When a purchase you paid for online never shows up, a non-delivery chargeback lets your credit card issuer reverse the charge and put the money back in your account. The Fair Credit Billing Act gives you the right to dispute charges for goods “not delivered as agreed,” and Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover layer their own rules on top of that federal baseline.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1666 – Correction of Billing Errors The process itself is simple. The deadlines are not, and one in particular catches people out: federal law requires you to send a written billing error notice to your card issuer within 60 days of the statement that shows the charge.
What Counts as Non-Delivery
The obvious case is a merchant who takes your money and ships nothing. But the category is broader than a completely missing package. You also qualify when a merchant ships to the wrong address (one that doesn’t match what you entered at checkout), when a digital download link or access credentials never arrive after payment, or when a scheduled service simply never happens.
Partial orders count. If you ordered five items and three arrived, you can dispute the value of the two that didn’t. Mastercard’s rules specifically allow issuers to charge back a partial amount for missing goods, provided the total doesn’t exceed the original transaction.2Mastercard. Chargeback Guide Subscriptions work the same way. If you cancel a recurring service and the company keeps billing you, each charge after your cancellation date is a valid non-delivery dispute. The FTC advises consumers to file a chargeback in this situation after following the company’s cancellation process and keeping a copy of the cancellation request.3Federal Trade Commission. How to Stop Subscriptions You Never Ordered
Credit Card or Debit Card Matters
The Fair Credit Billing Act only covers credit card transactions. Debit card purchases fall under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act (Regulation E), which defines “errors” much more narrowly. Regulation E covers unauthorized transfers and certain processing mistakes. It does not cover goods or services a merchant failed to deliver.4Federal Reserve Banks. Credit and Debit Card Issuers’ Obligations When Consumers Dispute Transactions
If you paid with a debit card and the item never arrived, your bank has no federal obligation to reverse the charge. Some banks extend chargeback rights to debit purchases through their Visa or Mastercard network agreements, but that’s a courtesy, not a legal right. For unfamiliar online merchants, a credit card gives you meaningfully stronger fallback protection.
The 60-Day Written Notice Deadline
Under the FCBA, you must send your card issuer a written billing error notice within 60 days of the date the statement containing the charge was sent to you. The notice needs your name, account number, the disputed amount, and why you believe it’s a billing error.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1666 – Correction of Billing Errors Most banks now accept disputes through their online portals or by phone, which satisfies the requirement.
Once the issuer receives your notice, they must acknowledge it in writing within 30 days. They then have two full billing cycles, capped at 90 days, to investigate and either correct the charge or explain in writing why they believe the bill is accurate.5Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Regulation Z – 1026.13 Billing Error Resolution During the investigation, the issuer cannot try to collect the disputed amount or report it as delinquent.
The 60-day FCBA clock and the card network deadlines below run independently. You could be within the network’s dispute window and still outside the FCBA window, which weakens your legal position even if the bank processes the claim as a courtesy. File early.
Network Deadlines
Missing a network deadline permanently kills your chargeback rights, no matter how strong the case. The windows differ:
- Visa: generally 120 calendar days from the date you expected to receive the merchandise. If the merchant gave a specific delivery date, the clock starts when that date passes. An absolute cap of 540 calendar days from the transaction processing date applies in cases like merchant bankruptcy or long-lead deliveries.6Visa. Updates and Clarifications to Dispute Rule Language
- Mastercard: between 15 and 120 calendar days from the delivery or cancellation date. For interrupted ongoing services, the limit stretches to 540 calendar days from the transaction settlement date.7Mastercard. Chargeback Guide Merchant Edition
- American Express: generally 120 days from the transaction date, but Amex explicitly exempts non-delivery disputes from that cap. When goods or services were never received, the window can run longer.8American Express. Guide to Managing Disputes
- Discover: advises cardholders to check directly for specific timeframes. The federal 60-day written notice rule still applies.
You need to satisfy both the FCBA deadline and the applicable network deadline. They overlap but do not replace each other.
Evidence to Pull Together Before You File
Start with the transaction receipt showing date, amount, and item description. Save the merchant’s shipping or delivery policy from their website; that establishes the timeframe they promised. If a tracking number was generated, capture the tracking page showing no delivery or a return to sender.
Banks expect you to have tried the merchant first. Keep email threads where you asked for a refund or a shipping update. If you called, note the date, time, and the name of whoever you spoke with. Those records fill in the bank’s dispute form and demonstrate good faith. A claim with no evidence of merchant contact is the easiest kind for a bank to reject.
Digital purchases need different proof. If you paid for a software license, online course, or downloadable file and never got access, focus on what was missing: no confirmation email, no download link in your account, no credentials issued. Screenshots of an empty inbox and your account dashboard on the merchant’s platform show the gap.
Filing the Dispute
Submit your evidence through your card issuer’s online dispute portal or mobile app, or mail a written claim to the billing inquiries address on your statement. Most banks assign an intake specialist to check basic eligibility. If the claim moves forward, the bank typically posts a provisional credit to your account while the investigation runs. That credit is temporary. If the merchant proves delivery, the bank reverses it.
After the bank files the chargeback with the network, the merchant’s acquiring bank notifies the merchant and gives them a window to respond. For most Mastercard transactions, the acquirer has 45 calendar days from the chargeback date to submit a rebuttal.7Mastercard. Chargeback Guide Merchant Edition Visa’s response windows have been shortened in recent years and vary by region. If the merchant misses the deadline, the chargeback stands and your provisional credit becomes permanent. If they respond, the issuing bank reviews both sides and makes a final call.
How Merchants Push Back
A chargeback is not automatic money back. The most effective merchant rebuttal is proof of delivery: a tracking number with a confirmed scan, signature confirmation, or GPS coordinates and photos. For digital goods, merchants can submit server logs showing you accessed the download link, logged in, or activated a license key.
Visa also runs a system called Compelling Evidence 3.0, which lets merchants fight fraud-related disputes by tying the disputed transaction to previous successful orders from the same customer. If the merchant can show at least two prior undisputed transactions sharing data points like your IP address, device fingerprint, shipping address, or user ID, that historical pattern can defeat a chargeback claim.9Visa. Compelling Evidence 3.0 Merchant Readiness The system targets bogus disputes, but a legitimate claim can also fail if the merchant’s historical footprint on your account is strong enough.
If You Paid Through PayPal or a Buy Now, Pay Later Service
PayPal runs its own dispute process with different rules. You have 180 days from the payment date to open an item-not-received dispute. PayPal requires you to try resolving with the seller first, then open a dispute through the Resolution Center. If you can’t reach agreement, you must escalate to a formal claim within 20 days of opening the dispute, or it closes automatically.10PayPal. PayPal’s Purchase Protection Program
Buy now, pay later services like Affirm handle non-delivery disputes through their own process. Affirm requires you to contact the merchant first, then open a dispute through your Affirm account. Affirm pauses collection activity and negative credit reporting on the payment plan while it investigates, and commits to a decision within 60 days. If the dispute resolves in your favor, your payment plan is refunded. If the merchant wins, the original schedule resumes and you have 10 days to catch up on any paused payments.11Affirm Help Center. Dispute a Purchase
If a credit card funded your PayPal or BNPL transaction, you may have the option to file a chargeback through your card issuer instead of or alongside the platform’s process. You generally cannot recover the same amount through both channels, but two paths give you a fallback.
If the Chargeback Fails
If the merchant produces convincing delivery evidence and the bank rules against you, the provisional credit gets pulled back. You still have options.
File a complaint with the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. The FTC doesn’t resolve individual disputes, but the complaint feeds a database used to build enforcement cases against merchants with patterns of non-delivery.12Federal Trade Commission. What To Do if You’re Billed for Things You Never Got, or You Get Unordered Products For individual resolution, your state attorney general’s consumer protection office is often more useful.
For amounts worth pursuing, small claims court is realistic. Filing fees typically range from around $10 to over $300 depending on jurisdiction and claim size, and you don’t need a lawyer. The wrinkle with online merchants is that you may have to file in the county where the business operates, and serving a company in another state adds cost. For purchases above a few hundred dollars, the math usually still works.
Don’t File a False Claim
Filing a chargeback for an item you actually received is fraud, and banks and merchants are getting better at spotting it. On the mild end, your card issuer may close your account or flag you in internal databases that make future disputes harder to win. On the severe end, deliberately filing a false chargeback can be charged as wire fraud or bank fraud, which carry federal prison sentences of up to 20 or 30 years. Merchants suspecting friendly fraud increasingly share data across platforms and with card networks, so a pattern surfaces quickly. The system works because most people use it honestly.