A warning for frequent debit card swipers

by Kim Fusaro, Little Miss Fortune, Glamour, on Tue Oct 27, 2009 8:02am PDT

It may be time to defrost my frozen credit cards.

It turns out that using a debit card for every purchase—which I’m so guilty of!—is a bad idea.

From the smarty-pants over at ShopSmart, here are the do's and don’ts of using a debit card:

DON’T use debit cards for big purchases. They don’t offer the same protection that credit cards do. Credit cards allow you to reverse or dispute charges, and some will even extend the length of warranties.

DON’T use a debit card online. If you use a credit card, your liability for unauthorized charges is capped at $50, no matter what. If your debit card is lost or stolen, it must be reported within two business days to limit liability to $50. If a lost or stolen debit card is reported within 60 days, liability can go up to $500. If an unauthorized transaction is not reported within 60 days of the statement date (and the card hasn’t been reported lost or stolen), you’re on the hook for charges made after the 60th day until the report is made.

DO click on “credit” and sign for payments instead of giving a PIN. Card companies might extend the same zero-liability protection to debit cards as they do to credit cards if the debit cards are processed like the latter, but PIN transactions might not have that protection.

DON’T link your debit card to an account with a lot of money. Thieves can empty your debit-card-linked checking account, so keep just enough in the account to cover current purchases.

Eek! I’m guilty of all of the above! Regularly!
How ’bout you guys? Who else has broken these rules? I better not be the only one!