I always wondered why (at least in America) credit cards have more consumer protections? It's essentially the same way to use money, if someone steals from your credit card you're protected, but if it's debit card, it's not? Why?

Credit card fees in America are >2%, debit (and CC) is limited to <0.3% in Europe. So it makes sense for credit card companies in America to take the occasional loss and give out all those gimmicks as long as it keeps people paying mini-VAT on every purchase.

That's before you get into the whole "you gotta build credit" perversion that has Americans go into debt en masse and pay horrid fees on that.

If you are in a relatively healthy financial situation, you can also profit off of the system with many of the rewards card benefits in the last several years. One example of this is: https://reddit.com/r/churning

> It's essentially the same way to use money, if someone steals from your credit card you're protected, but if it's debit card, it's not?

Debit cards have some protections; the basic difference is that a credit card is spending someone else's money, which you have to pay back to them if it was actually authorized by you; a debit card is spending your money, which you can recover from the bank in certain circumstances if it is accepted to be unauthorized.

Actually some banks (if not all, I only really know about my own case with BofA) have protections with debit as well. I left my debit card in an ATM in Peru and someone took it and tried to buy jewelry. They succeeded in two purchases before being declined in the third (I assume for invalid PIN). They alerted me that there were some weird transactions and I was able to recover all $1200 that they spent on my card.