To be fair most frequently people online use debit cards which can be frozen if something goes wrong.

What good is freezing a card (regardless of debit or credit) after something has already gone wrong?

Uh, debit cards are the worse as they (technically) don’t allow you to dispute charges like in a credit card. Money comes right out of your account first, and then you have to try to get it back.

Don’t use debit cards online.

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lxgr 5 hours ago | parent [-]

> debit cards are the worse as they (technically) don’t allow you to dispute charges like in a credit card.

That's a commonly propagated falsehood. Both legally (Regulation E) and practically (all large card networks require issuers to extend a zero-liability policy to debit cards), consumer protections are very similar.

The big difference is that, as you say, with a debit card you're potentially out the money for a few days, which can be unpleasant if it makes the direct debit or check for your rent bounce.

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lazide 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I once had an issue where they drained the account (transactions weren’t blocked by the bank until the account didn’t have sufficient funds), and it took the bank a full month to investigate and refund.

It’s not a trivial difference.

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lxgr 2 hours ago | parent [-]

That's unfortunate, and almost certainly a Regulation E violation on their side. They're supposed to provide a provisional credit within 10 business days.

	▲	lazide an hour ago \| parent [-]
		It was Wells Fargo, and many years ago. It could have been them violating it, or it might not have been a law yet. It was very irritating!