That's precisely right Starryk. If your cheque card has a credit card logo such as Visa, Mastercard and so on it will work for any purchase that accepts cards with those logos. The debit card, as it's called here from banks linked to an account usually has one of the logos. The prepaid debit card as it's called here, does have a credit card logo, is not linked to any accounts and is only good for the amount you put on the card at purchase. Some places will allow you to 'recharge' these cards by simply adding more money on them at the place of purchase.
Oh and Chase Bank here does indeed call theirs cheque cards instead of debit cards.

Thanks all for this discussion, it's very interresting.

As stated before, i still use sms to purchase cards knowing that the cost's for 1 of them are much cheaper if collecting all shows.

Well, guess i did it all right by that way because the last few days i did buy also only a few cards; guess the price is right :-)

All of these types of cards are available here in the Netherlands.Chipcard,this is the "debit"card,pincard,wich is linked to your bankaccount,creditcard,even a publictransportcard,wich is also a debitcard.A somewhat new nice way to buy things is the IDeal way.No cards of any kind needed,your purchase is payded directly from your bankaccount......On the internet...

I have my EuroCheque-Card which is directly linked to my bank account and can be used to get money from my account at EC cashpoints
in the most european countries.
Also i can pay with it at shopping centers. Only have to enter my personal pin code and thats it. Paying with credit cards is not so common at shopping centres like it seems to be in the US. But with EC card you can pay in the most supermarkets or other stores.
Added to this i got a credit card - a master card btw that i use to pay online if i can't pay with my bank account directly(VGHD i payed with my master card). What Lowjoe said is rather new in the Netherlands paying directly from your bank account is called 'Lastschriftverfahren' in Germany(my translating site translates that to direct debiting system) and can be used on most german websites that sell something like amazon.de and also here for VGHD. I just decided against that.

I think that all paying methods will slide into each other in the coming years and then in every european country you can pay with the same method,but maybe with different names.Surely for Germany,they stick to there own names like glue..Hahaha!

@Lowjoe: If i click on Buy Girls here the first payment option is 'Pay by Lastschrift' :-)

StarryK,
Your short explanation of prepaid cards for cell phones is the same as for the debit cards I mentioned.
The difference is that these are real bank cards.
And they can be boought at real banks, not credit card companies or local stores.



Please check out the picture.
It includes the card, agreement, and a paper that original had the card glued to it.
Notice how it says "Key Possibilities Card", shows me as a Keybank Customer, and shows Keybank's street address.
There is nothing specifically of mine of the card. It is not attached to an account and is bought at a local bank.

There is no need to have an account to get this type of card. However, if you buy it at a bank, you may need to provide proof, such as a social security number (that is what this bank requires).

I have no idea what proofs of identification people in Europe use.

My friend uses visa gift cards for online stuff accepted anywhere visa is i guess ...i haven't tried 'em ...