[Kumabjorn]

Some US based vendors require you to provide a US issued credit card in order to purchase on their sites, although they are happy to ship internationally. I have seen that there are credit cards availablt that you can load with a certain amount and then use it up to that amount. Basically it is similar to purchasing gift cards on Amazon. It has the added benefit that should your card get skimmed or stolen on the net, the thief can only use it to the amount on the card. In practice you should be able to load the required amount at each purchase, use it and then reload the next time it is needed.

Now for the problem, I have visited some sites that that issue these cards, and they seem to require a Social Security number to register. Has anyone from outside the US been able to obtain a card like that, just like there a forwarders in the cases when you need to enter a US address to buy something, are there SS# available for registration of credit cards?