A GuitarEazy charge on a credit card is a billing descriptor tied to GuitarEazy.com, an online guitar-lesson site that sells individual video courses and an annual membership. If you don’t recognize it or didn’t sign up, you can dispute the charge with your card issuer and, in most cases, get the money back through the chargeback process.
What GuitarEazy Is
GuitarEazy.com markets itself as an on-demand video guitar-lesson platform, advertising more than 450 courses from over 120 instructors and selling both individual masterclasses (roughly $5.99 to $9.99) and an annual membership with live daily instruction and downloadable lesson packs.1GuitarEazy. GuitarEazy Home Page
One quirk worth knowing: the site’s own body text refers to its service as “JamPlay” in at least one place, which suggests GuitarEazy may be a rebrand of or affiliated with a different guitar platform. If a family member signed up under a different brand name, the charge could still show up on your statement as GuitarEazy.1GuitarEazy. GuitarEazy Home Page
Why the Charge May Be Unfamiliar
ScamAdviser, a website-trust rating service, gives GuitarEazy.com a trust score of 2 out of 100 and labels it “Caution Recommended.” The service cites several negative reviews, a hosting server shared with multiple unreliable websites, and a domain registrar that facilitates a high number of low-rated sites.2ScamAdviser. GuitarEazy.com Review
On the other side of the ledger, the domain was registered in October 2021, carries a valid SSL certificate, and isn’t currently flagged as dangerous by DNSFilter. ScamAdviser notes that older domains are sometimes purchased to lend legitimacy to questionable operations.2ScamAdviser. GuitarEazy.com Review
How to Dispute the Charge With Your Bank
Contact your card issuer as soon as you see a charge you didn’t authorize. You can usually start a dispute through the bank’s app or website, or by calling the number on the back of your card. The FTC recommends following up in writing and keeping copies of everything, including any cancellation request you sent to the company.3Federal Trade Commission. How to Stop Subscriptions You Never Ordered
For credit card charges, the Fair Credit Billing Act sets out your rights:
- Your written dispute must reach the issuer within 60 days of the date the first statement containing the charge was sent.4Federal Trade Commission. Using Credit Cards and Disputing Charges
- Include your name, account number, the charge amount and date, a description of the error, and copies of supporting documents. Send it to the issuer’s billing inquiry address (not the payment address), preferably by certified mail.5California Office of the Attorney General. Credit Cards – Dispute a Charge
- The issuer must acknowledge the dispute within 30 days and finish investigating within 90 days. During the investigation it cannot report the amount delinquent, try to collect it, or charge interest on it.4Federal Trade Commission. Using Credit Cards and Disputing Charges
- You can withhold payment on the disputed amount while it’s under investigation, but you still owe the rest of the bill.6Federal Trade Commission. What to Do if You’re Billed for Things You Never Got
- Federal law caps your liability for unauthorized credit card charges at $50, and many issuers waive that under zero-liability policies.7Investopedia. Fair Credit Billing Act
Debit card protections are different and may not carry the same federal refund guarantees, so if the charge hit a debit card, call the bank quickly.6Federal Trade Commission. What to Do if You’re Billed for Things You Never Got
Reporting the Charge
You can report the charge to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov or by phone at 877-382-4357. The FTC doesn’t resolve individual complaints, but reports feed a database used by more than 2,000 law enforcement partners to spot patterns. For complaints tied specifically to a credit card or bank, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau accepts complaints at consumerfinance.gov/complaint.8Federal Trade Commission. ReportFraud.ftc.gov FAQ
Your state attorney general’s consumer protection office is another option. The Texas Office of the Attorney General, for example, takes consumer complaints online, though it notes that receiving a reference number doesn’t mean an investigation has been opened.9Texas Office of the Attorney General. File a Consumer Complaint
Your Rights on Subscription Charges
If the charge came from a subscription you didn’t knowingly sign up for, or one you tried to cancel, federal law is on your side. The Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act, passed in 2010, targets internet negative-option marketing (things like auto-renewing subscriptions). Under ROSCA, a seller must clearly disclose all material terms before collecting your billing information, get your express informed consent before charging, and give you a simple way to stop recurring charges.10U.S. Congress. Public Law 111-345, Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act ROSCA violations are treated as violations of the FTC Act, and both the FTC and state attorneys general can enforce them.11Federal Trade Commission. Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act
In a 2021 policy statement, the FTC warned that tricking consumers into subscriptions or making them hard to cancel violates federal law, and said cancellation must be “at least as easy to use as the method the consumer used to buy the product or service.”12Federal Trade Commission. FTC to Ramp Up Enforcement Against Illegal Dark Patterns The Fair Credit Billing Act separately defines billing errors to include charges for goods or services you didn’t accept, undelivered goods, unauthorized charges, and incorrect amounts, all of which are grounds for the dispute process described above.6Federal Trade Commission. What to Do if You’re Billed for Things You Never Got Roughly 30 states also have their own automatic-renewal laws that can add further requirements on subscription sellers.