Billed twice for the same item? Didn’t receive shipment of the goods you swiped your card for? Faced any other problem with your card purchases?

Here’s an option — ask your credit card company to do a chargeback. A chargeback is a procedure that allows credit card holders to reverse transactions when there is a problem with a purchase made using their cards.

But be warned: the process for successfully claiming a chargeback on a card is notoriously difficult, so be prepared for a prolonged battle and keep as much documentary proof to support your claim as possible. Here are the points you should know about the chargeback procedure.

Different strokes

Credit card companies offer a chargeback on your card only in certain specific situations. So if you bought a plasma television that turned out to be defective when you brought it home and the merchant refused to give you a replacement, you’re better off filing a complaint with a consumer court than trying to get your credit card company to reverse the transaction.

Siuatations where you can apply for a chargeback include being double-billed for an item that you purchased, or not receiving goods that you ordered online. Other instances are being billed for a membership or subscription that you had actually cancelled, or not receiving a refund in case you cancelled a transaction.

Even being dispensed less cash than you tried to withdraw from an ATM, or an unauthorised transaction without your knowledge, are a valid reason for lodging a chargeback request.

You’re entitled to file a claim in case you handed over your card to a merchant but then decided to make the payment for something through an alternative method such as cash or another card, but were still billed for it.

The first step is to contact your credit card company’s helpline to lodge a dispute with respect to the transaction.

How to go about it

In case the card is not in your possession or was lost, or in case of a fraudulent transaction, the phone banking staff will block your card and record the transaction as one being disputed.

Once you have lodged a dispute, follow it up with a formal “Chargeback Dispute Form”. This can usually be downloaded from the bank’s website, filled in and sent by regular post, fax, or even scanned and emailed. The form will ask for details about your account, the disputed transactions, besides the reason for your chargeback request. It makes good sense to include any proof you have in support of your case as well at the time of submitting the form. After a dispute case is recorded, some banks offer a temporary credit to the customer in lieu of the disputed amount until the case is resolved.

If the dispute is released in the bank’s favour, the temporary credit is reversed and you will have to pay the amount back.

But if it is in your favour, it is converted into a permanent credit. The time taken for a dispute to be resolved could range from a week to 60 days.

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