How To Quickly And Easily Dispute Any Credit Card Charge

Posted by Nick Niesen on October 29th, 2010

If you've ever opened your monthly credit card statement only to find a charge that wasn't authorized by you, read on. Disputing a credit card charge isn't as difficult as you might think, and filing a dispute doesn't have to take you all day either.

So if you've been a victim of credit card theft or an unauthorized charge, grab a pen and paper and take notes. These easy to follow steps will make the process of disputing a credit card charge a piece of cake.

Step 1: If you share the credit card with anyone else in your family, be sure to mention the purchases to them and see if they were responsible. Many times, purchases are made by other family members and are mistaken for fraudulant charges.

Step 2: Make a notation of all charges that appear on your bill which you do not recognize. Simply grab a yellow highlighter and highlight each transaction in question.

Step 3: Contact your credit card company. At first, you'll be directed to a general customer service representative who will go over the preliminary details with you, cancel your existing credit card, and initiate the process of sending you a replacement. After you're done there, you'll be transferred to the fraud department where you will spend a few minutes answering questions related to the charges. Once your report has been completed, they'll mail you a form that you'll need to sign off on which simply states that the purchases in question were not made by you. Typically, you have 30 days to return this form to the credit card company.

This entire process should take you a total of 1-2 hours. As you can see, disputing a credit card charge is not as big a deal as many would believe and you don't even have to "fight" your credit card company to avoid paying for the unauthorized charges.