How Credit Card Disputes Work: Rights, Deadlines & Filing Steps

Credit card disputes work through a written process set by the Fair Credit Billing Act: you send your card issuer a written notice within 60 days of the first statement showing the charge, the issuer must acknowledge it within 30 days, and it must complete its investigation within two billing cycles or 90 days, whichever comes first. While the dispute is open, you don’t have to pay the disputed amount, and the issuer can’t report it as delinquent.¹

Charges You Can Dispute

The Fair Credit Billing Act covers specific categories of billing errors, not general dissatisfaction. A charge qualifies if it falls into one of these:

Unauthorized charges someone made without your permission.
A charge that appeared for a different amount than you agreed to pay.
Goods or services that were never delivered, or that didn’t match what was promised at the time of the transaction.
A payment you made or a merchant refund that your issuer failed to post.
A computation or accounting mistake on your statement.
A statement your issuer didn’t send to your current address, if you gave that address at least 20 days before the billing cycle ended.
A charge you need more information about, including documentation, to determine whether it’s accurate.

A merchant’s “no refund” policy doesn’t override your federal right to dispute a charge for goods that never arrived. The return policy and the billing error process are separate.¹

The 60-Day Filing Deadline

Your written notice must reach your card issuer within 60 days of the date the issuer sent the first statement showing the disputed charge.² Miss it and you lose the Fair Credit Billing Act’s protections. The issuer no longer has to investigate, and you’re responsible for the charge even if it was wrong.

The clock runs from when the issuer transmits the statement, not when you open it. For electronic statements, that’s typically the date the statement was posted to your online account. If the issuer never sent a statement, the 60 days run from the date it should have been sent.² Old charges you notice for the first time months later may already be outside the window.

How to File Your Dispute

Federal law requires a written notice. It cannot be written on a payment stub or other payment medium the issuer supplies, unless the issuer says otherwise.¹ Include three things:

Your name and account number.
A statement that you believe your bill contains a billing error, and the dollar amount involved.
The reasons you believe the charge is wrong.

Send the notice to the billing inquiries address, which is printed on the back of your statement and is usually different from the payment address. Certified mail with a return receipt gives you proof of delivery. Keep copies of everything.

Many issuers also accept disputes through their online portals or mobile apps, which often walk you through selecting the correct error category. Take screenshots of any confirmation. Before you file, gather supporting evidence: receipts, shipping confirmations, cancellation emails, chat transcripts with the merchant. Proof that you tried to resolve the issue with the merchant first strengthens your case, particularly for disputes over goods or services that didn’t match what was promised.

What Your Issuer Must Do

Once the issuer receives your written notice, two deadlines apply. It must send you a written acknowledgment within 30 days, unless it resolves the whole dispute inside that window. It must then complete the investigation and either correct the error or explain why the charge stands within two complete billing cycles, and in no event more than 90 days.¹

During the investigation, the issuer reviews your evidence and contacts the merchant. For disputes involving undelivered goods, the issuer can’t simply take the merchant’s word; it must determine that the goods were actually delivered before concluding the charge is valid.¹ Many issuers apply a provisional credit while the case is open so the disputed amount doesn’t reduce your available credit.

Your Protections While the Dispute Is Open

You don’t have to pay the disputed amount or any finance charges accruing on it while the investigation is running. Any other portion of your bill still has to be paid by the due date to avoid late fees.

The issuer also can’t threaten to report the disputed amount as delinquent, and it can’t actually report it as delinquent to any third party until the investigation is complete and you’ve been given at least 10 days to pay.³ That keeps a live dispute from damaging your credit score before the facts are settled.

How the Dispute Ends

If the Issuer Rules in Your Favor

The issuer must correct your account and remove any finance charges or fees tied to the disputed amount, then send you written notice of the correction.¹ Any provisional credit becomes permanent.

If the Issuer Denies Your Dispute

The issuer must send you a written explanation of its reasoning, and you can request copies of the documents it relied on.¹ Any provisional credit gets reversed, and you owe the original amount plus interest that accrued during the investigation.

A denial isn’t the end. After the issuer resolves the dispute against you, it must give you at least 10 days, or the length of your normal grace period if that’s longer, before it can report the amount as delinquent.² If you still believe the charge is wrong, you can send another written notice within that window stating the amount remains in dispute. The issuer can then report it to credit bureaus, but it must also report that the amount is disputed, and it must tell you the name and address of every entity it notified.³

Disputes Over the Quality of Goods or Services

Standard billing error disputes handle unauthorized charges, wrong amounts, and undelivered items. A separate provision of federal law lets you raise against your card issuer the same legal claims you could raise against the merchant if the product was defective or the service fell short of what was promised. It carries limits.

Three conditions must be met:

You tried in good faith to resolve the problem with the merchant first.
The original charge was more than $50.
The transaction occurred in your home state or within 100 miles of your mailing address.

The dollar and geographic limits don’t apply when the merchant is the same company as the card issuer, is controlled by the issuer, or obtained your order through a mail solicitation the issuer participated in. What you can recover is capped at the credit balance remaining on the transaction when you notify your issuer. If you’ve already paid the purchase off in full, there may be nothing left to withhold.⁴

Your Liability for Unauthorized Charges

If someone uses your card without authorization, federal law caps your personal liability at $50, provided your issuer gave you notice of the potential liability, gave you a way to report loss or theft, and included a way to identify authorized users.⁵ Once you notify your issuer that the card was lost or stolen, your liability drops to zero, because charges made after notification aren’t your responsibility.

Visa and Mastercard both offer their own zero-liability policies that waive even the $50 exposure when you used reasonable care and promptly reported the loss.⁶ Most cardholders end up owing nothing on fraudulent charges, with the federal $50 cap sitting behind them as a backstop.

Escalating If the Bank Won’t Fix It

If your issuer denied the dispute and you’ve exhausted the written response process, you can file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB forwards your complaint to the issuer, which generally must respond within 15 days, or up to 60 days in more complex cases.⁷

Keep the complaint concise. Include the key dates, dollar amounts, and communications, and attach your dispute letters, the issuer’s denial, and any evidence the merchant failed to deliver. You generally can’t submit a second complaint about the same issue, so include everything the first time.⁷

Small claims court is another option. Filing fees vary by jurisdiction, and you don’t need an attorney, which makes it workable for the modest amounts most credit card disputes involve.

Debit Card Charges Are Different

The Fair Credit Billing Act applies to credit cards and other revolving credit accounts. Debit card transactions fall under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, which has shorter reporting deadlines and potentially higher liability for unauthorized use. The dispute process, timelines, and liability limits described here don’t apply to debit card purchases.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1666 Correction of Billing Errors
2
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Section 1026.13 Billing Error Resolution
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1666a Regulation of Credit Reports
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1666i Assertion by Cardholder Against Card Issuer of Claims and Defenses
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1643 Liability of Holder of Credit Card
6
Mastercard. Mastercard Zero Liability Protection Policy
7
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Submit a Complaint About a Financial Product or Service