Debit/Credit Cards are Dinosaurs of financial industry that should have died long time ago.

Written by filip.poutintsev | Published 2018/09/17
Tech Story Tags: credit-cards | finance | payments | internet | money

TLDRvia the TL;DR App

But yet these abominations from the 80s which fit terribly with Internet are still here thanks to the oligopoly in financial industry.

Security

Debit/Credit cards have poorest security among all available payment methods. One can steal your funds simply by memorizes information written on your card or by taking a photo of it.

Safety

How can you call a payment method reliable, when any company to whom you ever given your card details can charge it at any time without your consent or knowledge?

Recurring payments

Recurring payments are solely created as a loophole for merchant to legally scam you out of money. For every month until your card expires.

Charge backs

A way for cardholder to get payback with merchants.

Totally not suitable for online payments

Why do you need a physical card when you make non-physical transactions?

Expiry date

What is the point to to replace your card with similar one every 3–4 years, especially when most of the time no new features are added?

Slow process of replacing your card

When ever your card gets lost, stolen or hijacked by fraudulent merchant you need to replace it and wait for few weeks until you get new one.

Troubles with online payments

Most of the merchants are so afraid of card scams that they will not allow you to pay online with virtual card or with card that is registered in different country than where you are currently located, which makes cards absolutely useless online.

Transaction limits

Even if you have lot of money on your account, the card will still have transaction limits of only few thousands $/€/£ per purchase and per day.

Can’t block merchant

There is absolutely no way to block fraudulent merchant if he keeps charging your card. The only way is to dispute all his transactions (and wait for few months) or to block your card and wait for a couple weeks to get new one.


Published by HackerNoon on 2018/09/17