In Europe, most cards are debit cards, not credit cards.

In some countries and places, credit cards are not even accepted because of the possibility of a chargeback and much higher processing fees.

In essence, many people here treat Visa / MasterCard as just "electronic cash", and therefore spend only the money they actually have.

In my own EU country, only about 1% of private bank customers own a credit card. These are usually the wealthiest people in the country, who have no problems paying the balance back on time.

The credit cards themselves provide very few benefits apart from the international health insurance for the entire family, and 0% fee for up to 45 days.

The reward programs are almost non-existent. Just like the general idea of spending the money one doesn't have.

It might sound like a very conservative society, but people here are a way more relaxed about their personal finances than in the US.

Instead of trying to earn reward points, they try to plan their expenses upfront, and focus on staying debt-free as much as they can.

That's because most Europeans have stable jobs with stable salaries which can neither grow, nor decline by a lot. Therefore, almost nobody expects to become very rich or very poor, and lives accordingly.

I exclusively use my credit card (in the US) for all payments that I am allowed to, which is most. I also pay the balance off in full each month. I pay $0 in fees and $0 in interest charges, and the bank pays me about $1,500/year with a cash rewards program, so I end up making $1,500/year by using it. I just wish I could pay my mortgage with it. I did buy a car for my daughter on it (and went home and paid it off a week later). That was a nice chunk of change. The only actual debt I have is my mortgage.

I don't claim to be a typical credit card user, but I do like to game their system and make money off of them (paid for by people NOT paying their balances off monthly and racking up dumb fees). I don't see a downside to it. It's not like they're getting more data on me by using a rewards card. They already know all of the purchases I make with them.

I would probably do the same, if I lived in the US, because that's how the entire country is optimized to operate.

At the same time, I am glad that the EU provides a more conservative alternative and style of living.

I think the US is more about getting rich, and the EU is more about not becoming poor.

And for a money-savvy person the US might provide much more opportunities than the EU can.

Yet, the majority of people are not money-savvy, and the "high risks, high rewards" game inevitably produces more losers than winners.

Hrmm, many people in other areas only spend money on credit cards they actually have too. I was also curious about the dispute resolution feature of the card itself. It is my primary reason for a CC (rewards are just a perk) so I don't have to rely on government institutions with limited incentive to go to bat for me when the card acceptor did me wrong.

I never heard of anyone disputing his Visa / MasterCard payment in my country.

That's probably because people pay online only at a very limited number of places they trust, and it's easier to solve issues with the local merchants directly.

Another reason might be, that many online payments are made via direct bank tranfers / SEPA, which can be both, fee-free and instant, across the entire EU.

Essentially, everything is based on trust. Nobody puts his debit / credit card details into a form of a website he never heard before, and nobody risks his business reputation if he has managed to earn it.

It's pretty short sighted to think you can trust your "debit" card number with any online merchant nowadays. I wouldn't shop online, or even at physical stores for that matter without the safety net a credit card provides. I don't mind paying the extra bit on top for this protection (which is negligible due to rewards).

I definitely wouldn't use a debit card if I lived in the US, just because of the general atmosphere of "suing and disputing" everyone and everything, if something goes wrong. But debit cards work just fine in the EU, where governments take proactive steps to protect consumer rights, and an average consumer is rarely expected to fight for himself. I have personally never had to.

I can dispute a charge on my debit card just as I can dispute it on my credit card. Disputes get harder for payments made using my pin, but any charge from an internet payment is trivial. I can also dispute any SEPA-withdrawal. The best option for a merchant is pre-payment via SEPA transfer initiated from my side. That’s pretty hard to dispute.

You can dispute, but the big difference between credit card and debit card is that on credit card, each transaction is insured through the merchant fee. Mastercard and Visa's rules also specific require the card lender to repay a disputed charge in full, regardless if they can manage to reverse a transaction or not; the same is not the case for debit cards (even if they are branded with the Mastercard/Visa logo).

what??

what makes you think debit cards are less safe than credit cards? as far as I know here in EU all debit cards are smart cards with PIN code protection, what exactly is the unsafe part?

are you confusing debit cards with magstripe cards?

I know that with credit cards money lost is the credit card's company, and there's a fair number of protections to keep consumers from paying that bill in the case of fraud, but with a debit card money lost would be directly from a bank account, and there seems to be less. Is there more fraud protection for bank cards in the EU?

In France, for all banks I know, you can call, say "starting this date, all activity on my card is fraud", and you are refunded, no questions asked in the vast majority of cases. This seems quite enough for me.

Ah, so you do have those sorts of protections.

In my country, it's possible to get the money back if somebody charged your debit card without your knowledge, but not if you approved the payment yourself. In such case, you are expected to solve the issue with the merchant yourself. Just as you would be, if you had paid in cash. Which seems to be reasonable considering that the maximum allowed debit card fee in the EU is 0.2%.