You've probably been through this a few times: you're interested in an online service, but it requires a subscription. The provider offers a free trial, a one- or two-week free trial. That's enough for you, but the free trial asks for a credit card. Why should we enter credit card details if it's free? Joshua Browder, creator of the DoNotPay app, asks himself the same question, and that's why he built Free Trial Card, a virtual credit card service designed solely for anonymous access to free trials.
Testing before buying is completely logical. Many of us got our feet wet in the world of computing thanks to shareware, and even today gamers ask for demos of certain titles, especially to see how well they run on their PCs. Now, when it comes to online services, the most solid option comes through a free trial or free trial, but there's a catch: in the vast majority of cases, they ask for a credit card.
Why? Well, let's say it's part of the strategy. You enter the free trial, the mechanism is opt-out, you forget to cancel before the deadline, and boom!, you're charged automatically for a month or a year. There are always ways to dispute it, but the bureaucratic dance becomes unbearable. Joshua Browder, the creator of the DoNotPay app, fell into that same trap when he discovered that a gym was debiting a $22 annual subscription he never used. With the aim of preventing his app's users from going through similar ordeals, Browder introduced Free Trial Card.
How to sign up for free trials without a card
In essence, Free Trial Card turns the opt-out of free trials into opt-in. First, the app creates a virtual credit card with a fictitious name and credentials linked to a U.S. region, including a ZIP code. Second, it generates a temporary email address for the registration, with automatic forwarding to your personal inbox, while also blocking location and read receipts.
Once you've confirmed your entry to the free trial, the "purchase process" doesn't go to a traditional bank but to DoNotPay. The card only accepts free trial transactions, and if you try to buy something on sites like Amazon or eBay, it simply bounces. The most interesting part is that each virtual card is "real", meaning they are Visa cards backed by a network of community banks. DoNotPay acts as an agent that pays on behalf of consumers, as long as the final amount is zero.
So what's the fine print? Browder can't talk about the bank network because those banks ignore that DoNotPay uses their services to generate virtual cards and are unaware of anything related to the free trials. The issuing banks also don't know who the end users are; they only know Browder and his company.
For now, Free Trial Card from DoNotPay seems to work well, at least on the other side of the pond. The app is exclusively for iOS (version 11 or later), and predictably, users are flooding Browder's Twitter profile asking for an Android version. With a bit of luck, there will be news soon.
DoNotPay on the App Store: Click here
