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Comment by iMerNibor | Hacker News Reader

As a european my question is exactly the opposite, why would you ever use a credit card if you can just pay directly with the money you have?

The concept just seems to bizzare as someone who has grown up with their country specific bank cards - getting a credit card or even a visa/mastercard debit card is something fairly unusual.

I do realize you american people have to build a credit score and there's cashback schemes. Very different cultures I guess

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Well one reason people use credit cards a lot in the US is that it is much easier to dispute a payment charged to a credit card then it is a debit card. Additionally a charge on a credit card is not money you currently have it is more potential money, whereas a charge on a debit card is tied directly to your bank account and can take a while to be returned in the case of fraud. At one point you used to be basically SOL if fraud occurred using your debit card.

The concern over fraud goes the other way in Europe. We don't like the "pull" model and worry about our card number being used without our authorization. Debit card payments usually require card presence and PIN for each transaction, making stuff like that impossible.

>Debit card payments usually require card presence and PIN for each transaction

Presence and pin? How does that work online? Even if it's pin only, aren't you still screwed if you get phished?

Not for online, for physical purchases. Another fundamental/SHOCKING difference between Europe vs USA is that when you pay with your card in a restaurant in Europe, the waiter brings the POS over to you, while in the USA the waiter disappears with everyone's cards for 5mins ;)

Not good security is it? They can take their time to scan/photograph the cards etc, while in Europe the card's details are for seconds and right in front of you.

Online payments usually go through something like 3DSecure, where you get redirected to your bank and need to authorize the payment amount with a digipass or card reader, which require a PIN.

Yup - credit cards offer incentives (for example, 2% cash back) - I can't think of any good reason not to get one and have it set up so that it automatically deducts the balance from your bank account once a month - this makes it effectively a debit card where everything you purchase is 2% cheaper.

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