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by mrtksn 263 days ago
Having a credit card requires some amount of trustworthiness. Anyone can get a debit card, they even sell it in supermarkets.
4 comments

Normally in supermarkets they sell prepaid cards which are distinct from both credit and debit ones. Visa and Mastercard support all three types.
You're confusing debit with prepaid; they are classified differently and merchants can determine one from the other.
This is not the case of debit cards in Europe. Debit cards are tied to bank accounts. Most people only have a debit card or don’t even know what a credit card is (or what the difference is). We just call them “cards”.
You can buy debit (or more accurately prepaid) cards in supermarkets in Europe too (which is a big and relatively diverse place, so just because that is/was not a thing in the countries you're familiar with doesn't mean it didn't exist).
Prepaid cards are a separate category of cards to debit cards.

Plenty of places allow debit cards that don’t allow prepaid cards.

They’ll give a credit card to just about anyone. It will just have a low credit limit and extra high interest.

Most people who have terrible credit have still have credit cards.

Debit cards are from banks, not supermarkets. A debit card is backed by a checking account, typically.