Why Americans love credit cards so much is a mystery. In Europe debit cards have been the way to go for a long time. Most countries in Europe also have direct payments through mobile apps.
I really don't get why this is so hard for some people to understand. It's simple: when I pay with a credit card, the money is still in my possession. If the merchant screws up or there is fraud, I can dispute the charge and get resolution without any money leaving my bank account.
On top of that, I get cash back and other benefits/rewards from using a credit card (like extended warranties and insurance on the things I purchase). Yes, these things make purchase prices go up for everyone, but if you don't play the "game", you're leaving money on the table.
Most merchants do not pass credit card fees on to card-using customers (so you don't save by using debit or cash), though that practice has increased over time. Certainly if/when that becomes the norm, I'll have to decide if the benefits of using a credit card are worth the cost.
Because they live outside the United States. In some other countries all bank card transactions include the level of fraud protection that is only reserved for credit card users in the US.
In the United States checking/debit consumer protection is weaker. The legal minimum banks have to do depends on how quickly you notice a suspicious transaction. If you report it within two days your liability is capped at $50. If more than two days have passed your liability is $500. If more than 60 days have passed since the statement was sent fraud loss liability is unlimited.
When you go to file a fraud claim the bank must provide a provisional credit for the amount of the transaction but they may reverse this if they decide it was not fraud. It depends on what state you're in, if you used a branded (Visa/MC) debit card, the bank, the representative's interpretation of all the applicable rules, your prior chargeback history, etc.
With credit cards the legal maximum is $50. And the fraudulent transactions are drawn on a line of credit (soft money) not the contents of your bank account (hard money). The United States has a powerful oligopoly of payment network operators who lobby to maintain high interchange revenue. This de facto shifts the cost of credit cards onto those who don't have them. Instead of annual membership fees for the actual users, merchants pay about 2% of card transaction volume instead of 0.3% in the EU.
I forgot that credit cards comes with insurance in some places. Most apparent is that you can't even rent a car in some parts of US without a credit card. In EU that type of insurance may be included in the legally obligated housing insurance.
Credit cards provide protections that debit cards do not, in particular related to skimming-adjacent losses. Europeans: Realize that chip-based transactions are relatively new in the USA, and we still have places that do not have chip-enabled POS (primarily I've seen it lacking at car washes, but it was only in the last couple years that my gas station started, allegedly, doing chip -- it still takes the whole card AND asks you to remove it quickly).
Buying things that are not needed with the money one doesn't have = credit cards. That's the beauty of credit cards. It increases the spending in economy. With debit cards, one has to spend within their means.
And I think CC users (and more in general, the US populace) are more used to having debt.
If you use a debit card, nothing needs to be paid back or remembered. With a credit card, you have to make sure that every month you clear your debt, otherwise you're starting to incur juicy fees -- this is what banks hope for! If you do clear your debts faithfully, you're having free very short terms loans every month..! But, being human, circumstances can happen where a monthly debt repayment does not happen, and then: kaching! But many people do not pay everything back every month, and this is a good money maker for banks.
Consumers are also forced to pay for it, though. The transaction fee in the US is routinely 2-3%, while in the EU it's capped at 0.3%. Because of borderline anti-competitive behaviour from VISA and Mastercard, that fee is also not charged separately to creditcard-using consumers but integrated in the price, so everyone pays for it.
Britain has/had a credit card culture in some ways similar to the USA, and the direct debit system explained in the article is usually used to pay the balance in full every month.
I think that's the same for credit cards in most of Europe. (They exist even if they aren't popular.)
