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I only use my debit card. No problems. When I am at the cash-out and the card is rejected, that means there are not enough funds in the account.
I have had enough problems with credit cards, thank you very much. Now when I make a purchase, it is paid for with money I actually have in an account.
I am not well off financially. In the past it was always so easy to pull out that credit card and run up quite a balance, thus the bankruptcy last year.
I do not want that to happen again. It was my own poor judgement and I don't want to go through that again.
This morning on the local news there was a brief story about how to use your cards safely. One was to never use an outdoor ATM or gas station, etc. I think if you pay attention to what you are doing, try to adhere to the safe vs unsafe uses of them, you will be OK.
I also look at my account every few days and the balance always matches.
nothing is a problem with a debit card until it is a problem . recently our tv show 7 on your side had to try to go to bat to get a couples money back after the bank denied reimbursing their account . they used the "failed to protect your pin " clause to deny them .
i would never use a debit card despite the claims of no liability . there are to many clauses that go with that . 2x i had my checking account hacked , once through the banking system as they used my card and pin on a card that was never used . then one day somehow bitcoins were being debit through a card never used .
so i had no problem getting paid because they saw there was nothing to investigate , these cards are never used to buy or pay for anything .
but the debit cards fall under different rules then credit cards despite what the issuer wants you to believe .
nothing is ever a problem -until its a problem .
the reality is that banks cannot refuse a refund because, on the balance of probabilities, it feels there may have been fraud. It has to prove negligence or fraud, yet in many cases they are now turning down refunds where they have suspicion only. who needs to deal with that crap when a simple credit card prevents it .
I quit using debit cards a number of years ago. My card kept getting compromised and fraudulent charges appearing. They like to steal debit card information because apparently it is easier. I think it was getting compromised on online retailers as well as restaurants and gas stations in tourist areas. Every single time I went to the beach in Florida and used my debit card it would get compromised. The biggest problem is it comes out of your bank account and can take a little time to get sorted out. It is especially bad, when they use your debit card information to go on a shopping spree at a jewelry store in another country. That actually happened to me.
I switched to credit cards and pay everything with them. I had them get compromised a couple of times and narrowed that down to some of the careless retailers that do not keep their website security up. I started using paypal payment when it is available for paying online and that has almost completely solved my problems. Not that it was a big problem because I have notifications set up on my credit cards and I immediately get notified on my phone of every single charge to my cards. If one does get compromised, I know it immediately and open the app and shut the card down and let them know so they can change my number and issue a new card. I haven't even had to do that in a couple of years now.
My bank-account habits wouldn't play well with the use of a debit card, because I keep the majority of my money (what there is of it, LOL) in a savings account and only transfer funds into my checking account when I write checks. I want to keep most of the $ in the account that is paying the highest interest (again... whatever paltry amount that interest happens to be.) I got into this habit back in the Good Old Days when savings interest rates were between 5% and 7% and checking accounts weren't paying any interest at all. I see no reason to change my habits now.
There's no way I'd want to give a 'card' any kind of direct access to my savings account, which would mean I'd have to open a separate account just for a debit card (in case the account got hacked via the card), and remember to fund THAT account..... ugh, why make my life more complicated?!??
Much easier to just use a credit card (for which I earn points that I use to shop on Amazon) and write five or six checks a month (for the cards and my utilities.)
I also separate my three credit cards: One is only for my two recurring monthly auto-pay items, one is for online transactions only, and one is for in-person swiping only. All three cards earn rewards through the same "system" and I can transfer points from one card to the other for redemption. Only one of the cards offers Amazon gift cards as a redemption and so all the other points get swept onto that account every few months.
We have a separate isolated fidelity account that serves as the bucket .. it does not show links to the core we use at all should that core be compromised . This way the core has some money but the bulk is held off the grid in what fidelity calls a z-account . They can do this for you by request
No more debit cards needed to get cash from an ATM. I get an access code on my iPhone, good for 30 minutes, punch it in at a Wells Fargo ATM, put in my PIN, get the cash, no skimming of my card, no card.
will have to start doing that
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