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As a rule, I only use credit cards. I have a debit card for the sole purpose of using ATMs.

In the case your card is lost or stolen, you aren't liable for any fraudulent purchases and the most important thing - you haven't actually lost any money; only the credit card company has.

I'd hate to have to jump through hoops and wait a month to get my money back. For a large percentage of the population, losing a couple grand quite literally means they can't eat or pay the rent that week/month.

Credit is great!

For many card transactions the credit card company would issue chargeback in the case of fraud for the merchant, which will end up losing money and paying additional fees. So the losing party is frequently not the CC company but the seller.

Losing credit can be a problem too, especially if one has regular bills coming through credit card, which are not problem regularly, but if part of the credit is frozen by the fraudulent activity, this may become a mess. I'm not sure how all banks behave during a fraud dispute, but they very well may reduce credit by the disputed amount until the dispute is resolved, even without the owner having to pay anything.

I'd argue that having a blocked credit card is FAR more manageable than a blocked debit card and this is precisely why I almost always only carry credit cards (I also move my income into an investment account from my cheque account as soon as I'm paid, less expenses expected in the next week).

Firstly, most recurring billing systems are built with credit card failures in mind - the card can expire or be listed as a hot card, for instance, and needs to be updated. This has happened to me and you are not penalised in any way. I've also, once or twice, gone over my limit without the card being rejected - the bank seems to give me some sort grace credit. This is fine by me since any fraudulent transactions on a credit card are claims against me that the bank needs to prove. I can switch to another credit card if that card gets marked as a hot card.

Secondly, a debit card is usually linked to a cheque or savings account. If it's a cheque account you could end up incurring overdraft charges which totally screw you over and mess up your standing with the bank; if it's a savings account, you're screwed out of your savings while the bank investigates and returns your money (bank I worked for until recently stated that it takes SIX WEEKS to investigate when a friend's debit card was cloned... that's a lot of lost interest).

This is a persistent myth, but it's not really true. Many banks offer equivalent protections for debit cards as on credit cards.

It's not a really a "myth". Both have zero or a small amount of fraud liability (i.e., they give you back all of the money, or all but say $50 of the fraud). But! If you have fraudulent activity on a credit card, you're out that much credit until they remove the charges. If they do that much fraud on a debit card, you're out that much cash out of your checking/savings account until they credit your account back.

I'd much rather have one of my credit cards less usable for a day or two than have the account I use to pay a lot of bills from drained for a day or two

I have two normal accounts. One of them gets my salary and pays all of my bills. The other one has a cash/debit card.

The one with the card has no overdraft and I only load what I expect to need onto it at once.

Totally agree. I know it's a different situation in Europe/Asia in regards to debit vs. credit card usage, but I transact almost exclusively on credit unless it's under $5 because:

1) Cash Back - I get about 3-5% back on all of my purchases which adds up to a few hundred dollars a year in cashback money. 2) Fraud and Price Protection - I've had my card stolen twice and in both cases, I just reported the lost card and I had zero liability. I also have AMEX that gives you price protection and a longer warranty for free on things you buy. 3) Credit Building - You need to build credit so having at least two credit cards in good standing with a long account history is important. This makes financing a car/house much more easily later in life.

However, if it's debit you lose cash and it can take up to several weeks for it to be refunded.

I know this is true in theory, but is it true in practice? I've had two debit cards used for fraudulent transactions (one a Visa debit issued by a local bank, the other a MasterCard debit issued by PayPal) and in both cases the money was returned within hours of my reporting the missing cash.

When you have bills to pay, having to deal with the worst case is not a fun prospect.

I don't know what it's like elsewhere, but here in Australia my Visa Debit card has exactly the same transaction protection system as a Visa Credit card.