Beware! Debit cards and Restaurants...

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I am starting this because my mom told me about a news story concerning debit card safety. Plus, I have worked in restaurants, and so have many people I know, and we agreed that this is a real "danger" to you. When you eat out do you use a debit card?? This is probably the least safe type of payment you can use at a restaurant. If you use cash, you of course only give what you owe and get your change. IF you use a credit card, and any fraudulent charges show up, most credit card companies will investigate them and not hold you accountable if they are found to be false. But in the case of debit cards, most banks will still hold you accountable on false charges. Even if they don't, it will be a hard fight to get them to erase the charges (been there done that; most banks I and people I know deal with are just not flexible when it comes to arguing over charges with them). Debit cards are a problem at restaurants because of a few more reasons: 1) The person must take the card away from your table to use it. This will allow them a chance to write down card numbers in privacy where you can't see them. 2) Restaurants have high turnover when it comes to servers. Many servers who take your order will move on to other jobs and other cities possibly, and you may not be able to track them down if something happens. There are cases now of former restaurant servers collecting long lists of debit card numbers, then moving on and using them to buy things. 3) As mentioned above, if false charges show up on a debit card, it might be a long and hard (possibly futile) fight to get your bank to take them off and eat the charges themself. I don't mean to say that all restaurant employees would do this, but police are saying it is getting more common. It might be safer to just go with the credit card or the cash.