How to Dispute a Credit Card Charge: Filing, Rights, and Liability

To dispute a credit card charge, send your card issuer a written notice at its billing inquiries address within 60 days of the statement that first showed the charge, describing the error and why you believe it is wrong. Federal law then requires the issuer to acknowledge your dispute within 30 days and finish its investigation within two billing cycles, and you do not have to pay the disputed amount or finance charges on it while the investigation is open.

Charges You Can Dispute

The Fair Credit Billing Act covers several kinds of problems. You can dispute a charge that appears in the wrong amount, a charge for a purchase you never made, and a charge for goods or services that were never delivered or that arrived significantly different from what the merchant described. A charge also qualifies if you asked the creditor for documentation or clarification and did not get it.¹

Unauthorized charges are covered too. If a thief, skimmer, or data breach produced the charge, the burden falls on the issuer to show the charge was authorized, not on you to prove it wasn’t.²

Quality complaints follow a separate track. If you received the item but it was defective or not what the merchant described, you can still use your card to push back, but under a different section of the law. The “claims and defenses” rule in 15 U.S.C. § 1666i lets you assert against the card issuer the same claims you could assert against the merchant, provided three conditions are met: you first tried in good faith to resolve the problem with the merchant, the original charge was more than $50, and the purchase happened in your state or within 100 miles of your mailing address.³ The most you can recover this way is the amount still unpaid on the disputed transaction when you first notify the issuer.

How to File Your Dispute

Gather Your Documentation

Before you contact the issuer, pull together what you’ll need: your account number, the exact date the charge posted, the dollar amount, and the merchant’s name as it appears on your statement. Add any receipts, order confirmations, shipping or tracking records, return receipts, and correspondence with the merchant showing you tried to work things out directly.⁴

If you spoke with the merchant by phone, write down the dates, times, and the names of anyone you talked to. That log shows the good-faith effort the claims-and-defenses rule requires, and it strengthens a straight billing error claim as well.

Send Written Notice to the Billing Inquiries Address

The notice must go to the address your issuer designates for billing inquiries, not the address where you mail payments. These are usually different, and a notice sent to the wrong address may not count as a valid filing.⁵ The right address is printed on your monthly statement, generally near the payment coupon or on the back.

Your notice has to reach the issuer within 60 days of the date it sent the first statement showing the error.¹ Miss that window and you lose your dispute rights for that charge. Include your name and account number, a description of the error, the date and amount of the charge, and why you believe it is wrong.⁵

Send the letter by certified mail with a return receipt so you have proof of delivery. Enclose copies of your supporting documents, never originals, and keep a complete copy of the whole package for yourself.

Filing Online or Through the App

Many issuers accept disputes through online banking or a mobile app. If the issuer’s billing rights disclosure says it accepts electronic submissions, filing that way satisfies the written-notice requirement.⁵ Save or screenshot the confirmation page and any reference number. The 60-day deadline is the same whether you file by mail or online.

What Happens After You File

Two deadlines kick in once the issuer receives a valid notice. The issuer has 30 days to send you written acknowledgment, unless it resolves the dispute entirely within that same 30 days. The investigation itself must wrap up within two complete billing cycles and in any event no later than 90 days after your notice arrived.⁵

While the investigation is open, you don’t have to pay the disputed amount or any finance charges tied to it. The issuer can’t report the disputed amount as delinquent to credit bureaus during this period, though it can reduce your available credit by that amount and note the dispute on your statement.⁵ You still have to pay the rest of your bill as usual.

If the investigation confirms the error, the issuer must correct your account and remove any related finance charges or fees.

If the Issuer Denies Your Dispute

When an issuer concludes no billing error occurred, it has to send you a written explanation of why. You can request copies of the documents it relied on, and reviewing those often shows whether the investigation actually considered your evidence.⁵

The issuer must also tell you what you owe and give you your normal billing period, or at least 10 days, whichever is longer, to pay without being reported as delinquent. If you still think the charge is wrong, you can write back within that payment window (or within 10 days of receiving the explanation, whichever is later) stating that you refuse to pay because you continue to dispute the charge.⁴ The issuer can then start collection, but if it reports you as delinquent it must also note that you dispute the amount.

If you believe the issuer mishandled the dispute or broke the law, you can file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau online or by calling (855) 411-2372. The CFPB forwards your complaint to the issuer, which generally responds within 15 days.⁶ You also keep the right to sue the issuer in court, including small claims court.

Your Liability for Unauthorized Charges

If someone uses your credit card without permission, federal law caps your personal liability at $50, and only if the issuer gave you notice of potential liability, provided a way to report loss or theft, and included a method of identifying authorized users. If the issuer can’t show all three, you owe nothing.²

Once you tell the issuer the card is lost, stolen, or compromised, your liability for any later unauthorized charges drops to zero. The $50 cap only touches unauthorized charges that happened before your report. Most major card networks advertise zero-liability policies that go beyond this federal minimum, but $50 is the statutory floor every consumer card must provide.

Debit Cards and Business Cards Work Differently

These protections apply to consumer credit cards. Debit cards fall under the Electronic Funds Transfer Act, which treats unauthorized use much less generously:

Report within 2 business days of learning about the charge: liability capped at $50.
Report after 2 business days but within 60 days of the statement: liability can reach $500.
Report after 60 days: no federal protection for charges appearing after that window, so losses can be unlimited.

With a credit card the 60-day clock doesn’t even start until the issuer sends the statement containing the error, and your maximum exposure stays at $50 no matter when within that window you report.⁷ The debit timeline is tighter and the penalties for delay steeper because the money has already left your checking account.

Business and corporate cards are also treated differently. The Fair Credit Billing Act applies to consumer credit, not corporate accounts. If a company issues 10 or more credit cards to employees, the issuer can negotiate an agreement that removes the $50 unauthorized-use cap entirely, exposing employees to unlimited personal liability under the terms of that agreement.⁸ Smaller businesses keep the standard $50 cap. If you carry a business card, read the cardholder agreement to see what dispute rights the issuer has given you beyond the statutory minimum.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1666 Correction of Billing Errors
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1643 Liability of Holder of Credit Card
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1666i Assertion by Cardholder Against Card Issuer of Claims and Defenses
4
Federal Trade Commission. Using Credit Cards and Disputing Charges
5
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 12 CFR Part 1026 Regulation Z – Section 1026.13 Billing Error Resolution
6
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Submit a Complaint
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1693g Consumer Liability
8
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 12 CFR Part 1026 Regulation Z – Section 1026.12 Special Credit Card Provisions