Your Netsafe Card for Online Shopping

Hdfc Bank Netsafe Card

Many of us have a fear of fraud while using our Credit/Debit Card for online shopping – it may be stored at the merchant website or it may be charged extra, etc.

Most of the merchant sites are still not accepting Debit Cards. You can’t think about online shopping if you are not having any Credit Card and your friend is not interested in giving his/her Credit Card number 😉

Students can’t own a Credit Card, as they are not eligible to have it, then what should  they do for purchasing a domain, for web hosting or buying gadgets at e-bay.

Virtual Credit Cards play a great role in this scenario, as using them is easy and they are safe and secure. Most of the banks are now providing such kind of services. I am using the HDFC NetSafe Card for two years. It is very convenient and safe and till now I didn’t have any problem with it. So I would like to share it with Devils Workshop.

What is a Netsafe Card?

NetSafe is a unique kind of Virtual Credit Card service by HDFC Bank, that offers complete security while shopping on the online merchant sites, without revealing your actual HDFC Bank Credit/Debit Card details.  You can decide the NetSafe Card limit according to your useage, and it can be used one time only at one merchant site.

How Does It Work?

This service is free. The only thing is that you should have an HDFC Credit/Debit Card for it.You can get a Debit Card simply by opening a regular savings account with the HDFC Bank, then register your Credit/Debit Card for NetSafe service on the HDFC Bank website.

You can then generate a NetSafe card and use it for online shopping only. The limit of the card is the amount set by you. The purchase will appear in your statement just like any other transaction. NetSafe card is valid for maximum 48 hours and after which the unutilized amount will be credited back to your Credit/Debit Card account. If you don’t want to use the card, you can cancel it, and the amount will be credited back to you.

HDFC Bank has a very good Video Demo about NetSafe card: Netsafe Demo

Link: HDFC Bank Netsafe Card

16 Comments

Deepak Jain April 16, 2009

I guess even paypal a/c can be verified using such netsafe cards by HDFC..

Anyone ever tried it out?

AKM April 16, 2009

@Deepak

Ya we can use this during verifying PayPal, but according to their policy it should be real one.

you can use your debit card for paypal verification

Pavan Kumar April 16, 2009

@Deepak @AKM

Did you guys forget that this card is valid only for 48 hours, so I think you should not use it with paypal.

I think b2 account is wise idea: http://www.devilsworkshop.org/use-and-verify-paypal-without-credit-card-legal-method/

The video is very bad in that it does not explain anything in clear, everything is running very fast, no one can follow it unless trying it.

@ Rahul,

Did you forget to introduce AKM to us?

Rahul Bansal April 22, 2009

@Pavan
We have a new Editor here at Devils Workshop.
I just updated all posts of AKM to reflect his introduction.

AKM April 17, 2009

@Pavan
>I am Aashish K Mahaswary aka AKM, I am freelance software engineer, my area of interest is opensource products.

>We can verify paypal with NetSafe Card, but i don’t know this is legal or not. I raised a support ticket to PayPal about it. I will post it , when i will get reply from them.

>I am using NetSafe for two years, let me know where you are not clear about the process.

Pavan Kumar April 17, 2009

Well, what I thought is b2 account discussed here would be more convenient for the one who does not have an account with hdfc. I think the initial deposit and all are little higher for hdfc than nationalized banks. I will think of it when I really need for more regular and repeated transactions.

Well, nice to see you here Aashish 🙂

Harsh Agrawal April 17, 2009

Great post Aashish, most of Indian blogger never buy a host because of payment method..
VCC is one of the best way to get rid of any issue while payment. Though I never used it with paypal but for regular payment it is very good.

Pradhan April 18, 2009

Online shopping very popular way to purchase everything i.e. cloths, shoes, furniture and appliances. There are no crowds to contend with and it’s convenient. Shop as and when you want, instead of when a store is open. Additional benefits of Online shopping are price comparisons and reviews by many purchasers about products and merchants. However, the Internet has unique risks. It is very important to take protective steps when you Online shopping.

AKM June 18, 2009

I have written a post on verifying PayPal with Virtual Credit Card
http://rcanblog.com/paypal-verification-with-virtual-card-40/

Haneef August 2, 2009

Hello All,

Beware of HDFC Netsafe Card. Your money could get stuck for 3 to 30 days. They have this information in fine print.

I just xfrd 10,000 to my virtual card and if I decide to shop for 2,000/- now, my 8,000 will get stuck for 30 days. If I do not shop at all, my 10,000 is stuck for 3 days (5 days according to Cust Care Rep).

This is ridiculous as my money is stuck now!!!

Quote from HDFC FAQs:
What happens if I do not use the NetSafe Card at all or if I use only part of the NetSafe Card amount?
For a completely unused NetSafe card created from your Credit Card, the amount is credited back at end of validity period. For Netsafe cards created from your Debit Card, the amount will be credited back in 3 working days to the source account.

In case the NetSafe Card was partially utilized, the balance amount gets credited to the source account within 7 days (for Netsafe Card created from Credit card) or at the end of 35 days (for Netsafe card created from Debit Card) from the date of transaction.
– Unquote from HDFC FAQs.

Worst is Credit Card amount which gets credited back only at the end of validity period!!! Shame on the policy!

What HDFC can do is give the users the option to how long do they want to keep the selected amount in virtual card.

I called up immediately and was hung up thrice by your reps. Have already given feedback at HDFC website Feedback form.

Ex Netsafe fan August 28, 2009

I have been using Netsafe Card for the last four years. But stopped it. Now it just does not work exactly when you need it. Without going into details what I can just share is- to the point communication with the bank yielded only one thing- few links of their netsafe webpage. And afterward- refusal to help. No one at the bank branches know anything details about it and the help centers are hopeless. Finally, I had to scrap the idea of using netsafe anymore. It is like death of a nice product just for few incompitent HDFC bank workers.

Lakhyajyoti February 1, 2010

As a student I am facing lots of problems to verify my paypal.Can I use SBI YUVA?

Antony June 7, 2010

There is absolutely no use in verifying HDFC Netsafe on PayPal. The verification of Netsafe takes place successfully. But this is done by Paypal by charging $1.95 dollar to your card.

The moment Paypal successfully charges $1.95 to you Netsafe card, the netsafe card becomes unusable, even if you have money left in the card. This is because, your Netsafe card can be used for only one transaction.

So your card gets verified and $1.95 is taken from your account and shifted to your online Paypal account. Paypal does not return that money back to your local savings bank account in India.

But it boasts in the online statement as Bonus Gift from Paypal. They pull the money from us and add it to our online Paypal account. That is all.

Paypal is the most widely used online payment service. But it does not accept any debit cards from Indian banks. And the Netsafe card is useless, because every netsafe card generated and added to Paypal is individually verified everytime by pulling $1.95, and that automatically makes your NetSafe card invalid for any more transaction.

Looks like this is an issue with confirming to RBI norms. Somewhere something is not settled down as per rule I guess. As a result, paying using debit card or netsafe is totally useless and disappointing.

Ultimate sufferers are the Indian customers and this also results in decline of online purchases from Indian customers.

Mukunth December 14, 2010

Nothing to say… Haneef & Ex Netsafe Fan aid it fking perfect…Im student, Read on
Even my money got struck up and they refunded back after 35days of the date of last transaction…And None of the workers in any branches werent aware of it… I spoke and asked more questions and they were what the fk are you speaking…we ourselves dont know this…LOOOL
by the way..i got a main information is that
NETSAFE CARD GENERATED CAN BE USED ONLY ONCE & on one website…damn i generated like 5000Inr..and 4000 got struck up for 35 days..

Bibin August 6, 2011

I am student. Can i get a NetSafe from HDFC bank. Can i use this card like a CREDIT CARD. Can do any thing more after i take NETSAFE