Out of curiosity, how do European banks avoid this issue? In the UK we have a system of Direct Debits that is popular particularly for making recurring payment

Out of curiosity, how do European banks avoid this issue? In the UK we have a system of Direct Debits that is popular particularly for making recurring payments like household bills or subscriptions. You provide your bank account numbers to the merchant and they can collect the required money directly. It sounds like a huge opportunity for abuse by merchants but the easy setup is balanced by a universal Direct Debit guarantee for account holders that basically says if any erroneous charge is made then you get your money back from your bank first and questions are asked later. Merchants are required to provide all customers who pay this way with certain information about the guarantee scheme (and everyone actually does). That in turn sounds like an opportunity for abuse by customers but having personally run a business that accepts Direct Debits I can tell you that we have never seen a single abusive reversal of a Direct Debit payment. In contract we've had a few problems with legitimate charges to cards being reversed later and the whole system around chargebacks with credit cards seems to be unreliable for both merchants and cardholders.