Well if this isn't the most timely post I've ever found. I just had the details from my debit card stolen on Sunday and the attached account completely drained. It's so cool to be reading about how part of this process works.
I even have two completely separate checking accounts, at two different banks. One is only used at ATMs, and the other is only used to pay my CC bill. Neither are ever used online or at any physical merchant.
The branch manager showed me photos of the skimmer gear and the police report. It was made to look like part of the ATM housing. She said over 200 customers were ripped off in one weekend.
Even though they knew it was their own machine that was compromised, it still took almost a month and many hours of phone calls and letter-writing to get my money back.
I suppose you have to be a bit more careful about these things with how easy the internet makes it to steal cards and sell the info to somebody else who can exploit the stolen card info with less risk.
The primary difference is in the case of fraud on a debit card, you don't have access to the stolen funds until your financial institution issues a provisional credit. (They have a short statutory time frame to do this.)
Credit card fraud recovery is mandated by the federal government.
Credit cards use the bank's money on credit. Most credit card users are only liable for $50 in damages.
Someone spent $2,000 at Comcast and Neiman Marcus on my card in one night. I reported it the following day and it was reversed and I was given a new card the same day.
I would love more information from a banker on how the fraud disputes are won. Sometimes the merchant pays, sometimes the bank pays, sometimes it split in percentages. I know it has to do with how the merchant processed the payment or if a pin number was used for the transaction.
A conversation with a banker revealed that the common trick here is for thieves to attach cameras to ATMs to grab details, and then build mimic cards to drain accounts. The bank was pretty cooperative in processing my claim, and said they should have the money back to me in about 45-180 days. So, that's kinda lucky.
I'm going to be extra observant at ATMs from now on though.
What you do gotta look out for is forgetting to add money in, but if you get a bank that is good about not allowing overdrafts to occur you can mitigate overdraft fees.
Anyway, yeah you might be safer with a credit card, but then you have a credit card.
This shouldn't be seen as a bad thing. Like anything else, a credit card is just a tool. It can be used productively, or abused.