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Credit Cards Billing Errors

The Fair Credit Billing Act has provisions for dealing with billing errors on your credit card account.  You should familiarize yourself with the requirements, but even more than that, you should carefully review your credit card statement each billing period.  Make sure that each charge is identified and verified to your satisfaction.  If you do not recognize a particular transaction, you have the right and responsibility to find out what the charge is and who incurred the charge.

 WHAT ARE BILLING ERRORS

Some things which are considered billing errors and are therefore covered under the Fair Credit Billing Act include:

 A charge for a purchase which you didn't buy or authorize to be bought

A billing amount that is different than the amount that you actually charged on your charge cardholder

A charge for an item which was not accepted at the time of delivery

A billing amount for an item that was delivery in a way not according to the purchasing and shipping agreement

Errors in math

Payments that you made that were not credited to your account

 Charges made by anyone who does not have your permission to use the card.

 ACTION STEPS
In the event of a possible credit card billing error, there are action steps which you, as the cardholder need to take in order to resolve the problem.

First, you must contact the credit card company in writing within a period of sixty days following the billing date on the statement which shows the error.   You will find the address listed under 'billing inquiries' on the statement.  Inform the company of your name, the account number in question.  Tell the company that you believe an error has occurred on the bill.  State why you disagree with the item, and identify the date on which it occurred and the amount in question.  This is known as the disputed amount.

You should pay any other portions of the billing amount, but you are not required to pay the disputed amount, minimum payments or any finance costs which are applicable to the disputed amount. 

If, in fact there was an error in the item which you pointed out, no finance costs on the disputed item must be paid.  The credit card company must instead correct the entire amount for you

 In the event there is not an error, the credit card company must still provide you with a full explanation and a detailed statement of the dollar about which you still are obligated for. The new balance owing by you will incorporated finance or other types of charges which may have accumulated during the period of time when the bill was under review.

Credit card companies do not want to cause hardship on customers regarding disputed amounts, but neither do they want to end up holding the bag for billing errors, regardless of who is at fault.
Courtesy and full documentation of your request to the credit card company may well accomplish more than accusations and finger pointing.

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