So I have a card from my bank that’s hooked up to my checking account that I can use as either a debit card or as a credit card.
Unless I’m using an ATM, I use it exclusively as a credit card. Am I afforded all the protections of a normal credit card in this situation? Or is there some additional liability because it’s 1) both a credit & debit card and/or 2) hooked up to my checking account?
A credit card is one where you can make purchases and pay for them later when your bill comes, or pay it later and accrue interest. When the cashier asks you “credit or debit?,” they are asking whether you would like to use a PIN (debit) or signature (credit) to sign for it. This is not the same thing as a credit card, unless you have some special case, in which case it is probably just linked to a separate credit account. The term “credit” is just a convention. As far as protections, I have heard that signature provides more than PIN, although I’m not 100% sure if it is equivalent to a credit card.
Here in Canada, the banks have been rolling out the chip cards - both credit and debit have a microchip (obvious from the gold-coloured contacts) same as in Europe, and both work off a PIN. The theory is that a computer chip is a lot harder to counterfet than a recorded magnetic stripe.
The big disadvantage with a credit and debit card at the same bank is that if there is a dispute over a bill, the fine print says the bank can go into your acouts to retreive its money for the credit card when you are in arrears.