We model credit worthiness largely on past payments of credit; which means that we are incented to use the system.
I don't see using my credit card as really "using credit." I use it as a charge card and pay every bill as it comes; so it's merely a (30-59 day) float. I, of course, have a difference financial capability than much of the US, and recognize that privilege. For many people, CC float is what let's them live paycheck to paycheck and is the first brick in Americans penchant for debt.
That being said; there is a huge benefit to many consumers having a short term credit facility. It's as if the CC industry made a micro loans initiative. (And then proceeded to abuse it).
Regardless of debit or credit the CC company always has responsibility if there is fraud. With debit I might risk having an empty account for a longer period of time after an incident though (Refunds might take a while).
> How do you pay the rent?
I'd use credit.
For consumers, credit vs debit is in theory about the same, in practice it's slightly different. The main difference though is consumer vs business. A business debit card attached to a checking account, is the same problem with fraud as the checking account itself, the burden is almost entirely on the business not the bank.
You must be speaking of something different such as "Visa electron" debit cards.
How is spending your own cash an advantage over spending someone else's?
In practice, that means you're paying more to the merchant, possibly quite a lot more in some cases. That 1-3% rebate is going to translate quite directly into a 1-3% increase in sticker price. That lack of liability if your card is lost or stolen is essentially a mandatory insurance scheme with everyone paying a premium on sticker price to fund it.
It's really no different to, say, all those offers to buy something on-line but then return it for a full refund if you don't like it. In industries like clothing, a significant fraction of customers will abuse this by doing things like buying some nice clothes, actually wearing them once or twice, and then trying to return them. Often the return will be accepted even though the merchant knows very well that the clothes have actually been worn and they can't restock them, because it's too much trouble to argue the point. The bottom line is that if you're that abusive customer then the refund deal is great for you, but everyone else is paying higher prices for your clothes to cover the merchant's wastage due to abuse.
Of course there are other advantages to digital payment in terms of keeping records of what you spent (and potential disadvantages in terms of privacy if others have access to those same records) but to me that's a separate issue to the direct financial implications of paying by different methods.
Retailers eat the cost in order to get the customers. Cc processors earn the cost. Banks, in order to get customers, pass some of the dough back to consumers in marketing and rewards.
So it's somewhat fairer now than it was ten years ago with similar fees but less rewards. But an economist would say that optimal would be to massively reduce fees and take away rewards.
No you don't. You only get it for online authorizations.
(And we actually have problems when visiting USA because some of our banks issue credit card with numbers printed instead of embossed.)
In these cases your issuer will learn about these transactions when the nightly batch job finishes. I don't think you want to get an SMS at that time.
Even if the authorisation is successful the final transaction may not happen, may happen at a different time or may happen over a different transaction amount.
Honestly I have no idea why I got downvoted.