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Italy: "anonymous" CCs or VCCs vs AVS
 

I realize my post is only tangentially on topic because I'm not trying to create an eBay or Paypal account, but since pretty much everything I learned about CCs comes from here, maybe I can ask here anyway.

Also, I suppose I should ask directly to Carletto due to our location, but I'm too much of a newbie to send PMs.

My problem right now is this: I'd like to be able to make payments online as anonymously as possible, but a couple of vendors I found only accept CCs. This means that I would need a CC or a VCC that I can register to the name and address I wish.

Vendor#1 blocks some VPNs and TOR and does not like to accept cards issued in a country different from the one the payment comes from, so most VCCs could be problematic: I used one in the past but vendor#1 needed to confirm the payment manually.
Also, vendor#1 told be that some address verification was in place by his card merchant (I don't know whether it was full AVS or not).

I later discovered that in Italy I could find Epipoli's prepaid gift Mastercards in stores.
The issuer's website does not explicitly tell if their cards offer AVS, but they can be registered to a name and address of my choice.
Anyway, I used them for some time with vendor#1 successfully.

Since January, however, they are being refused. No specific error message given.
My assumption is that either Epipoli used to support AVS and stopped doing so, or never did in the past (but somehow were good enough) and now vendor#1's card merchant changed its policy and now requires AVS.
I don't know.

I also tried my card on vendor#2 and explicitly got this error: "DECLINE ,AVS Service Not Supported (S),Not Processed (P)".
This at least confirms that my card does not support AVS (or at least now it doesn't).

As far as I can tell, all VCCs that support AVS do check IDs, or require payments methods that do so. So if I wanted to use them I could very well use my regular card, to my name and address.

VCCs issued abroad would require me to obtain a matching country IP, possibly a dedicated one, and it could be blocked anyway, so just trying it could cost me a lot.

I read that in the UK there are plastic prepaid gift CCs that offer full AVS, but then I would need a supplier and an UK IP to use such cards.

I don't know of any alternative to Epipoli sold in stores in Italy, either.

Is there any viable alternative?

Thanks for any info or suggestion.

Re: Italy: "anonymous" CCs or VCCs vs AVS
 

rsot: pay attention. OP had an intro thread back in 2017. Do not spam.

Yes, i dig you and the hamsters.

Stealth is so hard to learn

:thumb:

Re: Italy: "anonymous" CCs or VCCs vs AVS
 

Striped Oryx, Epipoli Mastercards are the only anonymous Italian cards to my knowledge. If you are using them just for payment any other gift card with AVS support will do. VPN doesn't cost that much but that is a personal opinion.

You can have a look into the marketplace for VCCs+AVS and also for VPN providers.

Btw, anonymous payment always looked shady to me and have been over-abused in our country. That's why there is no much choice with CCs.

Re: Italy: "anonymous" CCs or VCCs vs AVS
 

Another idea that just came to mind, would be going with a different country. Like DE or FR. They don't have AVS. It's now possible to add an italian bank account to almost any EU countries paypal (except UK).