Can You Dispute Your Credit Card Charges?

There may have been many instances when your credit card statement reflects certain expanses that have not been incurred by you. Your credit card statement could reflect a shirt purchased from a supermarket, which you have never heard of. There may also be situations when you have purchased a product which turned out to be of inferior quality or still worst, you may have ordered a product online but did not receive the product that you ordered. These problems are very common and it is important that you know how handle such situations.

There may be situations where you are not satisfied with the product/service that you have purchased. For example you used your credit card to purchase a shirt from a shop only to find out that the shirt had a hardly visiable tear. In such a situation you should first contact the shop where you made your purchase. Inform them about the problem and request an exchange or acceptable problem resolution. Most retailers will readily oblige and change the shirt. It is very important that you document all conversations that you have with merchant because the merchant may promise to change the shirt initially but change his mind later (especially in the case of a Internet purchase). If for some reason the merchant does not oblige to change the shirt, then you can call your credit card company and report the situation to them. It is very important that inform the credit card company of the situation as soon as you receive the statement. On receiving the complaint, if the credit card company feels your problem is genuine, they may deduct  the amount you paid for the shirt from your bill. This amount is recovered by the credit card company from the merchant from whom you have purchased the shirt.

There may be instances where your credit card has been charged with purchases that you have not made. In such a situation the Fair Credit Billing Act limits your responsibility to only 50 dollars; any amount above 50 dollars must be borne by the credit card company. To reverse the charges for purchases not made by you, the first thing you must do is to call the credit card company and explain to them that the charges mentioned in the statement are not incurred by you. They will give you instructions of what procedure has to be followed to get the charges reversed. The credit card company is most likely to send you a form which you need to sign. By signing the form you are acknowledging that the amount disputed is not spent by you. Do not use the card when you are disputing the charges. Once the charges are removed make sure that you inform the all major credit card bureaus of the situation. See that all the records are updated because when the charges are disputed there is a delay in payment. This delay in payment will affect your credit history. Once the record is updated this late payment will not affect your credit score.
It is therefore important that you do not give your credit card details to any unauthorized person. Also when you do online transaction make sure that the payment gateway of the site is secured.

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