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Let’s imagine for a moment that you’ve just
received your
credit card
bill in the mail, and you think the only purchase
you made with it the previous month was at the gas
station. What do you do then, when you find three
purchases at Old Navy, and a bunch of other
purchases you know you didn’t make?
Do you know what rights you have regarding
fraudulent purchases on a
credit card
in your name? How about your rights if you
purchased an item with a credit card, but never
received the products you ordered?
If these problems have not happened to you yet,
you are lucky. These are common situations credit
card users face every day, and it can help you to
know before something like this happens to you
what your rights are, and what your
responsibilities are in the matter.
When You Are Not Satisfied With Purchase
One of the benefits of using a credit card to make
purchases is the additional protection they
provide if you make a purchase that you are
unsatisfied with. For example, maybe you used a
credit card to pay the contractors who were hired
to repair your shower leak, but there is still
water on the bathroom
floor.
Obviously, you are not satisfied with the work
they completed, and you don’t want to pay for it.
The problem is, you charged it on a credit card
and now the bill has come!
Your first step is to contact the contractor, or
the merchant you made your purchase from. Most of
the time, the merchant is more than happy to
replace a broken item, perform the service again
or refund the purchase back to your credit card.
If you make a phone call, document it and follow
up with a letter to cover your tracks in the event
the merchant doesn’t follow through.
If for some reason the merchant decides they are
not going to do anything to correct the situation,
you should immediately contact your credit card
company and report the information. Don’t wait to
report the problem on a later date- most credit
card companies require you to report a problem as
soon as you see it on the statement in order to
benefit from any of the protection they provide.
Charges You Didn’t Make
Did you know that federal law is involved in
helping limit credit cardholder’s responsibilities
for charges on
credit cards
that they did not make themselves? The
Fair Credit Billing Act
actually limits your responsibility to just $50
for any charges you did not authorize. If you
open your credit card bill and find charges not
made by you, there is a process you should follow
to get it resolved as quickly and painlessly as
possible.
Firstly, call the credit card company and explain
the charges that were not made by you. They will
give you instructions as to what to do next.
Then, you should take the time to find and review
all of your recent credit card statements in case
there were other charges that you may have
missed.
The credit card company will most likely ask you
to sign a form to confirm that you were not the
one who made the charges in dispute. Don’t use
the card while you are disputing charges.
Once you finally get a resolution and get the
charges removed, be sure to order your
credit report
from all of the major
credit bureaus
in order to make sure that the record has been
updated there- because chances are the time it
takes to resolve fraudulent charges will have
caused late payments on that credit card that may
have been reported.
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