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Feb 17, 2011, 11:48am EST |

Three Ways to Keep Those Secret Purchases Secret

MoneyBuilder

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Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

I cover credit cards, personal finance and the financial industry.

Not everything in life is meant to be aired in public, and in the same vein, not all our purchases are ones we necessarily want others knowing we make. Fortunately, it is possible to buy things both online and off that keep you anonymous.

Here, we've compiled a few ways that you can buy those products and services that are not for public knowledge. Plus, since these strategies avoid your purchases being reflected on your monthly credit card bill, these can be great ways to keep a surprise away from a significant other who deals with the bills.

Google Checkout and Paypal

Paypal was founded to provide consumers with a method to shop online without needing to use a credit card directly. Today, their more than one hundred and fifty million users make Paypal the largest internet payment processor. Paypal's services function by letting you spend and receive money using your email address. Through your Papal account, you can pay businesses or people either by drawing money from your credit card or taking it directly from your checking account.

When your credit card bill or bank statement comes in, whatever purchase you make will read "Paypal" and not the company or individual you've bought from, keeping that purchase anonymous. However, another person knowing how to get into your Paypal account can compromise this anonymity since the name of whomever you're giving money to will show up in your record of payments.

Google has also thrown its hat into the ring, creating Google Checkout to compete against Paypal. As with Paypal, any purchase made through Google Checkout will simply appear as "Google" on any records related to the bank account or credit card the payment is made from.

Checkout's original purpose was to make online shopping more convenient by eliminating the need for consumers to have lots of hard-to-remember login information with different merchants. Sites that use Checkout allow online shoppers to log in with their Google account information. This not only keeps your purchases discreet, but closing your registration with Checkout will also allow you to nix your payment history.

Prepaid Gift Cards

To start, it is important to remember that as far as your anonymity goes, gift cards and prepaid debit cards are two very different animals. When you buy a gift card, you buy something with no connection to your identity, particularly if you are using cash to make the purchase. On the other hand, setting up a prepaid debit card requires that you provide your social security number.

They may not be the technological cutting edge, but as far as keeping your identity under wraps, gift cards are perhaps the most effective strategy if you can get the one you want. Of course, if you get a gift card from the store at which you're making the purchases you want to keep discreet, your credit card statement will probably blow your cover unless you buy it with cash. But, you can instead buy a non-specific prepaid gift card through a credit card company such as American Express. The supermarket or convenience store in your town probably carries this sort of product, which costs an additional five dollar fee to use.

These cards let you shop basically anywhere that takes credit cards without any anxiety about your purchases being linked to your identity.

In Conclusion

The major pitfall across these options is getting help if something goes wrong. Paypal and Google Checkout offer safeguards against getting scammed, but using them can be a hassle. At the moment, prepaid gift and debit cards don't offer much in the way of assurance against fraud, though that will probably change in the future since '09's CARD Act is ushering in more complete regulation of the burgeoning market in providing electronic money transfers.

If keeping your purchases hush-hush isn't your top priority, a credit card is the safest way to buy. Speaking broadly, credit card companies are compelled by law to have fairly accessible mechanisms to deal with fraud and disputes over charges. Not only that, Regulation EFTA allows credit card companies to hold cardholders liable for up to fifty dollars as a result of fraud.

This post comes from the NerdWallet.com team of personal finance bloggers and experts in helping users find the best rewards credit cards.

Tim Chen