Gift cards are ironically one of the worst gifts that someone can actually give. Basically, you’re giving them money that can only be spent at a particular shop instead of just giving them money. While that sucks they actually represent a pretty interesting way of anonymously moving money around. As long as the person you want to pay is happy to receive a particular gift card to resell or use at their discretion there is in fact very little regulation if any that surrounds those products. You can buy them at many retail outlets using cash, and then send the card physically or simply send the actual number. The iTunes gift card numbers, for example, are all you need to redeem. It becomes a viable way to move money around as long as you never have to give your real details for the gift card.
Disposable Credit Cards and Prepaid Debit Cards
Credit cards continue to be the cornerstone of online transactions but they are nothing but anonymous. Heck your actual name on the front of the card! Fortunately, there are now virtual credit card services that allow you to create a loading credit card using money from another source to pay for something and then delete it. This is a good way to hide your identity from the person you pay but of course the company that runs the virtual credit card company knows who you are and where the money you loaded onto the card came from. The humble Prepaid Debit Card is another alternative. Just like gift cards you can buy these at pharmacy grocery stores and other similar outlets in many countries. The laws around these are different from country to country, but usually if the value of the card is less than a thousand dollars, you will not have to show any identification and the store that sells the card will not capture any information. When you buy the card in cash, you leave very little to be traced. Prepaid debit cards can now often be used online in the same way you can use credit card numbers. So if you anonymously buy one of those cards you can also anonymously pay with them. You don’t even have to make direct use of the card. You just have to send the details of the card to the person you want the money to have.
“2/2.861.jpg” Figure 1 Image Courtesy of Medium BitCoin made large headlines for allegedly being an anonymous way of moving money over the Internet. It turns out unfortunately that the original cryptocurrency isn’t as anonymous as people have thought. The main problem behind Bitcoin is its core technology. That is the blockchain acting as a shared ledger for the public. In some cases, blockchain records may be cross-referenced with other information (such as times and amounts) that can lead to revealing of your identity. The good news is that in Bitcoin, newer cryptocurrencies such as Monero were designed from the ground up to address these privacy concerns. Naturally, new exploits could be developed in the future that would make these new measures obsolete and since the blockchain never forgets that it is still a major risk. Cash
“2/2.862.jpg” Last but not least we get to the oldie but a goodie. Cash. Cash. We all know about these valuable pieces of paper and there are few ways to trace cash payments. Of course the big problem is that to complete a transaction you have to physically move cash. Yet you always have cash on delivery options. With a faked name at a neutral address as receiver. You can leave money to someone at an agreed drop and physically send out the cash as a package as a last resort. However that last one might be a bad idea since mailing cash is illegal or subject to regulation in some countries. Even if you can find a safe way to pay with cash this is still one of the best anonymous methods of payment.
Anonymity can easily be thought of as an absolute concept. The truth is that it really comes down to effort and resources just how anonymous something is. If there is enough incentive powerful institutions will go to unbelievable lengths to uncover the identity of someone. So if you just want to hide the fact that you’re buying adult material or taking care of your overall financial privacy it’s unlikely that anyone will ever link your name to those transactions. However, if you plan to do something illegal, you can bring down the power of governments on you. That’s a whole different game of ball. You were warned fairly, then!