Correcting Credit Card Billing Errors

Credit card billing statements are printed by computers and well, you know how much you can trust computers (or humans for that matter). It’s not uncommon for billing errors to appear on your credit card statement. But, fixing the errors requires more than a simple call to the credit card’s customer service department.

The Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA) is a federal law that allows you to dispute a credit card billing error with your credit card issuer. To fully exercise your rights, you have to make the dispute in writing within 60 days of receiving the bill that included the error. You can dispute billing errors after the 60-day window, but the credit card issuer isn’t required to follow the FCBA.

Billing Errors You Can Dispute

The FCBA details the type of billing errors you can dispute. They include, but aren’t limited to:

• Purchases or charges that you didn’t make. If you share a credit card with a joint account holder or authorized user, make sure that person didn’t make the charge either.
• A payment you made wasn’t credited to your account. Double check with your bank to make sure the payment cleared.
• Mathematical errors. Sometimes the numbers might not add up the way the billing statement says they do.
• You paid an electrician (or other service provider) for work that wasn’t done.
• You ordered merchandise that was broken when it arrived.
• You didn’t receive your billing statement in the mail in enough time to mail payment. You can’t be charged a late fee as long as you give the card issuer at least 20 days notice of your address change.

How to Submit Your Billing Error Dispute

When you put together your billing error dispute letter, you should include your name and account number along with the amount of the error and why you believe it is incorrect.

Send the letter to the address listed for correspondence on your billing statement. Make sure you send the letter separate from your payment to be sure that it gets processed. For extra assurance that your letter has been received, you can mail it via certified mail with return receipt requested.

The creditor then has 30 days to at least acknowledge that your letter was received. The creditor then has 60 more days to either correct your account or let you know why the bill is accurate. In all, the creditor has up to 90 days to resolve the dispute.

Pay Your Credit Card Bill

During the dispute process, you do not have to pay the amount that’s in dispute. Your creditor shouldn’t charge you any finance charges on this amount. You are, however, responsible for making payments on the other part of your credit card bill.

If the credit card issuer finds there was indeed an error on your billing statement, the amount should be removed. On the other hand, if the issuer finds that there was no error, then your billing statement will be updated to include the disputed amount along with any finance charge that’s accrued on the balance.

When the billing error is the result of a dispute with a merchant, you should first try to correct the error with the merchant. Keep records of your attempts to correct the transaction so you can provide proof to the credit card issuer if the dispute goes that far.