I have more or less the same story moving to Austria. I get spammy calls but they are actually legit surveys (quality of life, political leanings, newspaper preferences, etc) and only because I gave up my phone number at a party many years ago and haven't bothered to have it removed. I get once of these survey calls about every 3-6 months and if I'm not in the mood I just tell them I don't have time and they never call back. On occasion they ask if they could call back at a later date.
Re: winning things - I won 500 Euro from Visa for entering a contest, where the only requirements were to fill out the online form with my name, age and email address, followed by using my Visa card 3 times in one month any of the following 3 months. I should note that Visa the company here doesn't actually function as a credit card like in the U.S., rather it's directly connected to your bank account, where at the end of the month any balance due is automatically deducted. If your account drops below zero, you just pay some interest at the end of the month. From my basic research (looking at my bank statements for the past 2 years), it's extremely low. In fact looking at my last "25% KEST" charges, I was in minus for 3 months last year, and the charge was 0,02 euro cents. I honestly have no idea how that works, but I assume we have some good consumer protections in place.
>Visa the company here doesn't actually function as a credit card like in the U.S., rather it's directly connected to your bank account
People get these concepts confused a lot.
Visa is a payment processor - that is, a company that facilitates electronic payments.
Different "payment types" (credit, debit, gift card) can use the Visa network.
Visa, the company, does not issue any credit cards or debit cards directly themselves, they only make agreements with other financial institutions who issue cards that use the Visa network to process payments.
So your debit card is issued by your bank and uses the Visa network to transfer funds.
Visa debit cards are also extremely common here in the US as well.
MasterCard is like Visa in it's just a payment processor, it doesn't issue cards itself. American Express and Discover, however, are both payment processors and issuing banks, they issue credit and debit cards themselves. It gets more complicated because other financial institutions issue credit cards that use the American Express payment network.
So because of all this I've had a debt card that switched from Visa to a MasterCard when the bank's agreement with Visa expired and they got a better deal with MasterCard. I also had a credit card that switched from using the American Express network to the Visa network.
I thought a debit card was just for withdrawing cash? We have bank cards (Bankomat Karte) for withdrawing cash - in fact, when you pay and want to use the card, many people just say "karte" (literally: card) to mean a bank (debit?) card and not a credit card.
Our Visa cards can also withdraw using a pin, but I don't know anyone who does (anecdotally speaking - but I do pay attention to shoppers ahead of me in line, seems like a rare occurrence). I personally use it to (very rarely) purchase products for which I don't have enough cash on hand, and because banks generally set the withdraw limit to 400€/day. On top of that, most places (IMO) still don't accept credit cards or will charge 3-5% fee (such as the official Apple dealer McShark). Visa transactions are also hindered in comparison, there tends to be less information available about the purchase and seller names are truncated to ~20 characters. Also the booking is often delayed (online) until the statement is sent per e/mail, unlike bank transactions which appear online within 24 hours.
What you initially described isn’t a “debit card” despite GPs post, but a debit card isn’t what you think either. A debit card can be used like an ATM card (what you call a Bankomat, and isn’t charged a cash advance fee like using a pin with a normal credit card), but it also can be used pinless like a credit card, just the money is immediately held in your bank account. That’s the difference with what you described originally, the immediate rather than end of month part. The closest thing really we have in the US generally used to what you describe is a “charge card”, which some versions of American Express are. You are required to settle up in full at the end of the month usually, though, and carrying a balance isn’t allowed (again, not always, but usually).
> I thought a debit card was just for withdrawing cash?
In many countries you can use the debit card to withdraw cash and make online and EFTPOS transactions. EFTPOS machines can process debit and credit cards. With debit cards the money is deducted from your account immediately or in your case at the end of the month. (but then it should be called credit not debit)
Re: winning things - I won 500 Euro from Visa for entering a contest, where the only requirements were to fill out the online form with my name, age and email address, followed by using my Visa card 3 times in one month any of the following 3 months. I should note that Visa the company here doesn't actually function as a credit card like in the U.S., rather it's directly connected to your bank account, where at the end of the month any balance due is automatically deducted. If your account drops below zero, you just pay some interest at the end of the month. From my basic research (looking at my bank statements for the past 2 years), it's extremely low. In fact looking at my last "25% KEST" charges, I was in minus for 3 months last year, and the charge was 0,02 euro cents. I honestly have no idea how that works, but I assume we have some good consumer protections in place.