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Fortune
Fortune
Joseph Hostetler

What to know about virtual credit cards

Photo of a virtual credit card made of pixels and binary code. (Credit: Photo illustration by Fortune; Original photo by Getty Images)

Entering your payment information into a merchant website should not induce sweaty palms. But with all the data breaches and evolving scammer tactics nowadays, you’re not wrong to feel a little nervous.

That’s where virtual credit cards come in. Instead of using the permanent account number on your physical card, virtual credit cards give you a one-time-use account number to use for nearly any transaction type. These near-magical cards can help protect your credit card account from fraudsters, plus offer some nifty perks your physical card might not.

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