How to Issue a Chargeback: Steps, Deadline, and Appeals

To issue a chargeback on a credit card, send your card issuer a written dispute within 60 days of the date the statement containing the charge was mailed to you. The notice must identify you and your account, state that the bill contains an error, and give the dollar amount in question.¹ Most major issuers accept disputes through their website or mobile app, and an electronic submission through an issuer-sanctioned channel satisfies the federal written-notice requirement.²

Make Sure Your Situation Qualifies

Federal law and card network rules limit chargebacks to specific categories. Before you file, confirm your charge fits one of them:

Unauthorized charges — someone used your card without permission. Your liability is capped at $50, and if only the number was stolen rather than the physical card, you owe nothing.³
Goods never delivered, or goods that arrived fundamentally different from what was promised.
Incorrect amounts, such as being charged $150 on a $100 price, or the same transaction posting twice.
Promised credits or refunds that never showed up on your statement.

Quality complaints — a product that works but disappoints, a service you found unsatisfactory — follow a stricter rule. You can push a quality dispute to your card issuer only if you first tried to resolve it with the merchant, the charge was over $50, and the purchase happened in your home state or within 100 miles of your address. Those dollar and geographic limits fall away when the merchant is affiliated with the card issuer or the sale came through a mailing the issuer participated in, and they rarely block online purchases in practice.⁴ Billing errors have no such thresholds.¹

Try the Merchant First

Contact the seller and ask for a refund before you escalate. A direct refund is faster, and for quality disputes the law requires a good-faith attempt to work it out with the merchant before your issuer is obligated to step in.⁴ Even when it isn’t required, documenting the attempt strengthens the dispute you may need to file later.

Keep a record of each contact: the date, the person you spoke with, and what was said. Save emails, chat transcripts, and screenshots. If the merchant refuses to help or stops responding, those records become part of your evidence.

Gather Your Documentation

Strong documentation is what wins a dispute. Before you file, pull together:

Transaction details exactly as they appear on your billing statement: merchant name, amount, and date.
Proof of the problem: order confirmations, receipts, photographs of damaged or wrong items, screenshots of the product description you relied on.
Communication records showing your attempts to resolve the issue with the seller.

Enter every detail exactly as it appears on your statement. Mismatched amounts or merchant names cause processing delays.

Where and How to Submit

The Fair Credit Billing Act’s protections kick in when you send written notice to the issuer’s billing inquiry address, which is separate from the payment address printed on your statement. A phone call alone does not satisfy the statute.² If your issuer accepts disputes through its website or app, an electronic filing counts as written notice. Most major issuers do, so the online portal is usually the right path.

Your written notice must include three things: information identifying you and your account, a statement that your bill contains an error, and the dollar amount you believe is wrong.¹ Attach or upload the supporting documents you gathered.

If you file by mail, use the billing inquiries address on your statement and send it certified with a return receipt so you can prove the date the issuer received it. Whether online or by mail, save the confirmation number. You will need it to track the investigation.

The 60-Day Deadline

Your written notice has to reach the issuer within 60 days of the date the statement containing the disputed charge was first mailed or delivered to you. Miss that window and you can forfeit your federal right to dispute the charge.¹ Card networks like Visa allow up to 120 days from the purchase date through their own chargeback systems, which can run longer than the federal clock. Relying on the network timeline alone does not preserve your statutory rights, though, so treat 60 days as the real deadline.

What Happens After You File

Once the issuer has your notice, it cannot try to collect the disputed amount while the investigation is open. Statements may still include the charge, but they must say payment of the disputed portion is not required until the investigation concludes.¹ Many issuers issue a provisional credit that temporarily removes the charge, though the statute does not specifically require it for credit cards.

The merchant is notified and given a chance to respond with evidence such as shipping confirmation, a signed delivery receipt, or proof the service was provided. The issuer has to finish the investigation and tell you the outcome within two complete billing cycles, and no later than 90 days after receiving your notice.¹ If the bank sides with you, it must correct the account and remove any finance charges tied to the disputed amount. Any provisional credit becomes permanent.

While the investigation is open, the issuer cannot report the disputed amount as delinquent to credit bureaus or threaten your credit rating because you declined to pay a charge you are actively disputing.⁵ Keep paying the undisputed portion of your balance. Skipping that can produce legitimate late fees and real credit damage on amounts that were never in dispute.

If the Issuer Rules Against You

A denial has to come with a written explanation of why the issuer believes the charge was correct. The disputed amount is rebilled, finance charges that accrued during the investigation are added back, and you have the right to request copies of the documents the issuer relied on.¹

If you still disagree, you have options:

Write back within the payment window (at least 10 days). The issuer can then report the amount as delinquent, but it must also report that the amount is disputed and tell you which credit bureaus it contacted.⁵
File a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at consumerfinance.gov. The CFPB forwards complaints to the issuer and works to get you a response.⁶
Report the issue at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, which helps the government track patterns of unfair practices.⁷
Sue the merchant in small claims court if the amount justifies it. Filing fees generally run from roughly $15 to $300 depending on the jurisdiction and amount.

A Note on Debit Cards

Chargebacks are a credit card concept, and debit card disputes run under a different law, the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, with weaker protections and liability that climbs the longer you wait to report. If your bank’s investigation of a debit dispute runs beyond 10 business days, it must provisionally credit your account while it keeps looking.⁸ Given the choice, disputing a charge on a credit card almost always gives you stronger legal footing than disputing the same charge on a debit card.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1666 – Correction of Billing Errors
2
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Regulation Z 1026.13 – Billing Error Resolution
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1643 – Liability of Holder of Credit Card
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1666i – Assertion by Cardholder Against Card Issuer of Claims and Defenses
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1666a – Regulation of Credit Reports
6
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Contact Us
7
Federal Trade Commission. Using Credit Cards and Disputing Charges
8
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Regulation E 1005.11 – Procedures for Resolving Errors