I'm not sure I understand this. Fraud, and cleaning up after it, is not free of cost. If anything, fraud is more insidious because it costs the one thing I ca

I'm not sure I understand this. Fraud, and cleaning up after it, is not free of cost. If anything, fraud is more insidious because it costs the one thing I can't replace, which is time. Even for me--someone who has multiple payment cards, primarily uses credit (instead of debit), a healthy savings account, and a flexible job--cleaning up from a stolen credit card number takes two or three hours at a minimum. For someone who does not have those things, particularly for people who primarily use debit cards[0], the impact is far worse. If we swapped our cards to simply require a PIN that's validated by the chip on the card (so that in-person charges without the proper PIN cannot complete, even if the card is shimmed), that removes the bulk of in-person fraud attempts. But US banks are, largely, so fearful of customers switching away from them at even the slightest provocation, we don't get PINs. So I'm forced to ask what other "basic" measures (like 3D Secure for online transactions) we lack. 0 - I don't want to hear the rebuttal that "well, people should just use credit cards." There are a hundred different reasons why people don't use credit cards--don't qualify for one, have an objection to debt, past bad experience, and so on--and we cannot write off people who "only" use debit from security measures.