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> Debit cards are a very similar product with enough under-the-hood differences that they deserve their own moment in the sun. In particular, due to a quirk of

> Debit cards are a very similar product with enough under-the-hood differences that they deserve their own moment in the sun. In particular, due to a quirk of U.S. interchange regulation, they basically fund most of the fintech industry Basically, the Durbin Amendment caps interchange on debit cards at a far, far lower rate than credit cards; they also have different networks (not MC or Visa) that can be run at least for in person transactions. However, the limit does not apply to banks with less than $10 billion in assets. This is why some online banks can offer lower fees and sometimes even debit cash back (1% is the most I've seen though, so not competitive with credit). But its also why ever fintech under the sun pushes debit cards so heavily--the debit card is issued by a (small, non Durbin-covered) partner bank who then shares revenue with the fintech company. At the end of the day, credit cards are still significant better for customers. You can have multiple cards with different benefits while keeping all your money in one place, and you can prevent overdrafts because you don't have random subscriptions taking out unpredictable amounts of money in the middle of the night and causing a check to bounce the next day. You are no longer obsessing over "early payday" features or ACH speeds. Credit cards also provide a nice hack to allow cash deposit for those with only online banks--you can often use a big bank's ATM to make a payment towards the credit card, allowing you to get rid of ordinary amounts of cash.

ollien 5y ago
> You are no longer obsessing over "early payday" features or ACH speeds. Timing ACH payments _sucks_. Tangential, but I'm in a renting situation where my landlord demands rent land in their account on the first of the month. Receiving rent on the 26th (i.e. 5 days early, not 26 days late) was deemed "too confusing" for them. I now have to play this awful game of timing ACH transfers to land on their account as close to the first as I possibly can.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  Agreed, luckily RTP rollout is well under way, and it won't be long before ACH is a thing of the past. [1] [1] https://www.theclearinghouse.org/payment-systems/rtp https://www.theclearinghouse.org/payment-systems/rtp
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    FedNow, the Fed’s instant payment system to replace ACH, it currently ahead of schedule for a 2023 GA. Beta testing between a handful of financial institutions is working as expected (from what I’ve heard). One way or another, instant payments will be here shortly.
- jedberg 5y ago
  What state are you in? What they are doing may be illegal. In California the rent is on time as long as you pay in advance of the deadline. If you send in six months rent all at once, then you are on time for the next six months. Also your bank may be able to do this for you. If you add your landlord as a bill pay recipient and set the due date as the 1st, the bank will mail the check on the appropriate day, and if it arrives late, will often cover the late fee.
  - ollien 5y ago
    Oh, they've not declared it as a lease violation, they've just asked me to do it this way and I've compiled, despite being annoyed by it. I haven't checked local laws (MA), but I've tried to be a good tenant. Also, no, my bank will not do this for me. My landlord actually is overseas (permanently), so mailing a check is not feasible.
  - pdpi 5y ago
    I just tried this, I opened my bank's app and it took me the whole of 2 minutes to set up a standing order to pay my friend £10 on the first of the month. It would be in his account on the 1st, or the next working day. I pay my cleaner via bank transfer when she leaves my place, and it's in her account by the time she's in the bus. My bank mailing cheques to my landlord is a concept that's just bizarre to me.
    - jedberg 5y ago
      Given that you are sending pounds instead of dollars, I'm guessing you live in a civilized place with modern banking and not a backwoods like the USA. The problem is not technology, it's the USA banking system. We have no way to instantly send money to someone over a few thousand dollars without huge fees. Oftentimes rent exceeds that limit in urban areas.
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        You can send money via Zelle instantly, but I would stick to check or ACH purposes for legal dispute reasons in the case of conducting business, especially paying rent.
- reaperducer 5y ago
  I'm in a renting situation where my landlord demands rent land in their account on the first of the month. Receiving rent on the 26th (i.e. 5 days early, not 26 days late) was deemed "too confusing" for them. I ran into this at my last place. I'm the sort of person who likes to pay things ahead so I don't have to think or worry about them. I was used to paying my rent ahead and quarterly. When I moved to the new place (in a western state), the apartment company insisted that rent be paid exactly on the 1st, and paid online. Not only did it not want the rent early, it was not possible to pay early, as the company's online system would show a zero balance, and would not show a payment mechanism. Even worse — I couldn't pay a bunch up front. It would only allow payments for the exact amount due for that month. Payment was also accepted by check. But only in person, and with a $75 "processing" fee. And this wasn't some rinky-dink neighborhood landlord. It was a national apartment company with over 20,000 units in a dozen states. Interestingly, my new apartment has the same online system as the old one, but allows me to pay however much I want as often as I want. (As long as it's not late, duh.) So it wasn't a technical limitation, it was management's policy.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    A lot of landlords would absolutely prefer someone who pays long in advance. If I were you I would've given these guys the middle finger and found a better landlord.
    - kelnos 5y ago
      Unfortunately you often don't find out about this policy until you've signed the lease and set up your payment account.
      - mindslight 5y ago
        Any such policy would need to be specified within the lease to be enforceable. If there is nothing in your lease that mandates a bespoke payment method, call their bluff and just pay by check. There are real issues with incomprehensible leases and terms of adhesion sprung late in the process, but it behooves us to keep focus on the specific contours of the problem so the people who are able to push back on such nonsense can better do so.
stefan_ 5y ago
The intersection between the people that have random overdrafts and those that just pay off their credit card debt in full every time is the empty set. Why make up excuses for a few rent seekers that tax the entire economy?
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Merchants WANT people to use credit cards. There is nothing stopping merchants from offering a cash/debit price and a credit price since 10 years ago. The frank dodd legislation made illegal for card networks to ban offering discounts for debit card payments, and in Mar 2017, the Supreme Court said merchants cannot be barred from advertising higher prices for credit cards. https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/new-rules-electronic-payments-lower-costs-retailers https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/new... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressions_Hair_Design_v._Schneiderman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressions_Hair_Design_v._Sch... It is very clear that most merchants earn more from people using credit cards more often, otherwise they would try to dissuade or offset it by adding a premium for using credit cards. Target sort of does this by giving a 5% discount if you pay via ACH from your bank account (via a debit target redcard account), and in the western US, a grocery store company called Winco advertises it does not take credit cards at all in order to provide the lowest prices. On the other hand, Aldi in the US used to only take debit cards, and they started taking credit cards 5 or so years ago, so they are obviously assuming they will earn more money by lifting prices a little and attracting credit card users.
  - revolvingocelot 5y ago
    >It is very clear that most merchants earn more from people using credit cards more often, otherwise there is no reason they would try to dissuade or offset it by adding a premium for using credit cards. Can you elaborate? IME merchants do NOT want people to use credit cards; transaction fees eat into the sale price. I remember a time when some electronics stores would explicitly advertise a cash discount, so as to avoid the transaction fees. I once worked in a bar that accepted every major credit card, save American Express, because of their several-points-higher transaction fee. The premium is added to offset this. How is it very clear that most merchants earn more?
bluedevil2k 5y ago
You missed the biggest advantage of credit cards - the limited liability of the card holder to fraudulent charges! From a financial website… “ CREDIT CARDS Credit cards offer consumers the widest fraud protection. By Federal law, a cardholder is only liable for the first $50 of an unauthorized transaction at most, with many issuers offering cards with zero liability. DEBIT CARDS Debit card holders are protected under a different law, the Electronic Funds Transfer Act. With debit cards, users' liability is capped at $50 only if they notify the bank within two days of realizing the debit card is missing. Beyond that, they could be responsible for up to $500 of a crook’s spending spree. And waiting more than 60 days to contact the bank could leave a user stuck paying every cent of the unauthorized charges.”
- jjeaff 5y ago
  I'm not sure if that distinction makes much of a difference since the vast majority of debit card theft is not via the physical card, but through skimming. Debit cards do have the disadvantage of your money being gone until the bank makes you whole. But I'm not sure if the liability is really any different (unless physically stolen and not reported, I guess).
- gregmac 5y ago
  This is one of the main reasons why I use credit cards over debit. If there's a dispute over a charge, I believe with debit cards the money is still out of your account until it gets sorted out -- this could be days or weeks. With credit cards, the money in dispute is not "owed" to the card company, and at worst it reduces your available credit by that amount, which is only an issue if you're spending enough to max your card out anyway. Even though the end result is similar, there's a bad feeling about the debit card fraud: It's my money tied up, while with credit it's the card issuer's money.
  - adzm 5y ago
    FWIW I had fraudulent debit charges credited to my account the next day while under investigation. Though the experience was enough to pretty much stop using debit cards except for specific accounts that are not my primary.
phaedrus441 5y ago
> Credit cards also provide a nice hack to allow cash deposit for those with only online banks... Thank you, I had no idea about this! Going to seriously help me "deposit" cash since my bank's closest physical presence is two states away...
davchana 5y ago
Just a data point about your last paragraph, depositing cash to make payments. My chase atm card does not allow to deposit cash directly to any chase or non chase credit card. I have to put it in chase checking, and then I can use it for payments. Also, capital one, synchrony, amex does not allow me to pay more than 10% of my outstanding balance on their credit cards.
- masklinn 5y ago
  > Also, capital one, synchrony, amex does not allow me to pay more than 10% of my outstanding balance on their credit cards. Do you mean “in cash” or, like, as any single transaction?
  - davchana 5y ago
    No, i mean if my outstanding credit card balance is $100 (statement or not, but outside of pending, means cleared), then Amex or Capital One apps does not allow payments bigger than $110 (minus any pending payments).
    - davchana 5y ago
      Oops, I meant 10% "over", or 110% of balance.
Asooka 5y ago
I just have two bank accounts. One I use to pay online, that I put money into myself, and another where I receive my salary. The most anyone can surprise charge me is about 60 EUR, because I don't keep more money in the online purchases account. The upside is that I understand all parts of how this works. I never managed to grok all the details about credit cards and their endless features. I just pay the bank to maintain two accounts with two debit cards, and it costs me the exact same amount every month.
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  > never managed to grok all the details about credit cards You should look at getting a charge card. Basically a credit card where you can't keep a balance. Its basically a pay-after debit card where you can not pay a charge if its fraud. Some have nice perks, but you can just ignore that if you want.
vel0city 5y ago
Can you further explain that cash deposit to credit card payment process through an ATM? I've only ever used ATMs to withdraw funds, never to make deposits, so I don't know what that process would look like or which banks would let me do that.
- blacksmith_tb 5y ago
  I had no idea that was an option, but I see BofA[1] supports it. Seems broadly less convenient than online, but I suppose better than needing to wait in line for a human teller. 1: https://www.bankofamerica.com/banking-information/assistance/credit-cards/making-credit-card-payments/ https://www.bankofamerica.com/banking-information/assistance...
  - Talanes 5y ago
    > Seems broadly less convenient than online How are you paying cash online at all?
  - flaviu1 5y ago
    I don't have a deposit banking relationship with any brick-and-mortar banks, so for me it's very convenient: I have a way to turn my paper money into electronic money.
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    My credit union's app was very frustrating for depositing checks. Many reviews online said so, but apparently were ignored. So for a while I would go to an indoor ATM when I got a paper check which is not that often. Then I had an idea - I got a piece of black construction paper for a background and it was much happier taking pictures of checks on that.
- bombcar 5y ago
  Right before using phones to deposit checks, some of the more advanced ATMs would let you deposit checks directing via scanning (older ones would basically just take the check and a teller would handle it later).
- 5y ago
xivzgrev 5y ago
Credit cards are not a panacea. For subprime customers, debit cards are often more popular because they help ensure people spend within their limits.
TeMPOraL 5y ago
> At the end of the day, credit cards are still significant better for customers. (...) Yeah, I don't know. Thing is, I don't like the stress involved. I prefer to deal with the money I have, not with the money I hope I'll have in one month's time. Not to mention, the cognitive burden of constantly keeping in mind the various balances and expected money flows, and having to manually push money around. It all feels like working with an angle grinder without protective gear. My ideal credit card would be one that's automatically capped to the balance on my account, pays itself automatically, with no involvement on my part, and doesn't let any person that knows its number pay for stuff with it. Oh, wait. That's exactly what a debit card is. :).
- leetcrew 5y ago
  it's not like debit cards are extremely safe to begin with. banks (in the US, at least) will happily let you withdraw $XXX more than you actually have and charge you a fee on top of it. do you routinely overdraw your bank account? if not, you probably a) keep more than enough in checking to cover a typical month's expenses, or b) carefully track your balance to ensure each purchase won't take you past zero. unless having a credit card in your hand gives you an uncontrollable urge to spend more money than you have, I don't really see how this is any less trouble than a debit card. if you're not living paycheck to paycheck, just put the card on autopay and keep 2X your monthly expenses in checking. if you don't have a lot of surplus income, you need to be careful, but it's no different with debit.
  - tacocataco 5y ago
    Some banks let you disable overdraft protection. Your card will just be declined when there isn't enough to cover the balance.
    - dguest 5y ago
      I thought courts had required banks to allow opt-out for a long time. Apparently more recently [1] this was expanded so that account holders have to opt in. [1]: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/overdraft-protection-expi_n_682825 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/overdraft-protection-expi_n_6...
Gargyle 5y ago
I am used to US credit cards and moved to Germany a few years ago. In Germany credit card chargebacks are very cumbersome. I had 3 banks' customer service tell me at first that it isn't possible (like they had no process for it or the agent never did that or is too lazy) and then the next agent said it works but has huge-list-of-drawbacks-fill-9001-forms-and-waste-days effort.
bitcurious 5y ago
So many stories here, I’ll add another. Bought an appliance from a vendor that advertised free installation, but on two occasions the tech refused to do installation because it was coded incorrectly in their system. Hired a contractor, disputed the cost.
floatboth 5y ago
> they also have different networks (not MC or Visa) Is that also some weird American quirk? Everyone I know has a couple debit Visa/MCs..

ollien 5y ago

> You are no longer obsessing over "early payday" features or ACH speeds. Timing ACH payments _sucks_. Tangential, but I'm in a renting situation where my landlord demands rent land in their account on the first of the month. Receiving rent on the 26th (i.e. 5 days early, not 26 days late) was deemed "too confusing" for them. I now have to play this awful game of timing ACH transfers to land on their account as close to the first as I possibly can.

arcticbull 5y ago
Agreed, luckily RTP rollout is well under way, and it won't be long before ACH is a thing of the past. [1] [1] https://www.theclearinghouse.org/payment-systems/rtp https://www.theclearinghouse.org/payment-systems/rtp
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  FedNow, the Fed’s instant payment system to replace ACH, it currently ahead of schedule for a 2023 GA. Beta testing between a handful of financial institutions is working as expected (from what I’ve heard). One way or another, instant payments will be here shortly.
jedberg 5y ago
What state are you in? What they are doing may be illegal. In California the rent is on time as long as you pay in advance of the deadline. If you send in six months rent all at once, then you are on time for the next six months. Also your bank may be able to do this for you. If you add your landlord as a bill pay recipient and set the due date as the 1st, the bank will mail the check on the appropriate day, and if it arrives late, will often cover the late fee.
- ollien 5y ago
  Oh, they've not declared it as a lease violation, they've just asked me to do it this way and I've compiled, despite being annoyed by it. I haven't checked local laws (MA), but I've tried to be a good tenant. Also, no, my bank will not do this for me. My landlord actually is overseas (permanently), so mailing a check is not feasible.
- pdpi 5y ago
  I just tried this, I opened my bank's app and it took me the whole of 2 minutes to set up a standing order to pay my friend £10 on the first of the month. It would be in his account on the 1st, or the next working day. I pay my cleaner via bank transfer when she leaves my place, and it's in her account by the time she's in the bus. My bank mailing cheques to my landlord is a concept that's just bizarre to me.
  - jedberg 5y ago
    Given that you are sending pounds instead of dollars, I'm guessing you live in a civilized place with modern banking and not a backwoods like the USA. The problem is not technology, it's the USA banking system. We have no way to instantly send money to someone over a few thousand dollars without huge fees. Oftentimes rent exceeds that limit in urban areas.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      You can send money via Zelle instantly, but I would stick to check or ACH purposes for legal dispute reasons in the case of conducting business, especially paying rent.
reaperducer 5y ago
I'm in a renting situation where my landlord demands rent land in their account on the first of the month. Receiving rent on the 26th (i.e. 5 days early, not 26 days late) was deemed "too confusing" for them. I ran into this at my last place. I'm the sort of person who likes to pay things ahead so I don't have to think or worry about them. I was used to paying my rent ahead and quarterly. When I moved to the new place (in a western state), the apartment company insisted that rent be paid exactly on the 1st, and paid online. Not only did it not want the rent early, it was not possible to pay early, as the company's online system would show a zero balance, and would not show a payment mechanism. Even worse — I couldn't pay a bunch up front. It would only allow payments for the exact amount due for that month. Payment was also accepted by check. But only in person, and with a $75 "processing" fee. And this wasn't some rinky-dink neighborhood landlord. It was a national apartment company with over 20,000 units in a dozen states. Interestingly, my new apartment has the same online system as the old one, but allows me to pay however much I want as often as I want. (As long as it's not late, duh.) So it wasn't a technical limitation, it was management's policy.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  A lot of landlords would absolutely prefer someone who pays long in advance. If I were you I would've given these guys the middle finger and found a better landlord.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    Unfortunately you often don't find out about this policy until you've signed the lease and set up your payment account.
    - mindslight 5y ago
      Any such policy would need to be specified within the lease to be enforceable. If there is nothing in your lease that mandates a bespoke payment method, call their bluff and just pay by check. There are real issues with incomprehensible leases and terms of adhesion sprung late in the process, but it behooves us to keep focus on the specific contours of the problem so the people who are able to push back on such nonsense can better do so.

stefan_ 5y ago

The intersection between the people that have random overdrafts and those that just pay off their credit card debt in full every time is the empty set. Why make up excuses for a few rent seekers that tax the entire economy?

lotsofpulp 5y ago
Merchants WANT people to use credit cards. There is nothing stopping merchants from offering a cash/debit price and a credit price since 10 years ago. The frank dodd legislation made illegal for card networks to ban offering discounts for debit card payments, and in Mar 2017, the Supreme Court said merchants cannot be barred from advertising higher prices for credit cards. https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/new-rules-electronic-payments-lower-costs-retailers https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/new... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressions_Hair_Design_v._Schneiderman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressions_Hair_Design_v._Sch... It is very clear that most merchants earn more from people using credit cards more often, otherwise they would try to dissuade or offset it by adding a premium for using credit cards. Target sort of does this by giving a 5% discount if you pay via ACH from your bank account (via a debit target redcard account), and in the western US, a grocery store company called Winco advertises it does not take credit cards at all in order to provide the lowest prices. On the other hand, Aldi in the US used to only take debit cards, and they started taking credit cards 5 or so years ago, so they are obviously assuming they will earn more money by lifting prices a little and attracting credit card users.
- revolvingocelot 5y ago
  >It is very clear that most merchants earn more from people using credit cards more often, otherwise there is no reason they would try to dissuade or offset it by adding a premium for using credit cards. Can you elaborate? IME merchants do NOT want people to use credit cards; transaction fees eat into the sale price. I remember a time when some electronics stores would explicitly advertise a cash discount, so as to avoid the transaction fees. I once worked in a bar that accepted every major credit card, save American Express, because of their several-points-higher transaction fee. The premium is added to offset this. How is it very clear that most merchants earn more?

bluedevil2k 5y ago

You missed the biggest advantage of credit cards - the limited liability of the card holder to fraudulent charges! From a financial website… “ CREDIT CARDS Credit cards offer consumers the widest fraud protection. By Federal law, a cardholder is only liable for the first $50 of an unauthorized transaction at most, with many issuers offering cards with zero liability. DEBIT CARDS Debit card holders are protected under a different law, the Electronic Funds Transfer Act. With debit cards, users' liability is capped at $50 only if they notify the bank within two days of realizing the debit card is missing. Beyond that, they could be responsible for up to $500 of a crook’s spending spree. And waiting more than 60 days to contact the bank could leave a user stuck paying every cent of the unauthorized charges.”

jjeaff 5y ago
I'm not sure if that distinction makes much of a difference since the vast majority of debit card theft is not via the physical card, but through skimming. Debit cards do have the disadvantage of your money being gone until the bank makes you whole. But I'm not sure if the liability is really any different (unless physically stolen and not reported, I guess).
gregmac 5y ago
This is one of the main reasons why I use credit cards over debit. If there's a dispute over a charge, I believe with debit cards the money is still out of your account until it gets sorted out -- this could be days or weeks. With credit cards, the money in dispute is not "owed" to the card company, and at worst it reduces your available credit by that amount, which is only an issue if you're spending enough to max your card out anyway. Even though the end result is similar, there's a bad feeling about the debit card fraud: It's my money tied up, while with credit it's the card issuer's money.
- adzm 5y ago
  FWIW I had fraudulent debit charges credited to my account the next day while under investigation. Though the experience was enough to pretty much stop using debit cards except for specific accounts that are not my primary.

phaedrus441 5y ago

> Credit cards also provide a nice hack to allow cash deposit for those with only online banks... Thank you, I had no idea about this! Going to seriously help me "deposit" cash since my bank's closest physical presence is two states away...

davchana 5y ago

Just a data point about your last paragraph, depositing cash to make payments. My chase atm card does not allow to deposit cash directly to any chase or non chase credit card. I have to put it in chase checking, and then I can use it for payments. Also, capital one, synchrony, amex does not allow me to pay more than 10% of my outstanding balance on their credit cards.

masklinn 5y ago
> Also, capital one, synchrony, amex does not allow me to pay more than 10% of my outstanding balance on their credit cards. Do you mean “in cash” or, like, as any single transaction?
- davchana 5y ago
  No, i mean if my outstanding credit card balance is $100 (statement or not, but outside of pending, means cleared), then Amex or Capital One apps does not allow payments bigger than $110 (minus any pending payments).
  - davchana 5y ago
    Oops, I meant 10% "over", or 110% of balance.

Asooka 5y ago

I just have two bank accounts. One I use to pay online, that I put money into myself, and another where I receive my salary. The most anyone can surprise charge me is about 60 EUR, because I don't keep more money in the online purchases account. The upside is that I understand all parts of how this works. I never managed to grok all the details about credit cards and their endless features. I just pay the bank to maintain two accounts with two debit cards, and it costs me the exact same amount every month.

vineyardmike 5y ago
> never managed to grok all the details about credit cards You should look at getting a charge card. Basically a credit card where you can't keep a balance. Its basically a pay-after debit card where you can not pay a charge if its fraud. Some have nice perks, but you can just ignore that if you want.

vel0city 5y ago

Can you further explain that cash deposit to credit card payment process through an ATM? I've only ever used ATMs to withdraw funds, never to make deposits, so I don't know what that process would look like or which banks would let me do that.

blacksmith_tb 5y ago
I had no idea that was an option, but I see BofA[1] supports it. Seems broadly less convenient than online, but I suppose better than needing to wait in line for a human teller. 1: https://www.bankofamerica.com/banking-information/assistance/credit-cards/making-credit-card-payments/ https://www.bankofamerica.com/banking-information/assistance...
- Talanes 5y ago
  > Seems broadly less convenient than online How are you paying cash online at all?
- flaviu1 5y ago
  I don't have a deposit banking relationship with any brick-and-mortar banks, so for me it's very convenient: I have a way to turn my paper money into electronic money.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  My credit union's app was very frustrating for depositing checks. Many reviews online said so, but apparently were ignored. So for a while I would go to an indoor ATM when I got a paper check which is not that often. Then I had an idea - I got a piece of black construction paper for a background and it was much happier taking pictures of checks on that.
bombcar 5y ago
Right before using phones to deposit checks, some of the more advanced ATMs would let you deposit checks directing via scanning (older ones would basically just take the check and a teller would handle it later).
5y ago

xivzgrev 5y ago

Credit cards are not a panacea. For subprime customers, debit cards are often more popular because they help ensure people spend within their limits.

TeMPOraL 5y ago

> At the end of the day, credit cards are still significant better for customers. (...) Yeah, I don't know. Thing is, I don't like the stress involved. I prefer to deal with the money I have, not with the money I hope I'll have in one month's time. Not to mention, the cognitive burden of constantly keeping in mind the various balances and expected money flows, and having to manually push money around. It all feels like working with an angle grinder without protective gear. My ideal credit card would be one that's automatically capped to the balance on my account, pays itself automatically, with no involvement on my part, and doesn't let any person that knows its number pay for stuff with it. Oh, wait. That's exactly what a debit card is. :).

leetcrew 5y ago
it's not like debit cards are extremely safe to begin with. banks (in the US, at least) will happily let you withdraw $XXX more than you actually have and charge you a fee on top of it. do you routinely overdraw your bank account? if not, you probably a) keep more than enough in checking to cover a typical month's expenses, or b) carefully track your balance to ensure each purchase won't take you past zero. unless having a credit card in your hand gives you an uncontrollable urge to spend more money than you have, I don't really see how this is any less trouble than a debit card. if you're not living paycheck to paycheck, just put the card on autopay and keep 2X your monthly expenses in checking. if you don't have a lot of surplus income, you need to be careful, but it's no different with debit.
- tacocataco 5y ago
  Some banks let you disable overdraft protection. Your card will just be declined when there isn't enough to cover the balance.
  - dguest 5y ago
    I thought courts had required banks to allow opt-out for a long time. Apparently more recently [1] this was expanded so that account holders have to opt in. [1]: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/overdraft-protection-expi_n_682825 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/overdraft-protection-expi_n_6...

Gargyle 5y ago

I am used to US credit cards and moved to Germany a few years ago. In Germany credit card chargebacks are very cumbersome. I had 3 banks' customer service tell me at first that it isn't possible (like they had no process for it or the agent never did that or is too lazy) and then the next agent said it works but has huge-list-of-drawbacks-fill-9001-forms-and-waste-days effort.

bitcurious 5y ago

So many stories here, I’ll add another. Bought an appliance from a vendor that advertised free installation, but on two occasions the tech refused to do installation because it was coded incorrectly in their system. Hired a contractor, disputed the cost.

floatboth 5y ago

> they also have different networks (not MC or Visa) Is that also some weird American quirk? Everyone I know has a couple debit Visa/MCs..