What Is a Chargeback? Deadlines, Filing Steps, and Liability

A chargeback is a bank-initiated reversal of a card transaction: you tell your credit card issuer or bank that a charge is wrong, and if the dispute holds up, the financial institution pulls the money back from the merchant and returns it to your account. Federal law gives you this right for unauthorized charges, billing mistakes, and certain merchant failures, but the rules and deadlines differ depending on whether you used a credit card or a debit card.

When You Can File a Chargeback

Federal law recognizes a handful of situations that qualify. The Fair Credit Billing Act and Regulation Z govern credit cards; the Electronic Fund Transfer Act and Regulation E cover debit cards. The qualifying reasons fall into three groups.

Unauthorized charges. If someone uses your card without permission through identity theft, a stolen number, or any other means, you can report the charge and request a reversal.¹

Billing mistakes. Being charged twice for the same purchase, being billed the wrong amount, or having a payment go uncredited all qualify.¹

Merchant failures. You paid but the item never arrived. What you received was significantly different from what was described. A merchant promised a refund on a return and never processed it.²

How Much You Owe if the Card Was Misused

If someone runs up charges on your card, how much you’re personally on the hook for depends on the type of card and, for debit, how fast you report.

Credit Cards

Federal law caps your liability for unauthorized credit card charges at $50, no matter how much the thief actually spent.³ Once you notify the issuer that the card is lost, stolen, or compromised, you owe nothing on any charge made after that notification. Most major issuers voluntarily go further with zero-liability policies, but $50 is the federal floor.

Debit Cards

Debit works on a tiered clock tied to how fast you act:⁴

Report within 2 business days of learning about the loss or theft, and liability is capped at $50.
Report after 2 business days but within 60 days of your statement, and liability can reach $500 for unauthorized transfers that occurred after those first two days.
Report after 60 days from your statement, and liability is unlimited for transfers made after the 60-day window closes.

The stakes are steeper for debit because the money leaves your checking or savings account before you get it back. Speed matters.

Deadlines You Cannot Miss

Miss the filing window and you lose the federal protections that force the bank to investigate.

For credit cards, you must notify your issuer within 60 days after the issuer sends the statement that first shows the charge.⁵ The clock starts when the statement is sent, not when you read it.

For debit cards, you have 60 days after the financial institution sends the periodic statement reflecting the error to notify it of the problem.⁶ And the liability tiers above mean waiting doesn’t just risk your right to dispute; it enlarges what you can be held responsible for.

How to File

Before you call or click, pull together the specifics: the transaction date, the exact dollar amount, and the merchant’s name as it appears on your statement. Write down why the charge is wrong. If you already tried to work it out with the merchant, keep records of that: emails, chat transcripts, dated notes on phone calls.

Most banks let you file through their online portal or mobile app by selecting the transaction and completing a dispute form. You can also call the bank or send written notice. For credit card disputes, the law requires that written notice go to the address the issuer designated for billing inquiries, not the general payment address.⁵ That address is usually printed on your statement.

Attach anything that supports your version: receipts, order confirmations, screenshots of the product listing, shipping tracking, photos of a damaged or wrong item. Specific evidence carries the dispute.

What Happens After You File

Once your bank has the dispute, an investigation opens. The timelines and rules differ by card type.

Credit Cards

The issuer must acknowledge your written dispute within 30 days. It then has two complete billing cycles, but no more than 90 days, to finish the investigation and either correct the error or explain in writing why the charge was accurate.⁵ Many issuers apply a provisional credit while they investigate, but federal law doesn’t force them to.

While the credit card investigation is open, the issuer cannot try to collect the disputed amount, cannot report it as delinquent, and cannot close or restrict your account solely because of the dispute.⁵ If the amount appears on your credit report at all during the investigation, it must be flagged as disputed.⁷

Debit Cards

Debit disputes move faster. The bank must investigate and resolve the error within 10 business days of receiving your notice. It can extend the investigation to 45 days, but only if it provisionally credits your account within those 10 business days for the disputed amount.⁶ The Electronic Fund Transfer Act does not carry the same explicit prohibitions on adverse credit reporting during the investigation that credit cards get.

If the Bank Rules Against You

When the investigation ends with no error found, the bank must send you a written explanation. For credit cards, if you ask, the issuer has to provide copies of documentary evidence supporting the charge.⁵ For debit cards, if your account was provisionally credited during the investigation, the bank must notify you at least three business days before pulling those funds back.⁶

A denial isn’t necessarily final. You can ask the bank to reopen the case with new evidence or on the basis of a procedural error. You can file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which oversees both sets of dispute rules. You can also sue the merchant directly.

A Different Right for Product-Quality Problems

One boundary worth flagging. Everything above is about billing errors: unauthorized charges, wrong amounts, non-delivery. If your complaint is that the product itself was defective (say, an appliance that broke after a month), you’re using a separate legal right, the ability to assert claims and defenses against your card issuer for problems with a purchase.²

That right comes with conditions the standard billing-error process doesn’t have:⁸

The purchase had to be for more than $50.
The purchase had to occur in your home state or within 100 miles of your billing address.
You must have made a good-faith attempt to resolve the problem with the merchant first.

The dollar and distance limits don’t apply when the seller is the same company as the card issuer, is controlled by the issuer, or solicited the purchase through a mailing the issuer took part in. And the amount you can recover through this claim can’t exceed the balance still outstanding on that specific transaction when you notify the issuer.⁸ If you’ve already paid most of it off, there’s less to recover.

1
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 12 CFR Part 1026 – Regulation Z – Section 1026.13 Billing Error Resolution
2
Federal Trade Commission. Using Credit Cards and Disputing Charges
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1643 – Liability of Holder of Credit Card
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1693g – Consumer Liability
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S.C. 1666 – Correction of Billing Errors
6
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 12 CFR 1005.11 – Procedures for Resolving Errors
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1666a – Regulation of Credit Reports
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1666i – Assertion by Cardholder Against Card Issuer of Claims and Defenses