I have a friend from Germany who does not have a credit card. This
week he wanted to purchase some German food from his home town. He
asked me to make the purchase online for him using my credit card. I
told him there was no way I was going to do this. He said it would be
ok because he was using his German address to make the purchase. When
he showed me the website amount it said $7.00 Euro, but I told him I
would not be charged that I would be charged more. He kept insisting I
was wrong and is now mad I did not buy this for him online. Was I
right for doing this? If I used a debit card would the result have
been the same? I just did not want to lose a friendship over something
as silly as this. Thanks in advance for any help.

The chances are that the supplier won't ship to an address different
from that of the holder of the Credit/Debit Card but, of course,
you'll never know unless you try.

You don't say what country you are in but presumably you are not in
Euroland. Generally, the currency conversion rates on Credit & Debit
Cards are very reasonable, even for small amounts.

Retailers do not charge the Card Holder for any extra (eg Processing)
costs, these are swallowed by the Retailer.

In this context, it does not seem to matter whether you use a Debit or Credit Card.

Credit Cards are not very common in Germany, so it seems to me that
your friend did make a reasonable request, particularly as the amount
is so trivial.

Yes! I think he is right to be mad at you.

Bryan, have you never purchased a gift online?  Of course they'll ship
to a different address!

You would be mad to use a Debit card
- if someone gets the number they can clean out your account
- and you'll have a fight with the bank

A credit card is moderately safe, if something goes wrong you simply
refuse to pay - and the credit card company will demand proof from the
retailer - and debit or not pay the retailer until they send proof.

As Probo pointed out, the transaction would probably have been
rejected because of the delivery address, although it is possible the
web payment system gave a delivery address and a separate payment
address.

I've just checked my latest credit card bill, the commission on a $US
transaction was 1% which I consider reasonable.

Yes, Nelson, I have sent gifts on-line but I've also had problems with
shipping stuff to a different address.

In this case, it appears that the goods are destined for one country
and are being charged to another. An added dimension. (Just maybe the
Card Holder is in Nigeria!)

Whether or not to proceed is at the discretion of the Retailer and, if
the transaction goes sour, the Card Company would charge back the
Retailer.

Retailers are now becoming very careful of charge backs.

As I said, you never know, unless you try.

In my view, it was certainly worth a try.

As a safety measure, I only use my Debit Cards in the ATMs (the
Automated Theft Machines) but NOTHING is entirely safe, despite the
Chip & Pin stuff here in the UK.

At least, if one Credit Card gets compromised, I can always use another.

There are a lot of crooks out there!

Too right Probo

I look at things from both sides of the fence
- as a user of plastic
- and as a coder, reading credit card data for clients

One ludicrous story is that a few years ago, VISA International
started fining credit card takers if they did not collect Track2

Under duress I collected, stored and transmitted the entire contents of Track2
- then VISA Int realized that cloneable data was everywhere
- they told us to delete all Track2 data over 3 months old

Well, yes, 30 mins was enough to do that
- but unfortunately deep archives, DVD backups etc ... are not that
easy to update. :}

The Chip and Pin fiasco is hilarious
- a licence for people to collect Track2 and the PIN 

One Credit Card issuer - IIRC the Nat Provincial - put photographs on the cards
- their fraud rate was ... zero.