Well, I work in banking, and I could see this working assuming some conditions are met. But all of those conditions being met in a way thst favors the customer or card holder is less likely.

We now outsource debit card disputes, but before that I was involved in the dispute process, so I have akne insight. Albeit it, for one bank.

For starters, most banks have their own internal and external safety checks for debit cards transactions. For example, internal checks will be things like blocking transactions as a standard at gas stations and gift card hevy retailers (Walmart, CVS, Walgreens, etc) outside of a reasonable area to expect transactions. Meaning if you live in a small town in Nebraska and go to the same stores all the time and spend the same amounts, it's going to build a kind of profile for you. Meaning the sudden attempted charge in a very distant state for a very high amount could easily just block the transaction and then lock the card.

An external check would be something similar, only it would be implemented by the issuer of the card (meaning Visa or Mastercard). They have their own rules that they will require the bank to follow.

Assuming both of these checks fail, and the transactions go through, there's still a lot of other potential considerations. For example, banks and their card issuers are also subject to rules placed by the transactional network. There are many of these, and all of them have guidelines as to what they will or will not allow to be disputed. As a result, banks can potentially eat a lot of these transactions. And because of THAT, there may be some level of discretion involved during the entire dispute process and that discretion isn't always going to favor the customer.

So, would it work? Unfortunately, the best answer I could give you is maybe. It depends on so many different things and it also depends on your definition "work."

Lastly, at the bank I work for, what this person claims to do wouldn't work. Because you don't have some constitutional right to a debit card. This means that some people will simply not be issued debit cards because them owning own results in too much backend work and cost on the bank. At the bank level, it's fairly easy to recognize when some people need limited access to this their own money, and I've seen it happen many times.

So yeah, it could work but it's a pretty big gamble.