How to Contest a Charge on Your Credit or Debit Card

To dispute a charge on your credit or debit card, notify your bank in writing within 60 days of the statement that shows the charge, explain why it’s wrong, and include whatever evidence backs you up. The mechanics are similar for both card types, but the law behind them is not: credit card disputes run under the Fair Credit Billing Act, debit card disputes under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, and the difference changes how much money you could be out while the bank investigates. Start with the card type you used, because that shapes every step after.

When a Dispute Will Actually Work

Banks measure your claim against specific categories. Buyer’s remorse isn’t one of them.

The cleanest ground is unauthorized use: a stolen card, skimmed numbers, or a purchase you didn’t make. Fraud claims tend to move quickly because the bank carries exposure too.

The other main ground is a billing error, which federal law defines broadly: a charge for the wrong amount, a duplicate charge, a charge for goods that never arrived, or a credit the statement failed to reflect.¹ An online order that showed up damaged or materially different from the listing fits here too, because you didn’t receive what you paid for.

Quality complaints are harder. If the merchant delivered what was described and you simply don’t like it, the bank will probably reject the claim. The dispute system exists to correct errors and fraud, not to serve as a universal return policy.

The 60-Day Deadline

This is the one date that controls everything. Under both the Fair Credit Billing Act and the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, you have 60 days from the date your bank sends the statement containing the problem to put them on notice.²¹ Miss it and the bank has no legal duty to investigate, no matter how strong your evidence.

Debit cards have an additional reason to move fast: your liability for unauthorized charges grows the longer you wait.

How Much You Could Lose While the Bank Investigates

With a credit card, the money at stake is the issuer’s, not yours. Federal law caps your personal liability for unauthorized credit card charges at $50, and most major issuers waive even that through zero-liability policies.³ Your checking balance never moves during the investigation.

Debit cards work the opposite way. The money leaves your account immediately, and how much you can be held responsible for depends on how fast you report the loss:

Within 2 business days of learning about the loss or theft, your liability is capped at $50.
Between 2 business days and 60 days after your statement, it can reach $500.
After 60 days from the statement, you could be liable for the full amount of unauthorized transfers that happened after that window closed.

Those tiers come from the Electronic Fund Transfer Act.⁴ If your debit card or account details have been compromised, call the number on the back of the card the same day you notice.

How to File the Dispute

Try the Merchant First

For most dispute types the bank doesn’t technically require you to contact the merchant first, but a single call or email often resolves billing errors, duplicates, and delivery problems without ever involving the card issuer. There is one situation where the law does require it: if you’re asserting a claim against your credit card issuer based on the merchant’s failure to deliver or perform, you must first make a good-faith attempt to resolve the issue with the merchant directly.⁵ Keep records of any contact: emails, chat transcripts, and dated notes of phone calls with the name of whoever you spoke to.

Gather Your Evidence

Pull together whatever supports the claim before you contact the bank. Depending on the dispute, that can mean the receipt, delivery tracking, screenshots of the product listing or the merchant’s description, and any messages showing you tried to fix the problem directly. A police report helps on unauthorized charges, though most banks don’t require one for smaller amounts.

Submit the Notice

Most banks let you open a dispute through their website or app, and for fraud the fastest path is the number on the back of the card. For credit card billing errors, though, the strongest legal protection comes from a written notice sent to the specific address your issuer designates for billing inquiries. That address is printed on your statement and is often different from the payment address. Certified mail with a return receipt gives you proof the bank got the notice inside the 60-day window.

Include your name and account number, the charge you’re disputing, the dollar amount, and why you believe it’s wrong. There’s no required form or legal language, though your bank may offer a template.⁶

What Happens After You File

Credit Card Timeline

The card issuer must acknowledge your notice in writing within 30 days of receiving it, unless the investigation is already finished by then. From there, the issuer has two full billing cycles, and no longer than 90 days, to complete the investigation and either correct the error or explain in writing why the charge stands.⁶ Many issuers apply a temporary credit while they investigate, though that isn’t universally required by law for credit cards.

Debit Card Timeline

For debit disputes, the bank generally has 10 business days to investigate after it receives your notice. If it can’t finish inside that window, it must provisionally credit your account for the disputed amount and then has up to 45 days total to wrap things up.² The provisional credit matters because the money came straight out of checking, and you probably need it for rent and other bills.

Your Rights While the Investigation Is Running

On a credit card dispute, the issuer cannot report the disputed amount as delinquent to the credit bureaus while the investigation is open, and it cannot threaten to damage your credit as a way to pressure you into paying. If the investigation ultimately finds no error, the issuer must give you at least 10 days to pay before reporting the amount as past due.⁷

You can also withhold payment on the disputed portion of the bill, along with any related interest or finance charges, until the dispute is resolved. The issuer cannot try to collect on that portion or close your account solely because you used your dispute rights.⁶ You do still have to pay the rest of the bill on time. Skipping the whole payment because one charge is in dispute triggers late fees and credit damage on everything else.

If the Bank Denies Your Dispute

Read the denial carefully. Banks are required to tell you why the claim failed and to provide merchant documentation when relevant. Some disputes lose because the consumer didn’t send enough evidence the first time, and resubmitting with better documentation gets a different result.

If you believe the bank mishandled the dispute or failed its obligations under federal law, you can file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB forwards complaints to the institution, which typically responds within 15 days.⁸ Be thorough: include dates, amounts, a clear description of what went wrong, and your supporting documents.

Don’t File a Dispute You Know Is Bogus

Disputing a charge you actually authorized, hoping to get the goods for free, is not a victimless shortcut. At a minimum the bank will likely close your account and flag you internally. At the extreme end, knowingly making false representations to a financial institution to obtain money or credit is bank fraud under federal law, carrying fines up to $1,000,000 or up to 30 years in prison.⁹ Payment networks also track chargeback patterns, and a history of them can follow you across institutions when you try to open new accounts or get approved for credit.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 US Code 1666 – Correction of Billing Errors
2
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 12 CFR 1005.11 – Procedures for Resolving Errors
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1643 – Liability of Holder of Credit Card
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1693g – Consumer Liability
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1666i – Assertion by Cardholder Against Card Issuer
6
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 12 CFR 1026.13 – Billing Error Resolution
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1666a – Regulation of Credit Reports
8
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Submit a Complaint
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1344 – Bank Fraud