It is no secret that I love my credit cards and use them as often as possible. I do not use debit cards and even decline them when I open a new account because I do not want to deal with them.
My Health Savings Account came with a Visa card which happens to be a debit card. I have been using this card for medical purchases like copays or paying bills that were not covered by insurance and in each case the card was swiped and run like a credit card, I signed and that was the end of it.
Over the weekend I had to pick up an emergency prescription so I went to the store with my handy HSA card. After I swiped the card it asked for my PIN.
Crickets chirping.
img from debitcardforum.com
I have no idea what the PIN is because I have never used it so I told the pharmacist I did not know. She looked at me funny and asked if it was my card and asked to see the card. Luckily the amount was less than $5 and she still had my ID card from setting up the prescription earlier.She hit a button and it went through like a credit card but that was just an awkward few seconds for me at the counter.
I went ahead and set up a PIN but I will have to remember to tell any vendor to run it like a credit card in the future so I do not have to go through that again.
Easy mistake to make with cards you don’t usually use. I did exactly the same thing with a debit card last weekend.
Yes I also use my debit card as little as possible. It makes more sense to put everything on my credit card to get cash back. My bank isn’t going to give me anything for using my debit card other than service fees.
It is never a good idea to use PIN if you can sign for your purchase with a debit card. You get more protection in case of fraudulent use.
We use debit cards exclusively, and never have any problems. We always choose to use them as a credit card. Did you not have the option to use the HSA card as a credit card?
Whats even worse… with my bank if you mistype your pin a few times, they completely cancel the card, so I had to basically reorder the card twice now… pretty annoying!
-Jean
The same thing happened to me when I first started using my debit card until I forced myself to memorize my PIN. I must say, I dislike using my debit card at my local gas station because it takes like 3 or 4 days before the money gets taken from my account, which can lead to my checkbook being off a little until the money is taken from my account.