It’s bait we all swallow from time to time. You see a lucrative offer – an app, or a digital good that has a hefty price tag with it, but it does offer a free trial, a week, or a month maybe. You want the free trial, so you enter your credit card number to get your hands on that app. What happens next? You try it out, maybe you like it, maybe not, but the next time you remember about it is when you get your credit card statement at the end of the month. Scraaatch. You seem to have forgotten all about unsubscribing from the trial, and now you’ve been charged full price, irrespective of whether you want it, or not.
That’s the way a lot of paid, or freemium, apps work nowadays, so you end up refusing the trial offers as they come with this credit card number prerequisite just to avoid being charged. There just might be a solution to that problem. It is absolutely legitimate and works like charm for websites and services that only require a credit card number, but not the valid expiration date and CSV and CVV numbers.
These services are called credit card generators, and they won’t buy you anything, which means you cannot use them to scam and get the paid product for free altogether. However, they will help you get your hands on a free trial of something without entering your actual credit card number.
For Android devices, there is this free little app called CardGen that generates AND validates credit card numbers. It’s a great relief to be able to get a free trial of an expensive app if you know you won’t be charged the full price when the trial period expires and you happen to forget to unsubscribe.
The app is simple and perfect to use for mobile transactions. It is also useful for those who do transactions on their mobile devices and need to validate their customers’ credit card numbers.
The app uses Luhn algorithm, something the banking system has relied on to verify the numbers for decades now.
CardGen is free, so expect to see some ads. However, they are not overly intrusive or annoying. The app is obscenely simple: you have the Generate field, where you can choose from several most widespread credit card providers (Visa, Master Card, Discover, American Express).
As you can see in the app’s disclaimer, it does not generate card security codes, CSC or CVV, but you take full responsibility for using this app in any illegal way. The only legit way you can use this app is to bypass that annoying free trial form without entering your actual card info.
Voila!
