Where can a person obtain a prepaid credit card without giving up a lot of personal information; real name, address, etc.? Thanks in advance.

at Walmart, grocery stores, department stores or any bigger gas station / convenience store.

These are loadable once and come in a variety of denominations, you can even designate the amount in some.

If you want one with additional features like reloadable, auto deposits & ATM withdrawals then you need one like a Green-Dot which function like a real CC and you need to give up all your personal info. These are a ripoff frankly and I would never recommend getting one. You would be better off using your actual CC

It has gotten harder than it used to be.  If you really shop around you will be able to find some retailers that sell prepaid cards with limits up to $500.  These are like gift cards, they're anonymous and you can't reload them.

With the reloadable cards, you buy the "starter card" but then you get a personalized card sent to you.  The upside is that the presence of the card can still be a secret from friends/family.  It's prepaid so it's not supposed to show up in credit reports, for instance.  But, the reloadable cards require two things...  The feds DO require you to provide an SSN in compliance with recent anti-laundering laws.  And second, you do have to have an address you can send the card to, but it does not have to be your home address.  Can easily be sent to work, a friend's house, etc.

The point of it being a "ripoff" that was made by a previous poster stems from the fee structure, the cards usually "burn off" a few dollars a month as a fee.  The Walmart card, for instance, I believe charges something like $3 per month for each month you don't make a large deposit.  I believe it's waived for a while if you load more than $1,000 on the card in a month.  Also, Walmart charges $3 per load, unless you set up a direct deposit.  I think there's a fee to make an ATM withdrawal as well.  The Walmart card had a maximum balance of $3,000, I think that may be higher on some but I don't know.  So you could be looking at maybe $50-$75 a year in fees to make a semi-private card work if you manage it carefully...  Could be twice that if you use the ATM much.  Definitely worth it if you need the discretion, definitely not worth it if you don't.

thanks Omega... that is really helpful.  I am new to this community and very much appreciate some of the discussion board culture that you are indicating... Now I might open a thread for help on finding the most amazing deep tissue massuese unless there's already been a thread on that in the past year and wonder how to find that.