Job Discussion Forums

Gawain · Joined: 26 Jan 2005 Posts: 66 Location: California

If I live and teach in identity-theft capitols in East Europe or South America, I would not use credit card, just use:

Visa debit card linked to my USA bank account.
American Express traveller's cheques.
ATM cash from my USA bank account.

Is that possible? Will some hotel or hostel or border guard or landlord demand a credit card and tell me a debit card is not good enough?

I don't have any credit card, only a debit card. I know someone in China who had all her money stolen via identity theft. Must I get a credit card even though I don't want one?

Any info or stories? Anyone live overseas without credit card? Razz

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

I haven't had a credit card since my university days. My wife likes them, and we have a joint one now to travel on.

Which South American cities are identity-theft capitals?

Gawain · Joined: 26 Jan 2005 Posts: 66 Location: California

Well, in your case you do have your wife's card for hotel/ landlord/ emergencies. I'm wondering if I have to get a credit card.

The famous identity theft capitols are in East Europe. I just figured we must exercise caution against all forms of theft near South American favelas.

On the Prague forum I read: Prague is the center of identity theft, yet Czech immigration border guards force you to give them your credit card number just to get a visa. Would you trust a border guard in East Europe with your life savings? No way!

A few years ago I was refused a hotel room in San Francisco for not having a credit card. Had to take a taxi 20 miles all the way back to the airport to stay in a Motel 6, which never asks for a credit card.

I imagine some hotels. landlords, and border guards insist that you have a credit card, not just a debit card. Is this true? Any stories?

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

If you fly into certain countries on a one-way ticket, immigration officials may ask you to show a credit card as proof of having sufficient funds for onward travel. Maybe this is why the Czechs ask for it?

In Mexico, it is difficult to rent a car without a credit card. It is also very hard to book flights over the net or phone without one as well as book hotel rooms.

I guess 'identity theft' is a worry everywhere. I think you can probably live without one if you are worried about it, speaking for South America anyway.

lajzar · Joined: 09 Feb 2003 Posts: 647 Location: Saitama-ken, Japan

I have a credit card, and, except for Internet purchases, I have never needed to use it in any of my travels.

Outside the USA, it easy to live a productive and fulfilling life and never touch a credit card.

go_ABs · Joined: 08 Aug 2004 Posts: 507

denise · Joined: 23 Apr 2003 Posts: 3419 Location: finally home-ish

I'm with lajzar--I only use credit cards for online purchases from the States. And even then I'm much more likely to use my debit card. I don't think I have ever used my credit cards in Japan. I don't recall using them in Prague, either. Not for a visa, not on cross-border trips, not in hotels, etc.

d

tedkarma · Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 8:47 am Post subject:

Someone who really knows might want to pitch in on this - but my understanding has always been that you don't have anywhere near as much protection with your debit card as you do with your credit card. Your credit card is basically a loan and subject to all the laws and protections that come with it.

My understanding is that your debit card is not well protected and if someone charges up 2-3-6 thousand bucks of jewelry (as they did on my Visa CREDIT card) - it is possible that you may NOT be able to get it reversed - as is so easily done with your credit card.

I've had to replace several cards in the last few years - I travel a lot and have never had a problem with Visa or MasterCard when I called them on a fraudulent charge. Just keep an eye on your account online. Remember where you shopped. I think I helped them bust a place in Kuala Lumpur last year. The only place I used my card was a camera shop in the airport - next thing you know thousands of bucks were charged in Sweden of all places! And . . . they said the card had been swiped through a machine there - but I had the card in my pocket - so someone had copied the entire card! Wow!

Anyway - it has long been my understanding that those protections do NOT apply to a debit card. But have no data to prove it to you. All I know is that the credit card companies have always been very cooperative.

Better check, eh?

dajiang · Joined: 13 May 2004 Posts: 663 Location: Guilin!

Like guy said you only actually need it when sometimes you fly into a place on a one-way ticket and you need to have proof that you have enough financial resources.
Otherwise it's useful when booking airtickets online, but you can pay in other ways too.

I take one, but hang on to it carefully in a shoulder-moneybelt, next to my passport. That way it's pretty bloody impossible to get pickpocketed and well if you're robbed you can't do much about it anyhow.
But you can block these cards easily enough.

ATM card is the best thing, and just have some cash behind for rainy days. like 200 bucks to see you though emergencies. I don't take travelers cheques anymore. Bloody things are nothing but trouble.

Take care,
Dajiang

ls650 · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 3484 Location: British Columbia

I have a credit card, but I've only used it once in the last year - to purchase an airplane ticket. I've always thought of it as an emergencies-only backup.

Justin Trullinger · Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:11 pm Post subject:

Haven�t had one myself for several years, and relatively few problems. Don't need one for most hotels, car rentals (You'll have to leave a bigger deposit, though) or much of anything except online purchases.
Most countries where I've been will accept a recent bank statement instead of a credit card at the border. (Need a considerable positive balance, of course!)
The only serious problem I've had was when I got stuck in La Guardia, and had to rent a room for the night. They looked at me like they'd never SEEN cash before.
Justin

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

I know exactly what look you mean. I got the same one in Chicago some time back when I pulled out US green to buy a laptop. The look is somewhere between "what the hell is that?" and "who the hell are you?"

GambateBingBangBOOM · Joined: 04 Nov 2003 Posts: 2021 Location: Japan

If you're out of your country for quite a while, you may be forced to not have a credit card, because North American (or Canadian at least) banks are loathe to give out cards to people who aren't in the country (and if pushed, they will say that because you have no Canadian income you are not eligible for a reissue of your card- even if you have been using it and paying it off every month). Then you can find that you need to try to get a credit card in whatever country you are in, which of course is problematic b/c a lot of the time, you are legally not a permanent resident of the country, and so they don't want to give you one either.

I've only used my credit card in Japan for online shopping, and if I was to redo it, I would be tempted to give the credit card company the address of a relative, so that I'd automatically be reissued a card to that address and it could be forwarded from there. (I eventually managed to get a reissue of my credit card, but I had to talk to ever increasingly higher management level people, and then the reissue has an early expiry date).

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

California seems to be a new candidate for UNO membership; it must be an outlandish and exotic place of which I haven't heard before, and whose natives don't know the world.

I have never in all my life owned credit cards or debit cards. I have visited over 100 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe plus one Northern American country.

I normally have traveller's cheques which have been accepted in every single country I have been to, including the former Soviet Union and the most primitive countries in Africa.
In Europe, you normally can use credit cards and TCs as well as cash. If California has banks that do international business, you might be lucky in that you can perhaps purchase euros for your trip to Europe.

Norman Bethune · Joined: 19 Apr 2004 Posts: 731

It's very easy to travel anywhere in the world without credit cards, with the possible exception being North America.

North American Hotels love the things as a method to ensure a customers identity and ability to pay for any damages to their room. Payment, should a customer flee without notice is guaranteed because they have a credit card number.

The situation outside North America is very different. Cash is king. Pay up front for a hotel stay with maybe a drivers liscence or passport as proof of identity and all is well.

Most samll business and people the world over prefer cash in hand rather than a promise made by some stupid piece of plastic that the bill will be paid at a later date.

And let's face it. When was the last time a street vendor or small shop in Karachi or China had a credit card reader for the convienience of its customers. Amex and Visa don't deal with the kind of small businesses most travellers encounter.

Big businesses love credit cards. A sucker with a credit card, just because he has one, will usually spend more money on impulse items or things which he really can't afford at the time. But that credit card in his pocket gives him the illusion he can afford to spend more...it just means he'll be paying for whatever he buys today for many more tomorrows.