Thursday, April 26, 2012

Will that be Debit or Credit?

The Consumerist describes 5 Situations Where You Shouldn't Use A Debit Card,
  1. When shopping online or making a large purchase:
    If you use a credit card you may be able to dispute a damaged or missing item from your order through your credit card company. Some credit cards also offer extended warranties.
  2. While traveling:
    Some credit cards offer services when traveling like insurance coverage and concierge services.
  3. When worried about begin ripped-off:
    With a debit card you must report fraud within two business days of discovering the problem or you can lose up to $500. With credit cards, you're loss is limited to $50 for unauthorized purchases.
  4. When you want to raise your credit score.
    Debit cards won't help your credit history.
  5. When you want to earn money on purchases.
    Most debit cards are cutting back on rewards to save money.

Labels: , , , ,

2 Comments:

Blogger Tiffany Wacaser said...

According to Dave Ramsey's book Total Money Makeover, "Visa's regulations require the member bank to afford the debit card the exact same protections in cases of theft or fraud. . .
The former policy required that you report fraudulent activity within two business days of discovery.. . With the new Zero Liability policy, you're no longer required to report fraudulent activity within two days, and you're not responsible for any fraudulent transactions made over the Visa network." (pg. 41)


And from Visa's website, this is a description of their Zero Liability Policy.

http://usa.visa.com/personal/security/visa_security_program/zero_liability.html

I don't know if Mastercard has a similar policy. But I do know my debit card is a visa, and according to their website, I don't have report fraudulent activity within 2 days.

I would be interested if you looked into this further.

April 30, 2012 at 8:27 AM  
Blogger Gary W Kibble said...

That may be unique to Visa. I have not researched the question.

April 30, 2012 at 10:12 AM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home