Debit card fraud pulls money straight from your checking account, and your bank can take 10 business days to return it. A fraudulent credit card charge is the issuer’s money while you dispute it, and federal law caps your loss at $50. Pay with a credit card you clear each month, and keep debit for the ATM.
Card numbers leak through skimmers, data breaches, and phishing, usually without warning. What you control is which card the thief ends up with.
Federal law treats the two cards differently. On a credit card, the most you can owe for unauthorized charges is $50, and nothing if a thief uses only the number. On a debit card, your protection depends on speed. Report a lost card within two business days of noticing and your cap is $50. After that it rises to $500, and if you wait more than 60 days past the statement showing the theft, you can lose everything taken, and possibly more.
Even when you’re covered, the timing differs. Stolen debit money is gone from your account while your bank investigates, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says banks generally get 10 business days before they must return it temporarily. Rent and autopay bills can bounce in the meantime. A disputed credit card charge stays the issuer’s problem, and you owe neither the charge nor interest on it during the investigation. Visa’s zero-liability policy covers most debit cards too, but it’s a network promise with conditions, not federal law, and Visa’s own timeline for replacing the money is five business days.
Put everyday purchases on a credit card, especially at gas pumps and online, and pay it off in full each month so the protection never costs you interest. Save the debit card for cash withdrawals at an ATM. Turn on transaction alerts for both cards and report anything strange the same day.
Pay with the card that puts the bank’s money at risk instead of yours.
Editorial & Advertiser Disclosure: The editorial content on this page is not provided, commissioned, reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser. Opinions expressed here are ours alone, not those of any advertiser. The offers that appear on this site are from companies that compensate us. That compensation may influence which products we cover and where and how they appear on a page – including the order in which they appear – but it does not influence our evaluations, ratings, or opinions. We do not include every company or offer available in the marketplace.
Related:
