An HSW*GATE.COM charge on your credit or debit card statement is almost always a purchase from HOLYWATER, an app company whose subscriptions and in-app purchases are processed through the Solidgate payment platform. The “GATE.COM” tail points to Solidgate’s domain, and “HSW” is the shortened merchant tag for HOLYWATER, which runs the vertical micro-drama app My Drama and the romance audiobook and e-book app My Passion. If the charge is unfamiliar, it usually traces back to a subscription, a free trial that converted to paid, or a one-time content purchase on one of those apps.
What HSW*GATE.COM Actually Is
Solidgate is a payment orchestration platform that sits between online merchants and card processors, handling routing, fraud prevention, and subscription billing.1Solidgate. Solidgate Payment Orchestration Platform When a merchant uses Solidgate, the billing descriptor a cardholder sees often combines an abbreviation for the merchant with “GATE.COM.”
HOLYWATER is a confirmed Solidgate client and has used the platform to process payments in North America under merchant IDs configured for its apps.2Solidgate. HOLYWATER MCC Optimization Approval Rate Boost “HSW” fits the character limits card networks impose on descriptors and is consistent with a shortened form of HOLYWATER. In practice, a sign-up for My Drama or My Passion, or an in-app purchase on either, is the most likely source of an HSW*GATE.COM line on your statement.
Check Before You Dispute
Start with the people and inboxes closest to your account. A spouse, partner, teenager, or anyone else with access to the card may have installed My Drama or My Passion and started a subscription or trial. Search your email for messages from HOLYWATER, My Drama, or My Passion — a welcome email, receipt, or trial-ending notice will usually turn up if the sign-up was legitimate.
Free trials are a common source of surprise charges: someone signs up, the trial ends quietly, and the first paid charge shows up weeks later under a descriptor they don’t recognize. If the amount and timing match a trial you or a household member started, the charge is real even if the descriptor looks strange.
Cancel the Subscription
If the charge is a subscription you no longer want, cancel through the app or platform where the sign-up happened. If you subscribed through Apple’s App Store or Google Play, the subscription lives in your store account settings rather than on the merchant’s own site. Once you cancel there, the recurring charges stop at the end of the current billing period.
Canceling only stops future billing. If you also want a refund or believe the charge was unauthorized, you’ll need to dispute it separately.
Dispute an Unauthorized Charge
Your rights depend on whether the charge hit a credit card or a debit card. Either way, the first call is to your card issuer, using the number on the back of the card.
Credit Card
The Fair Credit Billing Act caps your liability for unauthorized credit card charges at $50, and many issuers reduce that to zero.3Fairfax County Consumer Services Division. Understanding the Fair Credit Billing Act To preserve your full statutory rights, send a written dispute to the issuer’s billing-inquiries address within 60 days of the statement date that first showed the charge, including your name, account number, the date and amount, and why you believe it is an error.4FTC. Using Credit Cards and Disputing Charges
The issuer must acknowledge the dispute within 30 days and resolve it within two billing cycles, up to 90 days.5CFPB. How Do I Dispute a Charge on My Credit Card Bill While the investigation is open, it cannot try to collect the disputed amount or report it as delinquent. You still need to pay the rest of the bill.4FTC. Using Credit Cards and Disputing Charges
Debit Card
Debit card protections come from the Electronic Fund Transfer Act and Regulation E, and they reward speed. Report within two business days of learning about the unauthorized charge and your liability is capped at $50. Report between two and 60 days after the statement is sent and the cap rises to $500. Wait longer than 60 days and you can be liable for the full amount of unauthorized transfers that occurred after that window.6Consumer Compliance Outlook. Consumer Liability for Unauthorized EFTs
Your bank cannot require you to contact the merchant first or file a police report before it begins investigating.7CFPB. Electronic Fund Transfers FAQs If it confirms an error, it must correct it within one business day of finishing the investigation.
If You See Signs of Broader Fraud
A single unfamiliar charge can be the tip of a larger problem. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency notes that fraudsters sometimes run small-dollar test transactions to confirm a stolen card works before running up bigger ones, so even a low-dollar mystery charge is worth investigating.8OCC. Credit Card and Debit Card Fraud If you see multiple unrecognized transactions or believe your card details were stolen:
- Ask your issuer to cancel the compromised card and send a replacement, then update any legitimate recurring payments tied to the old number.
- Place a fraud alert with one of the three major credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion). That bureau must notify the other two. The alert lasts one year, and you can extend it to seven years with a police report or an FTC Identity Theft Report.9Chase. How To Report Credit Card Fraud
- File an identity theft report at IdentityTheft.gov to report the theft to the FTC and get a recovery plan.8OCC. Credit Card and Debit Card Fraud
- Turn on real-time transaction alerts in your bank’s app so the next unauthorized charge reaches you within seconds.
Subscription Consent and Cancellation Rights
Because HSW*GATE.COM charges usually involve a subscription, it helps to know that federal law prohibits companies from billing consumers for recurring subscriptions without their express consent.10FTC. Payments and Billing Guidance The FTC enforces those rules under the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act and its authority over unfair or deceptive practices, and it has pursued companies that made cancellation confusing or kept billing customers after they canceled.11FTC. FTC Settlement With Chegg
If you believe you were enrolled without clear consent or blocked from canceling, you can file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at consumerfinance.gov/complaint or with the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.