For those who value privacy on the internet, I thought you might like an account of how I renewed my membership today.

The card I went for is only available in London, so I looked up "where you can buy it" on their website and then went in to a shop and, er, bought it.

The card itself was £3, and you can 'load' money on to it at the time of purchase. Minimum £10 and max £150. I wanted NBN three-year membership and also Flickr membership, so I asked for £80 to be loaded on. You gat a PayPoint receipt for that, to remind you of what's on it.

Of course, the card has no name on it, just a 16-digit number and a PIN. (My card, they call it an account code, but it's just a regular 4-digit PIN.)

To activate, you phone a free number and type in the 16-digit number and then the PIN. "Congratulations," I was told. Yep, it worked.

Now, to use the card online, you have to do a further registration, via their website. You have to put a name to the card. Mine's Ms Joanna Slinky, so I've at last got plastic in my gurlie name!!

You also get asked DoB, address, phone number and email, and what the answer is to your chosen security question. You know, "what was your first pet called" or stuff like that. Keep a careful note of these, as you need this info whenever you pay for services. And if you get any of it wrong because you can't remember what you said, then you could have problems! I took a screenshot once I'd filled the form out.

NOTE: I recommend you ensure that your address and postcode match, and that your phone number has an appropriate area code. I really don't know how much they cross-check things, but why take chances?

And that should be it. You can immediately use your card on the internet.

Five minutes later, I went to the NBN payment site and entered my details on their credit/debit card page, and it was accepted. Yay!!