Is there something similar to privacy.com in Europe so I don’t have to enter my credit card information everywhere? Or another way to buy stuff online privately on many different stores and websites?

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3 points
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Do people in europe use credit cards? I remember hearing it wasn’t popular as much as the US. Isn’t debit more common?

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10 points

It mostly depends where. French use it for almost anything, even more since COVID. On the other hand, Germans have a tradition to prefer cash.

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2 points

I think bank transfers are more popular in Northern Europe. I only use a credit card if I want additional buyer protection / insurance from my bank.

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4 points
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I’m from northern Europe, and I have never heard of or met anyone that preferred bank transfers ever. If I can’t pay online with credit/debit card, I’m not buying from there, but it’s extremely rare to find somewhere that does bank transfers for B2C at all IME.

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3 points

Never have I ever heard about anyone preferring a bank transfer in Northern Europe.

I’m from there, and I can’t remember which year I used cash. It’s either card or digital payment like MobilePay.

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5 points

We use them to pay online, of course. But the payment mechanism is different because most of the time they’re debit accounts not credit.

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4 points

Depends where you go. My Czech bank card is a debit card with a number on it that you can use like a credit card. Dutch banks don’t have this and we use different online payment methods. I never really needed a credit card for anything (until I traveled in France) so the price to have one is not worth it.

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3 points

Here you get a debit card by default with your bank account, and that one’s free. You might get a credit one, but credit limits are typically low. I lived in Canada for 9 years and by the time I left I had a CC with a limit of 26k CAD. Here my Spanish credit card has a limit of 1.2k euros, and I’ve had it for quite a long time.

In Spain at least there’s quite a lot of confusion with this. People call any card type a “credit card”, even debit ones.

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2 points

In Sweden we almost exclusively use Credit/debit cards cash is extremely rare and a lot of shops don’t accept cash.

It has been this way for many years.

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2 points

Can’t use cash online, (nearly*) anywhere.

  • Mullvad is the only service I know that accepts payment through mailed cash.
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2 points
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No. It’s not as popular. In Germany most have a giro-card, but credit cards are becoming more popular. Many still prefer cash though.

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4 points

In Germany most have a girl-card

I assume autocorrect screwed you?

For anyone else reading this: no, there is no such thing as girl-cards.

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2 points

Yes thanks. I meant giro-card.

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