Except every transaction is traceable and reversible. So they are 1000 times safer than cash. And cheaper for retailers than CC.
Just to point out that though this used to be the case - and it was a great problem for retailers which included me - this should no longer be the case and there should be the same fee for both debit and credit cards. (Don't worry the card companies find other ways to squeeze extra dosh out of the business customer!)
I don't know if they are 1000 times safer than cash but I think people should remember these things about cash:
cash is not 'free' for a business to deposit. This comes as a surprise to most people but businesses depositing cash have to pay a fee (usually so much per £100 of cash) to do so. It is true that some business accounts (I don't think all) allow you to deposit so much cash per month for free but my experience as a shopkeeper was that the amount was constantly reduced as banks don't want to handle cash i.e. they don't want to pay enough staff to deal with handling cash;
it is cosy these days to remember what seem to be the 'good old days' of cash but people forget the payroll robberies which usually involved robbery with violence and the attacks on business owners and their staff members taking cash to the banks. I'm old enough to remember these things not only from the newspapers but personal experience. My Dad who was a factory worker in a big local factory came home one day in great distress. None of the workers had been paid (Friday was pay day then) because of a payroll robbery - it was normal then to pay pretty much all manual workers at least in cash and the van bringing the cash to the factory had been held up (fortunately on that occasion with no injuries or loss of life though that was by no means always the case). No credit cards to fall back on then. At the time 'respectable' working class families prided themselves on paying all their debts to the milkman, the rent man, the insurance man (or woman - just a few of those were by then women
) and a variety of others each Friday after being paid themselves + of course they needed cash for the weekend's food shop (and any pleasure activities like going to the cinema were off if you did not have cash in your purse). This was a point of honour not just in itself but because many of the people you were paying were equally dependent on having cash in hand to pay their own bills or buy in fresh stock for the coming week. My Dad knew his firm would pay him but it would be early next week, not this week, before fresh supplies of cash could be brought in. I remember as a ten year old being given the bus fare to go to my maternal grandmother's to ask for cash - she was a poor as a church mouse herself living on the State Pension plus a bit extra she gained by working to 65 instead of 60 as a printer's feeder but completely understanding the issue she immediately gave me all that was left of her pension plus the small cash savings she had in her house.
I don't mean that contactless cards are completely safe but whatever was or is completely safe? Cash can be stolen in bank, payroll, business or household robberies. Cheques can be forged from scratch or fraudulently altered. PINS can be seen over your shoulder (unless you sufficiently assertive to kick, elbow, or yell at anyone standing too close) or via illicit cameras attached to the cash machine (or in the shop within range of the machine) which are so small that the ordinary user does not notice them.