alt Hacker NewsYou are young, you want to use a credit card to protect yourself and build credit history.
Using a debit card, in the event of fraudulent charges, the money is already gone from your bank account and now you are negotiating with your bank to get it back. With a credit card, you file the claim and its generally resolved before your statement closes and anything is due. Your card will also be immediately cancelled, so if its your debit card you will lose ATM access while awaiting the new card.
This will happen to you many times over the course of your lifetime, maybe every 5-10 years. Usually when a number is stolen, they speed run getting as many $1000s of charges in before the card is stopped, which would drain your debit card account.
Credit history is also important. If you don’t have a credit card and build basic credit history before your first job, you will have trouble signing a lease without a parental guarantor.
Replies
This varies a lot between countries and cultures.
For example in New Zealand, EFTPOS cards are very popular (similar to debit cards, but issued directly by our banks so no user fees ever - the merchant pays for the machine and that's it). People usually have all 3 - an EFTPOS card for most in-person purchase (although online EFTPOS is gaining adoption), a debit card for online or paywave-only places, and a credit card for large purchases/ emergencies. Credit cards here are highly unpopular among the under-25 age bracket; most young people just have EFTPOS and debit.
I think this might be a result of our stricter banking regulations compared to economies like the U.S.; it's difficult for banks to offer tempting enough rewards schemes to entice people to credit cards. Additionally, there is much less of a borrowing culture - most people will only ever properly borrow money once - buying a house. Paying cash for cars is the norm, and purchasing anything else on finance is seen as stupid compared to just saving the money (and earning the interest yourself).
I am young, but not so young as that. I do have a credit card, I just don't use it for anything except the monthly cost of server hosting (to keep it in use). Despite its disuse, I have an "exceptional" credit rating, probably mostly due to the age of the account. So I appreciate the point about credit history, but my habit of preferentially using debit doesn't seem to have been to my detriment on that front.
As to fraud protection, I agree, but as noted in another reply, I wish I understood why the protections afforded to credit don't also apply to debit. There must be some systemic reason for it that I'm unaware of. As it stands, my best guess is simply that "it's a perk to entice people to use credit".
That has not been my experience at all. I've been using debit cards for all my everyday non-cash purchases for about thirty years now, and it's worked just fine. I expect to keep doing it indefinitely.
I have had exactly one encounter with fraud: a vindinctive ex-girlfriend stole my card info and had herself a little shopping spree, emptying my checking account. I walked into the credit union branch, filed a report, and walked out with $300 and a new card. All the stolen money was restored within a few days. It was not a big deal.