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Comment by duiker101 | Hacker News Reader

In Italy, Debit Cards are also the norm and still verified with Avis if they were accepting them and they confirmed they do. And yet, when I tried to pick up a car in Milan with a debit card, I was told that they don't allow debit cards and therefore I could not pick up the card and they would be keeping the money I paid for the whole week.

I will NEVER use Avis again and encourage everyone to do the same. !00% Scam company.

After the whole ordeal I called again and their sales department insists that they accept debit cards.

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I thought the usual deal about the debit cards and rental has been that one can pay with the debit card on returning the car, but needs a credit card in own name for renting the car.

Still, the credit card may be needed in case of unpaid tolls/ parking tickets, which may get posted after a few weeks.

Btw, quite commonly in the US the debit cards have a Visa (MC) logo, so may be charged as such without the need for PIN. Only cash withdrawal will require a PIN. But I guess the card number identifies these as debit cards nevertheless.

I used Avis in Italy many times, and don't remember that it ever were possible to get the car without a credit card. Actually, it's in their FAQ:

https://faq.avisautonoleggio.it/Res-Channeling/Reservation-E...

In short, the translation is: prepaid cards (and only certain types, not Electron/Cirrus/etc) can be used to pay online only, and another card among those accepted (i.e. a credit card) should be presented at the desk.

The UK version of the FAQ tells basically the same:

https://faq.avis.co.uk/1492093922

"PREPAID cards are accepted online however they are not accepted at the counter which means a non-PREPAID card must be shown at the rental station (together with the PREPAID card)"

Should have recorded the call to use in your fraud case to charge back the money with the help of your bank

Had it been a credit card one could do a chargeback based on service not provided. But on a debit card.. good luck.

Always use a credit card for your own safety.

> Had it been a credit card one could do a chargeback based on service not provided. But on a debit card.. good luck.

Can you elaborate? I live in europe and basically all mc/visa are actually debit cards. Yet i never had an issue with chargeback. In fact they always warn that it may take a long time to process with mc/visa. But the next day the bank refunds me the money tentatively already, presumably because they're confident i'll win?

> I live in europe and basically all mc/visa are actually debit cards.

I doubt that is true, can you expand on that with some references?

I know there are many cards which are both a credit card and a debit card but that just means two cards in one package. But credit and debit are still fundamentally different networks with different rules. A debit transaction hits your account right away and the money has been taken out. A credit transaction settles later and can be paid from any source, it is not tied to any specific account.

Its debit cards but with a mastercard/visa logo.

Even for big purchases/traveling credit cards are not that common.

> I live in europe and basically all mc/visa are actually debit cards.

That's not true. I'd expect that most of the credit cards are MC/Visa, and there are more debit cards in EU than credit cards, and among debit cards there are many debit MC/Visa, but that does mean that "basicall all mc/visa" in Europe are debit cards.

Edit. Found some stats. https://ec.europa.eu/competition/sectors/financial_services/... "Report on the application of Regulation (EU) 2015/751 on interchange fees for card-based payment transactions".

Page 24, Fig. 5 and page 25, Fig. 6. Debit cards in EU in 2016: 78% of the transactions are with domestic schemes, 99.5% of the rest were MC/Visa. Credit cards: 68% used domestic schemes, 94.3% of the rest were MC/Visa. It's not the most recent data, but still proves the point.

In other words, MC/Visa were used a lot both as credit cards, and as debit cards.

I actually have. I'll see if I can post it

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