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I prefer a debit cards. Makes it easier to track my spending, and no risk of overspending.

Plus, probably lower fees…

> My bank indeed issues a real MasterCard but the monthly fees are unreasonable added on top of my already expensive checking account fees and it has very crappy app where trying to temporarily (un-)block my card needs calling their support and waiting in line while amex app gives me these features immediately on app.

Get yourself an N26 account/card if it bothers you too much. It works as a Mastercard (still the "Debit" kind though), has no account fees and you can do basically everthing from within their app.

What you describe for your particular Amex card isn't a real credit card either. That's a charge card. Germany doesn't do real credit cards much (if at all?)

It does, he could get one from Hanseatic Bank for free, DKB had a proper credit card for years (now with s fee). They are mostly fee-ridden, since germans don’t like them very much (cultural thing?) and they are offered as an extra.

Beside the culture (losing everything twice in the last 100 years),

I think money transfer plays a big role. Germany never had a culture of cheques and switched from money to money transfers early on (before WW1), so most stuff in Germany either I pay by money transfer ("Ueberweisung") or a company takes the money from my account ("Bankeinzug") - like mortages, cars, rent, electricity, travelling etc. In the US credit cards partially replaced cheques (and added credit, duh!), which was never something in Germany. The only use of cheques in Germany were traveller cheques when travelling - and then only to get money at the hotel.

Even for the catalog business people payed by invoice and money transfer (and the catalog companies gave you credit).

What is left, like groceries, is often paid in cash.

It's a total difference of point of view.

In Europe, banks don't like you taking out credit cards. Borrowing money is viewed as a weakness and it's best to never do it.

In America it's considered a virtue to have many credit cards and shuffle them so you can be seen to pay it off. Really weird.

Credit cards have a crucial benefit over debit cards: they add a layer of indirection to my bank account.

Steal (or mischarge) my credit card, run up 10k in charges, no problem. No money ever comes out of my bank account and I dispute the charges/report the card stolen.

Steal my debit card, run up 10k in charges...there's 10k gone out of my account until the bank resolves the situation.

Here they won't let you dispute charges. There's no purchase insurance included either. Or those cashback awards like you get in the US.

> In Europe, banks don't like you taking out credit cards. Borrowing money is viewed as a weakness and it's best to never do it.

Don't know about that, "Europe" is a big place. Credit cards are pretty common in the UK at least, and stuff like balance transfer cards (for shuffling) are too. Maybe not to American extents, but hardly a weakness.

In fact, looks like more people in Iceland, Norway and Switzerland own credit cards than the US: https://www.statista.com/statistics/675371/ownership-of-cred...

Well the UK is a similar state to the US.

I don't believe this about Switzerland though. They are a very typical people that abhors spending money you don't have. But I think they may be counting debit cards there.