MY VERY FIRST AMEX!

[FrugalRican]

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@KeithW wrote:

The debit cards though have fraud protection through Visa or Mastercard. I have $0 exposure to fraud with it.

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You are at the mercy of your bank's policies when it comes to that.

You might have fraud protection "through" VISA or Mastercard, but in reality, it's the bank that answers to the fraud, not VISA nor Mastercard unless it was a breach within their internal system, and even then, it's up to your bank to refund the bank. VISA/Mastercard is just the third party card issuer that your bank bases their network upon.

Your money is YOUR money in the bank.

With a credit card, it's not YOUR money, it's money loaned from the provider, so any fraud is done technically to them and not to you.

With a debit card, you could lose thousands of dollars and may never get that back.

With a credit card, you might have to pay $50 at most.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather have a credit card compromised rather than an account with all of my life's savings possibly attached to it.

[Anonymous]

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@FrugalRican wrote:

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@KeithW wrote:

The debit cards though have fraud protection through Visa or Mastercard. I have $0 exposure to fraud with it.

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You are at the mercy of your bank's policies when it comes to that.

You might have fraud protection "through" VISA or Mastercard, but in reality, it's the bank that answers to the fraud, not VISA nor Mastercard unless it was a breach within their internal system, and even then, it's up to your bank to refund the bank. VISA/Mastercard is just the third party card issuer that your bank bases their network upon.

Your money is YOUR money in the bank.

With a credit card, it's not YOUR money, it's money loaned from the provider, so any fraud is done technically to them and not to you.

With a debit card, you could lose thousands of dollars and may never get that back.

With a credit card, you might have to pay $50 at most.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather have a credit card compromised rather than an account with all of my life's savings possibly attached to it.

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+1  Even though most banks will fully cover fraud as long as it's reported quickly enough, the investigation could take weeks.  Many times your account is credited right away, but you could end up waiting a long time before your account is reimbursed, all the while unable to pay any bills.  Credit cards are much safer because it is the lender's money that has been stolen, not yours.  During the investigation, you may not have access to some of your credit line, which is much better than not having access to your money.

[KeithW]

I didn't realize there was a difference between a Visa debit and a Visa CC. I had some fraud once but my bank had it sorted out in 48 hours. I tend to only put the bare minimum in my account. They give me $1000 in overdraft protection at no cost so if I go over I just transfer the money into it from my other account the following day. It seems to work out pretty well over the past years.

[haulingthescoreup]

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@KeithW wrote:

I didn't realize there was a difference between a Visa debit and a Visa CC. I had some fraud once but my bank had it sorted out in 48 hours. I tend to only put the bare minimum in my account. They give me $1000 in overdraft protection at no cost so if I go over I just transfer the money into it from my other account the following day. It seems to work out pretty well over the past years.

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Debit cards are probably OK under these circumstances, where your exposure is limited.

Where it gets tough is if your card is on your main account, where your rent/mortgage, utilities, phone bill, etc etc etc are drafted from, and where your paycheck goes via direct deposit. It can be a nightmare if your bank isn't a good guy and won't reimburse you until weeks of investigations go by.

That happens way more often than how your bank acted, so congrats on that one!

It would be a pain, though, if someone went ape with a fake debit card and hit that $1K overdraft. Ouch...