I have two of them. Statement balance is automatically paid in full each month to zero balance. Doesn't cost me a dime. Then I get Visa and AMEX gift cards from my points that I earned each month. So credit card companies are paying me to use their cards.
Same. I have my CostCo card and my Amazon card, plus a couple of backups without an annual fee that I never use but I have for emergency use.
If you have the money to spend you don’t need to use it on credit and risk getting those high interest rate charges.
Why? Debit cards never have interest and have all the same functionality as a credit card.
Interesting. I am not sure if credit cards have all those extra bits over here (they probably do) because its been so long since I had one. I use a debit card from a company called Revolut (not sure you guys have that over your side) and I get lounge passes, no FX fees, free trading on shares (under a certain value), international travel insurance and other bits and pieces, including not having to worry about interest rates. I pay like 99 bucks a year for it.
So that's interesting the narrative about how your money is not safe if you use a debit card. This is misinformation at its best and you won't see any bank trying to correct it either (which in my opinion it should be their legal obligation to do). Your money is protected by your bank - simple as that. The nature of the protection is different between credit cards and your bank account (which your debit card is a key to). You are covered for theft regardless of what you use - where things get murky is if you buy something using your debit card only to find out it was a scam, you can run into trouble with charge backs. But if your account is hacked and your money is spent without your consent you can deal with the bank to get your money back. The difference with credit cards is that it is not your money until you use it - so if you can prove you didn't use it (aka in a scam situation) you don't need to concern yourself about charge backs.
Then they wouldn't exist. It absolutely should not be illegal. However, they should lower the interests rates dramatically. While the rates don't impact me since mine is auto paid in full every month, those that are making minimum monthly payments should not be subjected to 20%+ rates and needing 40+ years to pay it off.
Who covered the government to save banks from going bankrupt and forgiving them instead of letting capitalism play its roll of Darwinism in said environment should work for the people too.
