Originally Posted by
Kacee
The other thing is there's no fraud protection. If your account is compromised, the bank has no obligation to make good the loss.
That may be true as far as federal law goes, but both Mastercard and Visa offer protection against unauthorized charges on debit cards.
I've had debit cards stolen and all it took was a phone call to my bank to get the money back. Obviously YMMV depending on your bank and card, but debit cards aren't NECESSARILY as bad as they used to be.
(I still wouldn't use one if you have access to a credit card.)
As others said, any authorization uses up credit on your card until it clears. With a credit card, that's not usually a big deal as you're just reducing the amount of credit you have available on the card. With a debit card, because your 'credit' is the amount of money in your account, an authorization ties up your cash until it clears.