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You missed the biggest advantage of credit cards - the limited liability of the card holder to fraudulent charges! From a financial website… “ CREDIT CARDS Cr

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.
nostromo 5y ago
I got burned by Aliexpress and now I highly recommend people use credit cards for all purchases. I had a debit card saved on Aliexpress. The account was compromised by unknown means (maybe public wifi). Someone bought several $1,000+ phones from China that shipped to me in the US. I presume the sellers were in on it and were selling me unwanted inventory at inflated prices. Because they had tracking information, my bank (HSBC) said their hands were tied and I lost several thousand dollars overnight. It didn't matter that it was obviously fraud -- I provided customer service emails, logs showing the purchases all happened at 4am local time, and all at the exact same timestamp. Moral of the story: don't use debit cards, don't save your cards online (save them in your browser and unselect "save this card"), don’t expect your bank to have effective fraud detection, and don't trust Aliexpress to have your back.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- 101keyboard 5y ago
  My Citi Dividend 1% Cash Back card allows me to create Virtual Cards for such things. Any other cards anybody can recommend?
  - pishpash 5y ago
    Capital One has that, and Paypal.
    - PhantomGremlin 5y ago
      Capital One has that Sort of. Do they still require using Chrome for that feature? Fuck Google, I'm not about to use them for that!
      - 101keyboard 5y ago
        Use Chromium. Also you should use several browsers anyway.
- 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
zucked 5y ago
I've taken this one step further and I now use a full-on burner credit card. It has no autopay or reoccurring payments associated with it so I could light it on fire and not be too upset about it. I' have all my autopayments set up on a specific card that never leaves a drawer in my house. End result is that when the burner card gets compromised, as it does several times a year at gas pumps and such, I toss it out, get a new one and it's not all that painful. The autopayment card has yet to be compromised. I wish it were easier to get temporary card numbers without giving someone else access to my purchase data.
- dsizzle 5y ago
  I don't get it - you fully cancel the card? Or do you mean you just get the credit card to issue a new one? If that's the case, then I don't the "burner" aspect. That's just normal usage. If the former, what advantage does that provide? Is it not in your name? If there's some fraudulent charge but you just bail on the card rather than go through the normal process, it looks like non-payment and affects your credit.
  - toast0 5y ago
    Paraphrasing a lot, I think the advice is to have one credit card for scheduled payments and things, and not take that out of the house. That way if your out and about card gets replaced, you won't need to go through and update all your scheduled payments.
    - jkubicek 5y ago
      I can't be the only one that uses my once-every-18-month credit card cancellation to help me track down the services that I forgot I had subscribed to.
      - toast0 5y ago
        Unless you're dropping the account completely, it's not super effective, because card issuers participate in services to update your subscriptions to newly issued numbers.
amelius 5y ago
> Credit cards offer consumers the widest fraud protection That's for consumers, but what protection do I get on my company credit card?
quantisan 5y ago
Frank Abagale (most known in Catch Me If You Can) has said that > Every time you use [a debit card], you put your money and your bank account at risk. > > Instead, use a credit card. I use one for practically all of my purchases, even when I’m traveling abroad. With credit cards, federal law limits my liability if there’s an unauthorized use of my card. > > When I use a credit card, I’m spending the credit card company’s money every day until I pay my bill at the end of the month. Meanwhile, my money is earning interest in a bank account. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/27/debit-cards-are-dangerous-warns-fraud-expert-and-ex-con-artist-frank-abagnale.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/27/debit-cards-are-dangerous-wa...
rendaw 5y ago
Isn't a lot of the risk of fraudulent charges, etc. due to bad credit card design decisions and outdated technology? Is this something we should be grateful for?
- herbst 5y ago
  Yes it is. In Europa we use 3d secure some kind of 2fa for credit card payments (online at least, in RL most still use their maestro kind cards) and fraud is more or less a non issue. Accepting credit card as merchant for years now I only had 2 fraud issues, both using American credit cards.
nobody9999 5y ago
>You missed the biggest advantage of credit cards - the limited liability of the card holder to fraudulent charges! An excellent point. Although my bank (Chase) caps my debit card liability at $50 despite the difference in the law. But that has its own disadvantages. Whenever I travel, if I use the debit card, I invariably get declined the first time I use it and my phone and email blow up with "Fraud Alert!" notifications. Which is annoying as hell, especially since if I use a credit card for the same transaction, Chase doesn't flag that as fraud. Which, of course, is related to how they indemnify my debit card above and beyond the law.
PeterisP 5y ago
> "he biggest advantage of credit cards - the limited liability of the card holder to fraudulent charges" - in the USA, and IIRC also in UK, but not in general; in many countries there is no legal difference in cardholder liability between credit cards and debit cards.

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.

nostromo 5y ago

I got burned by Aliexpress and now I highly recommend people use credit cards for all purchases. I had a debit card saved on Aliexpress. The account was compromised by unknown means (maybe public wifi). Someone bought several $1,000+ phones from China that shipped to me in the US. I presume the sellers were in on it and were selling me unwanted inventory at inflated prices. Because they had tracking information, my bank (HSBC) said their hands were tied and I lost several thousand dollars overnight. It didn't matter that it was obviously fraud -- I provided customer service emails, logs showing the purchases all happened at 4am local time, and all at the exact same timestamp. Moral of the story: don't use debit cards, don't save your cards online (save them in your browser and unselect "save this card"), don’t expect your bank to have effective fraud detection, and don't trust Aliexpress to have your back.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
101keyboard 5y ago
My Citi Dividend 1% Cash Back card allows me to create Virtual Cards for such things. Any other cards anybody can recommend?
- pishpash 5y ago
  Capital One has that, and Paypal.
  - PhantomGremlin 5y ago
    Capital One has that Sort of. Do they still require using Chrome for that feature? Fuck Google, I'm not about to use them for that!
    - 101keyboard 5y ago
      Use Chromium. Also you should use several browsers anyway.
5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

zucked 5y ago

I've taken this one step further and I now use a full-on burner credit card. It has no autopay or reoccurring payments associated with it so I could light it on fire and not be too upset about it. I' have all my autopayments set up on a specific card that never leaves a drawer in my house. End result is that when the burner card gets compromised, as it does several times a year at gas pumps and such, I toss it out, get a new one and it's not all that painful. The autopayment card has yet to be compromised. I wish it were easier to get temporary card numbers without giving someone else access to my purchase data.

dsizzle 5y ago
I don't get it - you fully cancel the card? Or do you mean you just get the credit card to issue a new one? If that's the case, then I don't the "burner" aspect. That's just normal usage. If the former, what advantage does that provide? Is it not in your name? If there's some fraudulent charge but you just bail on the card rather than go through the normal process, it looks like non-payment and affects your credit.
- toast0 5y ago
  Paraphrasing a lot, I think the advice is to have one credit card for scheduled payments and things, and not take that out of the house. That way if your out and about card gets replaced, you won't need to go through and update all your scheduled payments.
  - jkubicek 5y ago
    I can't be the only one that uses my once-every-18-month credit card cancellation to help me track down the services that I forgot I had subscribed to.
    - toast0 5y ago
      Unless you're dropping the account completely, it's not super effective, because card issuers participate in services to update your subscriptions to newly issued numbers.

amelius 5y ago

> Credit cards offer consumers the widest fraud protection That's for consumers, but what protection do I get on my company credit card?

quantisan 5y ago

Frank Abagale (most known in Catch Me If You Can) has said that > Every time you use [a debit card], you put your money and your bank account at risk. > > Instead, use a credit card. I use one for practically all of my purchases, even when I’m traveling abroad. With credit cards, federal law limits my liability if there’s an unauthorized use of my card. > > When I use a credit card, I’m spending the credit card company’s money every day until I pay my bill at the end of the month. Meanwhile, my money is earning interest in a bank account. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/27/debit-cards-are-dangerous-warns-fraud-expert-and-ex-con-artist-frank-abagnale.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/27/debit-cards-are-dangerous-wa...

rendaw 5y ago

Isn't a lot of the risk of fraudulent charges, etc. due to bad credit card design decisions and outdated technology? Is this something we should be grateful for?

herbst 5y ago
Yes it is. In Europa we use 3d secure some kind of 2fa for credit card payments (online at least, in RL most still use their maestro kind cards) and fraud is more or less a non issue. Accepting credit card as merchant for years now I only had 2 fraud issues, both using American credit cards.

nobody9999 5y ago

>You missed the biggest advantage of credit cards - the limited liability of the card holder to fraudulent charges! An excellent point. Although my bank (Chase) caps my debit card liability at $50 despite the difference in the law. But that has its own disadvantages. Whenever I travel, if I use the debit card, I invariably get declined the first time I use it and my phone and email blow up with "Fraud Alert!" notifications. Which is annoying as hell, especially since if I use a credit card for the same transaction, Chase doesn't flag that as fraud. Which, of course, is related to how they indemnify my debit card above and beyond the law.

PeterisP 5y ago

> "he biggest advantage of credit cards - the limited liability of the card holder to fraudulent charges" - in the USA, and IIRC also in UK, but not in general; in many countries there is no legal difference in cardholder liability between credit cards and debit cards.