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Comment by antoncohen | Hacker News Reader

The debit card behavior is probably bank specific. I had fraudulent transactions on my debit card. The bank caught it after a few transactions, alerted me, and shutdown the card when I told them it wasn't me. I didn't get charged for any of the fraudulent transactions. I also had a restaurant charge my debit card for my bill and another customer's bill (honest mistake, not fraud). The restaurant wouldn't refund the transaction, so I disputed it with my bank, who reversed the transaction. The bank was fully set up to dispute debit card transactions from their website.

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It’s bank specific but the major difference is that with credit cards you are protected by law whereas with debit cards it depends on the whims of your bank and the contract you signed with them

You call it whims, but I don't know of any bank that doesn't offer those protections. Generally the terms are that you have to report it w/i 30 or 60 days. Maybe some of the smaller credit unions?

but like the other poster, I've had people try to charge me for things that weren't mine and I've never had the problems people seem to imagine exist with debit cards.

At this point I've concluded it's a marketing scheme by the CC companies that has convinced large swathes of society that debit cards are dangerous.

Not only that, but I would argue the false sense of security of CC's makes it so people are less safe in their habits.

>You call it whims, but I don't know of any bank that doesn't offer those protections. Generally the terms are that you have to report it w/i 30 or 60 days. Maybe some of the smaller credit unions?

That's been my experience as well. Although my bank almost always declines debit card transactions if I'm more than 50 or so miles from home, making the use of credit cards much more useful when I travel.

Sure, but why deal with that uncertainty? The money is not in your account until the dispute process finishes.

With a credit card, the money never leaves your account in the first place, at least until the bill is due.

Regardless, I know I'm legally protected with any credit card I use. With a debit card, it depends on the bank's fine print as to how disputes are handled.

It does vary by bank, but:

> The money is not in your account until the dispute process finishes.

That's not necessarily always the case.

I use a debit card for almost everything. I've been doing it this way for quite a long time now.

Both times I've filed a dispute over debit card transactions, my bank immediately put the disputed amount back into my account while they investigated the dispute.

It was inconvenient to deal with (as many things in life can be), but it was not particularly problematic.

> Both times I've filed a dispute over debit card transactions, my bank immediately put the disputed amount back

Your bank is nice, but relying on a corporation like a bank to be nice is risky and a fragile stance (they can change ToS any instant).

With credit cards, the protections are written into law (regulation) so you don't need to hope they're nice to you, it's actually guaranteed.

stop with the FUD, debit cards also have federal laws protecting them and banks typically offer stronger fraud protections than even that.

That would be nice, can you point me at that federal regulation so I can learn about it?

> banks typically offer stronger

That's irrelevant since banks can change their ToS.

But if you have a link to the federal law/regulation please share.

typical online alpha, you posted that challenge with full confidence didn't you?

lets see what ftc.gov has to say about it

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/how-do-i-get-my-mon...

oh what's that, there are federal protections surrounding debit cards?

imagine going into this conversation actually knowing what you're talking about.

/inb4 "I did some quick googling, let me explain how I'm going to try and change my argument to save face"

The tone of your comment is not welcome on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

However, I appreciate the CFPB link. Having worked in fintech I'm familiar with them.

The link does corroborate that debit card protections are weaker than credit card protections. They have with more aggressive reporting requirements (2 days) and higher potential liability ($500, or even as much as the full amount in some circumstances, though unlikely).

This document has a handy table that compares the protections side by side. As you can see, debit card protections are weaker. Scroll down to the table "Federal Protections for Unauthorized Transactions":

https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/are-credit-cards...

> They have with more aggressive reporting requirements (2 days)

between 2 days and 60. read it closer.

this is called backpedaling, as I predicted. we've now gone from "prove debit cards have federal protections!" to "but but but ... they're different!".

they're protected mr fintech family who had no idea.

> relying on a corporation like a bank to be nice is risky and a fragile stance (they can change ToS any instant).

Banks are a lot more tightly regulated that most other businesses, and (in my experience) don't generally have "we can change the ToS whenever we want, however we want" clauses in their customer agreements.

All the banks I've dealt with say they have to give you 30 days notice of any ToS changes, and with language like "if we reasonably consider that the change is favorable to you" (or similar).

If your bank has more leeway in changing its ToS on you, I would suggest having a look around at the terms other banks offer.

Banks have to hold up their end of the customer agreement (contract), and the terms of that agreement are enforced by contract law.

I've yet to see a bank's customer agreement wherein the contractually-defined protections for debit cards varied significantly from the legally-defined protections for credit cards. (I haven't made an exhaustive study of this, but I have read the fine print for every new bank account that I've considered.)

If you can find a customer agreement that is meaningfully different in this aspect, then: I'm all ears.

> Banks have to hold up their end of the customer agreement (contract), and the terms of that agreement are enforced by contract law.

Right, but they can change those unilaterally whenever they feel like it. Multiple times a year I'll get an updated terms of service document from this or that bank.

So you can point to a bank's a customer agreement that is meaningfully different in this aspect compared to federal requirements for credit cards, then?

Or maybe you're just spilling FUD?

Just because a thing can change, doesn't mean that it will. (It doesn't even mean that it has ever changed.)

But in the days between a fraudulent charge, and you reporting it, maybe you bounced a check... There is a difference between your account balance being immediately depleted by fraud and your available credit being reduced.

Is there? A credit card transaction can decline if you exhaust your credit limit. How is that different from bouncing a check?

debit cards also have legal protections. If you didn't know that then perhaps don't speak on things that you're not fully aware of.

And credit card protections are still better/more consumer oriented than debit cards (at least on the transaction level)

> I also had a restaurant charge my debit card for my bill and another customer's bill (honest mistake, not fraud). The restaurant wouldn't refund the transaction,

I know this wasn't the point of your story, but refusing to refund the transaction takes it firmly from "honest mistake" into "fraud" territory in my book. Oops, I accidentally stole your money, my bad. No, I won't give it back. WTF?

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