I'm not knowledgeable enough to compare directly to VAT, but many credit cards extend a product's existing warranty (90 days to two years, depending on the card), and some offer things like 90-day purchase protection (if the price changes or if merchant/manufacturer won't accept a return, the credit card will).
Purchase protection took care of a theft I had in my house last month. They just needed a receipt and a police report, and the purchase price was refunded a few days later.
I think there's some confusion here as to what VAT means.
VAT in the EU (or anywhere else really that has the concept of VAT) normally affords no additional consumer protections on its own. It's a tax, not dissimilar at a high level to sales tax in the US, applied to goods or services at time of sale.
Thanks for the response. This is something that's not well known to me and in the age of retailers trying to upsell the same thing for a fee, I'm not surprised that it is obscured.
In all fairness, it's not a standard thing. Most of the extended card protections that go beyond purchase dispute resolution/defective product come from various premium cards more so than basic no-charge ones.
Purchase protection took care of a theft I had in my house last month. They just needed a receipt and a police report, and the purchase price was refunded a few days later.