6 ms·

Except its still a debit card, with all of the problems of debit cards, and none of the additional protections you get from using a credit card. Somebody steal

by douche 10y ago

Except its still a debit card, with all of the problems of debit cards, and none of the additional protections you get from using a credit card. Somebody steals your credit card and goes on a spree? Call your bank, dispute the charges, and life goes on. Somebody steals your debit card? Good luck, money is gone from your bank account, and BTW, your mortgage and auto payments just bounced, so we're going to tack on some overdraft fees too. Have a nice day.

peeters 10y ago
> Somebody steals your debit card? Good luck, money is gone from your bank account I had $4000 stolen from my bank account via a compromised debit card. The charges were reversed the same day. The bank is still liable for fraudulent transactions if you didn't authorize them.
- brianwawok 10y ago
  It's a classic case of who is carrying the burden. With credit it's he bank. Fine show my account balance 4k high, I refuse to pay my bill. Same thing with debit and it's my cash missing, and I need to go through a dance to get my own cash back. In fact just had a CC stolen last week. No harm to me because I wasn't holding the burden. I refuse to use my debit card for anything but at an ATM.
  - theonemind 10y ago
    My bank issued me a debit/ATM card by default. I asked, and they replaced it with a plain ATM card that's not a debit card. They also had this insecure-dy-default behavior allowing checking account overdraws to start pulling out of savings. It's worth checking that setting, too.
    - jdeibele 10y ago
      I was interested to read in the comments on a different topic that businesses typically have a deposit-only account, a withdrawals-only account and an account in the middle. As a family, we set up an extra account at Schwab to write checks and do automatic payments against. There wasn't any additional cost to us - having some money sitting in the account is hardly worth worrying about with what Schwab (or anyone else) pays in interest. The big benefit to me is that the account doesn't have over-draft protections. I have to manually move money into the account from a different account where paychecks, etc. go into. That account can't write checks, etc. If our account is compromised, well, we lose (temporarily, I hope) what's in there but not the cash that accumulates to pay for property taxes, etc.
      - astrange 10y ago
        Wells Fargo had me set up an extra checking account for this. Of course, the real reason is so they could charge me another $10 a month for it.
    - brianwawok 10y ago
      ATM vs Debit/ATM is a good call, I will try and switch my current debit cards. Overdraw protection is tricky. For example Ally offers it for free for me. If I really did accidentally overdraw my checking, I would want it sucked from my savings. However if someone stole my Ally debit, I would not want both my checking AND savings drained...
- ams6110 10y ago
  You can mitigate by keeping two accounts. In your debit card account you keep a minimum balance and transfer funds in as needed to cover purchases. For automatic ACH payments (mortgage, etc.) have those come out of the other account that does not have a linked debit card. So worst case you are without a small amount of money during any dispute/fraud resolution period, but your major regular ACH payments are not at risk. The downside is having to monitor your balances closely and transfer funds more often (which can sometimes involve a fee but if you shop around you can find banks that don't change a fee for inter-account transfers).
  - NolF 10y ago
    The way I do it is my salary goes to a online savings account (~2% interest) that's not linked to any cards. I have a debit card I move money over to when I need cash out or to use it (simple with the bank's app). Then I have a CC (used for utilities etc) which I pay every billing period from the savings account. Works well.
cmrdporcupine 10y ago
The few times I've had debit card fraud the bank detected it before things went crazy and the sole symptom was not being able to use my card. The one time a charge went through my bank reversed it that day.
adamwathan 10y ago
Canadian here, had my debit card compromised and $1200 stolen, bank reversed the charges the same day I called them.
Niksko 10y ago
Not sure what you're talking about. As others have said, I've had fraudulent transactions on my debit card, and my bank called me to let me know, reversed the charges and cancelled the card and sent me a new one.
Nursie 10y ago
Actually, disputed transactions are usually refunded immediately on those too.
douche 10y ago
Apparently debit cards are less awful now than when I stopped having to use them. People can do what they want, but I'm personally very uneasy about directly exposing my bank accounts, so I use credit cards as a buffer. Moreover, I don't have a lot of faith in banks not engaging in shenanigans that I've seen them do to me before, like transaction reordering, double charging debit transactions, debiting charges immediately, while sitting on deposits for up to a week, etc.
- PhantomGremlin 10y ago
  I'm personally very uneasy about directly exposing my bank accounts I think ACH is probably worse than debit cards. We had some sort of discussion here a few days ago (I forget exact topic, maybe Swift?). Someone linked to why Donald Knuth no longer sends checks to people: http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news08.html http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news08.html It's an old rant, but if anything, things have gotten worse. We desperately need some sort of cryptographically secure means of moving money. But it can't have all the baggage of Bitcoin.
kakoni 10y ago
With credit card, that easy? I had some fraudulent transactions in my credit card and I had to a) File a police report b) Do an (offline)report and document every transaction I considered to be fraudulent c) Sent these reports to the bank, where they would go thru it (some sort of committee) and if accepted I would be refunded. Quite-a-hassle, took several hours to do those reports... (This is Danish/Finnish bank, Danske Bank. I'm no longer their customer)
DKnoll 10y ago
>Somebody steals your debit card? Good luck, money is gone from your bank account, and BTW, your mortgage and auto payments just bounced, so we're going to tack on some overdraft fees too. Have a nice day. In Canada the account holder is not liable for fraudulent transactions, whether it is credit or debit... a benefit of our highly regulated banks.

by douche 10y ago

peeters 10y ago

> Somebody steals your debit card? Good luck, money is gone from your bank account I had $4000 stolen from my bank account via a compromised debit card. The charges were reversed the same day. The bank is still liable for fraudulent transactions if you didn't authorize them.

brianwawok 10y ago
It's a classic case of who is carrying the burden. With credit it's he bank. Fine show my account balance 4k high, I refuse to pay my bill. Same thing with debit and it's my cash missing, and I need to go through a dance to get my own cash back. In fact just had a CC stolen last week. No harm to me because I wasn't holding the burden. I refuse to use my debit card for anything but at an ATM.
- theonemind 10y ago
  My bank issued me a debit/ATM card by default. I asked, and they replaced it with a plain ATM card that's not a debit card. They also had this insecure-dy-default behavior allowing checking account overdraws to start pulling out of savings. It's worth checking that setting, too.
  - jdeibele 10y ago
    I was interested to read in the comments on a different topic that businesses typically have a deposit-only account, a withdrawals-only account and an account in the middle. As a family, we set up an extra account at Schwab to write checks and do automatic payments against. There wasn't any additional cost to us - having some money sitting in the account is hardly worth worrying about with what Schwab (or anyone else) pays in interest. The big benefit to me is that the account doesn't have over-draft protections. I have to manually move money into the account from a different account where paychecks, etc. go into. That account can't write checks, etc. If our account is compromised, well, we lose (temporarily, I hope) what's in there but not the cash that accumulates to pay for property taxes, etc.
    - astrange 10y ago
      Wells Fargo had me set up an extra checking account for this. Of course, the real reason is so they could charge me another $10 a month for it.
  - brianwawok 10y ago
    ATM vs Debit/ATM is a good call, I will try and switch my current debit cards. Overdraw protection is tricky. For example Ally offers it for free for me. If I really did accidentally overdraw my checking, I would want it sucked from my savings. However if someone stole my Ally debit, I would not want both my checking AND savings drained...
ams6110 10y ago
You can mitigate by keeping two accounts. In your debit card account you keep a minimum balance and transfer funds in as needed to cover purchases. For automatic ACH payments (mortgage, etc.) have those come out of the other account that does not have a linked debit card. So worst case you are without a small amount of money during any dispute/fraud resolution period, but your major regular ACH payments are not at risk. The downside is having to monitor your balances closely and transfer funds more often (which can sometimes involve a fee but if you shop around you can find banks that don't change a fee for inter-account transfers).
- NolF 10y ago
  The way I do it is my salary goes to a online savings account (~2% interest) that's not linked to any cards. I have a debit card I move money over to when I need cash out or to use it (simple with the bank's app). Then I have a CC (used for utilities etc) which I pay every billing period from the savings account. Works well.

cmrdporcupine 10y ago

The few times I've had debit card fraud the bank detected it before things went crazy and the sole symptom was not being able to use my card. The one time a charge went through my bank reversed it that day.

adamwathan 10y ago

Canadian here, had my debit card compromised and $1200 stolen, bank reversed the charges the same day I called them.

Niksko 10y ago

Not sure what you're talking about. As others have said, I've had fraudulent transactions on my debit card, and my bank called me to let me know, reversed the charges and cancelled the card and sent me a new one.

Nursie 10y ago

Actually, disputed transactions are usually refunded immediately on those too.

douche 10y ago

Apparently debit cards are less awful now than when I stopped having to use them. People can do what they want, but I'm personally very uneasy about directly exposing my bank accounts, so I use credit cards as a buffer. Moreover, I don't have a lot of faith in banks not engaging in shenanigans that I've seen them do to me before, like transaction reordering, double charging debit transactions, debiting charges immediately, while sitting on deposits for up to a week, etc.

PhantomGremlin 10y ago
I'm personally very uneasy about directly exposing my bank accounts I think ACH is probably worse than debit cards. We had some sort of discussion here a few days ago (I forget exact topic, maybe Swift?). Someone linked to why Donald Knuth no longer sends checks to people: http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news08.html http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news08.html It's an old rant, but if anything, things have gotten worse. We desperately need some sort of cryptographically secure means of moving money. But it can't have all the baggage of Bitcoin.

kakoni 10y ago

With credit card, that easy? I had some fraudulent transactions in my credit card and I had to a) File a police report b) Do an (offline)report and document every transaction I considered to be fraudulent c) Sent these reports to the bank, where they would go thru it (some sort of committee) and if accepted I would be refunded. Quite-a-hassle, took several hours to do those reports... (This is Danish/Finnish bank, Danske Bank. I'm no longer their customer)

DKnoll 10y ago

>Somebody steals your debit card? Good luck, money is gone from your bank account, and BTW, your mortgage and auto payments just bounced, so we're going to tack on some overdraft fees too. Have a nice day. In Canada the account holder is not liable for fraudulent transactions, whether it is credit or debit... a benefit of our highly regulated banks.