A chargeback is the mechanism by which your issuer reverses a settled transaction and pulls the funds back from the merchant. From your side it is a billing dispute, and federal law defines how it works.
What counts as a billing error
The Fair Credit Billing Act covers a defined list, including:
- Charges you did not authorize
- Charges for the wrong amount or the wrong date
- Charges for goods or services you never received
- Goods that arrived damaged or materially different from what was described
- Failure to properly credit a payment or a return
- Charges you asked the issuer to clarify and it did not
- Mathematical errors on the statement
What is not covered is buyer's remorse. Disliking a purchase you authorized and received is a matter between you and the merchant's return policy.
The deadline
Send a written dispute so that it reaches the issuer within 60 days of the statement on which the error first appeared. This is the part people lose on. A merchant promising to sort it out next week is not a reason to let the window close.
What happens next
- The issuer must acknowledge your dispute in writing within 30 days, unless it resolves it sooner.
- It must resolve the dispute within two billing cycles, and no later than 90 days.
- While the investigation runs, you do not have to pay the disputed amount, and the issuer cannot report it as delinquent.
- If you are right, the charge and any related interest or fees are removed.
- If the issuer disagrees, it must explain in writing. You may then request the documents it relied on, and you have the right to respond.
You still have to pay the undisputed portion of the bill. Withholding the whole balance because part of it is disputed creates a genuine delinquency.
Unauthorized charges are handled differently
If your card number was used without permission, federal law caps your liability at $50 — and in practice, the major card networks' zero liability policies mean most cardholders pay nothing. Report it as soon as you notice.
This is one of the clearest advantages credit cards hold over debit cards. Debit card fraud protections depend heavily on how quickly you report, and in the meantime it is your actual cash that is missing.
Merchant first, usually
For an ordinary problem — a duplicate charge, an order that never shipped — contacting the merchant is faster and often resolves it in a day. Keep the correspondence.
Go straight to the issuer when the merchant is unreachable, the charge is unauthorized, the merchant has refused a legitimate refund, or the 60-day window is closing. Filing a dispute does not prevent you from continuing to work with the merchant.
One more right worth knowing: for disputes about the quality of goods or services over a certain amount, you may have the right to withhold payment if you first made a good-faith attempt to resolve the matter with the merchant. Conditions apply, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau explains them plainly.
