If someone fraudulently or mistakenly charges my debit card $5,000, that's $5,000 gone from my bank account until I get it fixed.

If someone charges $5,000 to my credit card in error, I've got 30+ days plus to resolve with zero financial impact to me. If it doesn't get resolved in that time, I have the option to not pay the bill (or that portion of the bill), knowing that if the error is fixed, the penalties and interest will be waived.

Have you experienced that? There's limits on charges on debit cards, usually ~2000 Euros. Credit cards are higher but then again they also have the credit limit and won't go beyond that in most cases.

I haven’t experienced it personally, but I know someone who used a debit card for their utilities on auto-pay. Gas company said they damage their meter so they replaced it and auto-debited their account for $2,500. They had to borrow money from friends until it got fixed and the money refunded.

> If someone fraudulently or mistakenly charges my debit card $5,000

in my case payment will fail due to spending limits (though repeated small charges would go through)

In my experience, chargebacks with a debit card (in Europe) are a pain in the ass.

The banks themselves seem to be against it so they made me write emails explaining the situation, give the seller more time (1 month not enough) and then wait another few weeks for processing.

With a credit card (British), they just did it -_-

And let me mention how a SEPA payment means your money is gone unless the seller themselves agrees to refund.

Because at least if it goes wrong, the money being used isn't actually your money until you pay the CC bill. That $2500 is still sat in your account.

Spiral of debt is only a risk if you have no discipline.

For those of us that do have discipline, CC's are great.

In the US debit cards have terrible charge back, and even then, if the merchant doesn't follow through, you're the one who needs to fight for it, where as with a CC it'll be them doing the fighting.