Comment on I’ve been locked out of PayPal for years because of their mistake
Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 3 months agoAre girocards like debit cards or something completely different?
I just checked and I assume you are Austrian. Worst case scenario hop over the southern border and open an account here. ¯\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_/¯
But almost sure you have something similar there as well. We are in Europe after all and banking is jot stuck in the 19th century like in the US.
Jean_le_Flambeur@discuss.tchncs.de 3 months ago
Well girocards will give the shop the permission to make a one time withdrawal of the amount displayed on the screen, if that money is in your account. If the money isn’t in your account, the payment will not go through. Also if the shop wants to make a second withdrawal, you need to insert your card again and enter your (secret) pin again, they can’t choose what’s charged an when (only before you insert your card an pin, and only THIS transaction will be authorized).
Its a pretty secure system, as (as long as the card terminal isn’t hacked) you can’t spend more than you have, you don’t need to trust shops to only withdraw the agreed amount, and they can’t charge you a second time. Also the spending shows up on your account balance normally within 1 or 2 days.
From what I understand credit cards just let anyone make withdrawals of any amount, as soon as you know the numbers written on the card. So not only you need to trust the shop to withdraw only the correct amount, you need to keep track over you spendings really good, because they could just charge you an arbitrary amount of money on an arbitrary company name months after you gave them your details. Also from what I understand (normal) credit cards just will always work, and if you pay more than you have you just automatically accept a credit contract you need to pay back to your bank. Also (years ago, don’t know if still true) payments get charged to your bank account on bulk at the end of the month, which makes security and not spending to much even harder.
Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Ah okay so it is basically just a debit card. You see the terminal say for example 30€ and once you authorise that the 30€ are transferred from your account to theirs.
Unless there is some bog difference between giro and debit cards.
Jean_le_Flambeur@discuss.tchncs.de 3 months ago
Yeah, sounds like its the same. Do debit cards also have a pin (so you can’t get money put of people once you have stolen it or they put it in your terminal once?)
Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Not sure what you mean exactly but yes debit cards usually have a PIN. You have to use it anytime you interact with an ATM or you insert the card into the POS. The only time PIN isnt needed is when the POS has The option for contactless payment. Then it is witout PIN until I think 50€. But at least my bank you can block the card from the banking app if you get the card stolen.