Comment by phil21
15 days ago
> In such transactions you're basically just inviting a company to take a cut for 0 added benefit
Simply not true. Every transaction with a card carries some risk of those cards details being leaked or even an innocent error being made by a cashier or clerk fat-fingering things. Some more than others, and you could maybe argue the risk is minimal - but it's there. Especially in the US where card transactions are less secure on average regardless of debit or credit.
Credit carries significantly more consumer protection in the US. Debit in theory has all sorts of legal protection, but as the other commenter states - in practice it's really spotty.
Even in your scenario of a burrito or grocery purchase credit is going to be much better. So long as you don't make a habit of chargebacks they are typically pretty automatic for most card issuers so long as you present a compelling case. If you're a "valued customer" you tend to get a few freebies before they start to really demand evidence of fraud for such things.
> If you're a "valued customer" you tend to get a few freebies before they start to really demand evidence of fraud for such things.
Just saying, your 'few freebies' is where you rip off a merchant. That's pretty much theft at that point
By “freebies” I meant a chargeback with few questions asked. As in they trust my side of the story and immediately refund the money. I’ve done it maybe three times in my life for exceptional circumstances where vendors either made a billing mistake they refused to correct, or engaged in outright fraud.
Other folks might have just as legitimate reasons to make a chargeback, but due to a low internal “customer value score” they will need to jump through a bunch of hoops a more “valuable” customer would not for the exact same situation.
I tend to agree chargebacks are taken advantage of far more than they should be - but my point is that the chargeback experience is going to vary drastically by demographic.
I was originally interested in Bitcoin 15 years ago because of the fraudulent chargeback problem. It’s interesting how times have slowly changed and chargebacks are starting to shift towards a benefit for the privileged due to the sheer amount of abuse from so many people. Basically we decided to tie them to a hidden credit score.