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Comment by capableweb | Hacker News Reader

Why not just debit cards? Pulls money directly from your account, you can only spend what you have, expenses are visible directly and works everywhere a credit card works. In many parts of the world, people basically use debit cards for everything, credit cards only for some cases.

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In the US, using a debit card frequently means that you are liable for fraudulent use, lost money, etc.

A credit card offers a ton of legal protection (stolen number is not your problem) and frequently other protections as a benefit. For example, anything I buy with my cc has the warranty doubled up to 3 years as a benefit.

> In the US, using a debit card frequently means that you are liable for fraudulent use, lost money, etc.

Sounds like the US needs to modernize a little bit then, I have the same protections with my debit cards, besides the extended warranty.

There are fraud protections on debit cards in the US as well, but the problem still starts with your losing your money, and you have to take action and time to get it back. With a credit card, the bank is out the money initially instead of you.

Last time I had a fraudulent charge on my debit card I went to the web portal, hit "Dispute/Chargeback" or whatever it said, it asked me for a reason, I answered "fraud" and it asked for details and blocked my card. Couple of hours later I had the money back in the account and a couple of days later I could pick up the card at the bank. Doesn't feel like a major hassle really.

That sounds like a hassle to me, and from the point of the fraudulent charge to the chargeback you could have been affected by bounced checks due to unexpectedly deplete funds. I don't see the value when you get complete protection, and 30 day free loans from a credit card for no cost.

Ideally this would be good, but it's bad advice today for anyone capable of paying off their balance monthly.

In the US, credit card companies charge 2.5% - 3% merchant fees on every swipe, and their agreements forbid merchants from passing these costs on to customers. The net result is that merchants raise their prices for everyone to cover the cost of the credit card fees. Essentially, even if you're paying in cash currency, you're still paying a sales tax to the credit card companies.

The only way you can avoid this tax is with a lucrative rewards card. Anything else you do -- pay by debit card, check, cash -- will result in you paying a sales tax to the credit card industry.

Sounds like legislation has failed then, when credit card companies are effectively forcing people to use credit cards because otherwise they'll have to pay this fee. And if they do use credit cards, they get a fee too.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Businesses issuing credit cards are not forcing people to use credit cards, merchants not offering a lower cash/debit price are encouraging people to use credit cards.

For example, Target in the US gives you 5% off for using ACH (which debits your bank account).

But other retailers, like Walmart and Home Depot, are betting that people spend more if they use a credit card to buy.

> In the US, credit card companies charge 2.5% - 3% merchant fees on every swipe, and their agreements forbid merchants from passing these costs on to customers.

That's out of date. Since 2013 merchants have been able to surcharge for using credit cards since 2013 (except in places where it is illegal). Here's a Q&A from Visa about this [1].

There are five states (Colorado, Connecticut, Kansas, Maine and Massachusetts) where state law makes credit card surcharges illegal.

Even before that they could effectively surcharge by offering a discount for not using a credit card. (That also works in the states that ban surcharges).

[1] https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/surcharging...

(Beaten to it, woops) One of the major upsides of a credit card is that in the case of fraud, mischarge, etc your bank account isn’t affected while you get things sorted.

From what I understand many debit cards do have fraud protection of some sort but among other things it’s not instant so if the timing is bad…

debit card requires you to have the full amount available at the time of payment. safe credit/charge card usage only requires that your monthly income exceeds your monthly expenses. most people get paid biweekly or monthly. if you have enough surplus income, you can just maintain a bigger buffer in your checking account to offset this, but it's nice to not need to.

> debit card requires you to have the full amount available at the time of payment

Yes, and for many, this would be a benefit rather than a drawback, as it forces them to wait and acquire the funds for the purchase before doing the actual purchase. Purchasing things with credit and then not being able to pay it back would put you in a worse position, in most cases.

yes, I get that. some people can't consistently balance a monthly budget. but you asked why not use only debit, and I gave you a reason. for people that can manage a monthly budget, a credit/charge card is strictly better, even if you don't take cashback/rewards into account.

From the (US-based) user perspective: better buyer protections, non-negligible rewards

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