In addition to nominal fraud prevention (and how is any debit card better) there’s nothing better to claw back transaction fees, so what the fuck am I supposed to do?
I'm not saying debit cards are better at fraud prevention and response; I'm saying they're roughly equivalent. The downsides of credit cards are self-evident.
The downsides aren’t really self-evident to me. I’ve been using credit cards for everything I can for 35 years and I can’t think of any downsides. Even the cards I’ve had that had annual fees I chose to pay that fee because the benefits were worth more than the fee to me.
I can think of plenty of times where the upsides of having a credit card were realized though.
No, I don’t know of anybody who has a big credit card debt. I don’t think I’ve ever carried a credit card balance past my payment date.
I did have a six-figure debt to a bank and if didn’t make my payments they would take the house from my family! Much higher stakes than any credit card debt I’ve ever had.
I do have a debit card though and it’s actually not that different from a credit card. If I spend money not in my account I would get charged a $25 overdraft fee plus interest.
I think that's weird, because I can count off 6 or 7 just off the top of my head, people I know reasonably well, all of them well-educated, and smarter & better organized than I am. I don't really understand the argument we'd be having here: obviously, empirically, credit card debt is an enormous problem in the United States.
So maybe I’m wrong but the belief is that debit card protections are worse than a credit card in the US. I really don’t have the personal time to test this, but I do know that when I dispute on a credit card it is initially removed until proven valid.
Again maybe I’m wrong but I don’t agree they are equivalent. It sure fucking feels that way, the money isn’t threatened from my account.