Seems like this would be far less likely to land you in trouble with Johnny Law than making up totally fake numbers that probably won’t work anyway.
Do those services still exist? I was under the impression that they had all been discontinued. Do you have one that you use/recommend?
I don’t know. My card never offered it, but I thought it was a great idea for the internet age. I was really hoping it would take off.
BofA still offered that last I checked. I don’t know if it does as of today, though.
This is how the online-porn industry has operated for the last twenty years. Get them to “verify” their info for a free trial, then start the recurring charges. Then make it hard (and embarrassing in the case of porn) to cancel. Most of the time they ask for some twenty digit number that they showed for a second on some obscure screen.
At least, that’s what I assume they’ve been doing. Not that it ever happened to me…
MaskMe, from Abine.com, is an excellent generator of single use cards. You have to pay, but at least you don’t have to pay Bank of America.
So we’re into credit card fraud now? Fuckin’ A!
I have a card through citibank, and they had a feature that allowed me to create new numbers and limit the amount/merchant, though I haven’t used it in a long time. They call it “virtual numbers”.
Believe it or not there are some legit porn sites that don’t do this. Probably 1 in a million though I guess 
I have used it through BoA within the past year. More recent than that I can’t say
Ah, free AOL 30-day trial accounts in the heady days of 1994… or so I heard.
Oddly enough, America’s Test Kitchen was the worst offender of this mid-nineties bullshit free trial stuff. They’d even give you “free” trials of books you never asked for once they had your number and then promptly charge you $30-50 if you didn’t send it back.
