This idea has an obvious problem. It's a lot of hard work. How many people are going to be diligent in planting canaries etc? And if you are, can you be diligent for the next 1, 2, 3 decades? That's a lot of time spent on this.
You know what would be better? If every bank provided as a service/feature the ability to create single-use (and single-merchant!) debit cards. Revolut can do it, why can't huge banks do it as well? (BTW if you know one that does, let me know.)
Capital One does still have these: https://www.capitalone.com/digital/eno/ though caveat the feature is only available via a browser plugin, I assume because they want to be able to scrape your shopping habits/history in the process.
Now its available through their own app, and if/once you save actual card in Google Chrome, its directly available from Chrome in any credit card box. No need of Eno now.
Capital One can generate single/repeat use virtual cards, although it's for number-only transactions (online only?). I don't know if there's way to use them for tap/swipe transactions.
> Revolut can do it, why can't huge banks do it as well?
FWIW, I use Revolut and am a fan of their service. However, the one time I tried to use the single-use feature it just didn’t work for some reason. So I had to enter my “permanent” card details instead in order to proceed with payment.
You know what would be better? If every bank provided as a service/feature the ability to create single-use (and single-merchant!) debit cards. Revolut can do it, why can't huge banks do it as well? (BTW if you know one that does, let me know.)