[AdieuToLogic]

This is not an accurate description of the difference between credit cards and offline debit cards with regard to disputed transactions.

In both cases, fraud disputes are handled in the same way. Either the issuer or the account holder suspects fraudulent transactions and the bank engages an investigation in order to determine veracity of the claim.

Where things differ is that the onus of proof for credit card accounts is on the merchant to prove the transaction is legit. When an offline debit card is used, the funds are deducted from the account when the merchant captures funds and, therefore, the onus of proof lies with the card holder to prove it is fraudulent.

Liability, in this context, is non sequitur as fraud claims exist in either scenario and one party or the other must provide proof to support their position. The other, by definition, is responsible for said funds.

I'm not really sure what you mean regarding "a reversible ledger", as this has nothing to do with credit card transactions.

EDIT: clarified liability phrasing.

[tyingq]

It's not really that simple either. For the US, there are different paths for liability limits, reporting periods, etc, for the different combinations of credit vs debit and card-present vs card-not-present and Visa vs Mastercard. The rules are a mix of various consumer laws like "Truth in Lending" as well as Visa and MasterCard policy. There are areas where Visa and MC differ in policy.

Your note about "onus on proof lies with the cardholder" is less true for Visa, for example.

The best resource I've seen is this one: https://www.minneapolisfed.org/~/media/files/about/what-we-d... See pages 6 through 18.