[minimax]

Agree with everything you said. Credit cards have useful consumer protections baked in. What happens when you look at it from the merchant's perspective? Lets say someone buys something from me with a card, I ship it out, but then it turns out the card was stolen. Who takes the loss? The merchant or the credit card company? I guess what I'm trying to figure out is whether or not the irreversibility of a transaction might be a good thing for merchants dealing with fraudulent buyers.

[steveklabnik]

Generally speaking, the merchant takes the loss. It would be a good thing for the merchant, except then, they wouldn't have any buyers. I know I wouldn't use a financial instrument structured like that, especially when there's a plethora of ones where I don't hold that liability.