Normal in the U.S… When I was an expat in Austria, my bank didn’t charge anything for a negative account balance.

You either have a very different debit card system than the US, or a very different definition of the word sane. I assure you that in the US, debit cards are (generally) not the better option.

In fact, I can confirm it - you have it completely wrong. It is only debit cards that can have an overdraft. Credit cards are when you have an ongoing, semi-permanent line of credit available to you. Let’s say this limit is $1,000. Each time you use it, the credit card issuer pays the merchant. If you attempt a purchase beyond that line of credit, you may (and often are) denied the purchase. If it does go through, you will have to pay an over-limit fee. The credit issuer then sends an itemized invoice, typically at the same time each month, and you must repay them. If you don’t repay them in full by the deadline, you must pay interest. The main takeaway is that credit cards are always someone else’s money at the time of purchase.

Debit cards are typically linked to your personal checking account. They work differently on the backend, but are usually similar at the point of sale. Checks, which link to the same account on the backend, often bypass validation of funds. Your bank processes the transaction on your behalf, but (again, typically) has not granted you any line of credit. If you get a transaction through where you don’t have the funds, the bank is then forced by their agreements with the payment processor to extend you a line of credit. But the main takeaway is that debit cards are your own money, in your account, at the time of purchase.

It’s a common (but dangerous) trick when you’re low on funds to use credit cards to “float” an expense. Debit means you must have the funds presently available in your account, which often means they must have been deposited a few days ago. Credit means you have until your next statement to arrange them, which likely includes at least 1 payday.

“to my understanding most cards in the US are credit cards”

This statement confuses me a bit, but I guess that adds to the misunderstanding? Debit and credit cards are tied to different types of accounts. Which you’re using depends on if you have the money and want it immediately removed from your checking account, or if you want to “borrow” and pay the total once a month.

When I helped my sons open their first checking accounts and got their debit cards, we had to “opt in” to not allow overdrafts and to have purchases cancelled, but that option would expire once they hit a certain age and would have to select it again. The backup to that is if you have a savings account, the accounts can be linked so that if you were to overdraft, the extra would be taken from savings to prevent overdraft fees.

These are all great things, assuming you have money in the first place. If you believe Americans are using credit cards more often than debit, it’s probably 1) because CC companies incentivize us to do so, or 2) people just generally don’t have the money to meet their needs in the first place, so juggle and borrow funds as they try to keep their heads above water.

Actual poor people can’t get credit cards, then a few dollars of overdraft puts them deep in the negative. Guess how many hours a minimum wage earning american has to work to overcome a SINGLE overdraft fee…