Maybe I just have really good luck, but only very rarely do I have to dispute a credit card charge. Over the years I’ve had a few instances of credit card fraud, but that’s different than a case where you’re double charged, charged incorrectly for a purchase, etc.
I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been charged incorrectly for a purchase over the years, and I don’t think it has ever happened to me on a Chase card. Just today I disputed a purchase on a Chase card for the first time, and in this post I wanted to outline the process, since it was a bit different than what I’ve experienced in the past with American Express.
Unless I’m missing something, Chase doesn’t make it especially easy to dispute a charge. On American Express’ website, when you view your transactions there’s a little button with each transaction that lets you start the process of disputing a charge.
That’s not the case with Chase. Instead I had to follow this link and log into my Chase account that way in order to start the process of disputing a charge. Fortunately once on that page the process was pretty easy.
Once logged in I was first asked to pick which card I wanted to dispute a purchase on. I selected my Chase Sapphire Reserve®, since that was the card on which I wanted to dispute a charge.
There I was brought to a page showing a summary of all my transactions on the card, asking me to select which one I wanted to dispute.
In this particular case I was trying to dispute a car rental charge from the Seychelles. I wrote about my terrible car rental experience in the Seychelles in a separate post. Basically I had rented from Avis, but there was no one at the counter, so I was forced to use a different car rental agency.
They charged me upfront and then brought me out to the car, which was in horrible condition. It was in such bad condition that I didn’t feel comfortable driving it, and requested a refund. The guy told me that he couldn’t issue it right there, but would go to the bank the next day to request a refund. That never happened (shocking, I know!).
So I selected that transaction, and then clicked the “Dispute Transaction” button.
The next page asked me to review all the credits I’ve been issued on the card over the past few months, to make sure that I wasn’t in fact credited for the purchase.
I was then asked if I wanted to dispute the full amount or a partial amount, and was asked to select the reason for my dispute. I wasn’t sure if I should select “I didn’t receive the merchandise/service as agreed” (the car was in unacceptable condition) or select “I’ve been charged for a canceled/returned transaction” (I was promised a refund that never happened). Both are true in this case, so I selected the latter.
The next page asked the bulk of the questions about the purchase, including asking me to write out why I returned the purchase, what the cancelation and return policy was, and to fill out additional details. All the fields were mandatory, so even though I thought my answer to the first question cut it, I had to write out responses to the second and third question as well.
Once that was complete I was given a case number.
The final page indicated that I’d be contacted in 3-5 days regarding the status of my claim, and that in the meantime I didn’t have to pay the disputed amount. Here are the footnotes on the final page:
- While we’re working on the dispute, you do not have to pay for the disputed amount and no interest will be charged on that amount.
- We will contact you in three to five business days to advise you on the status of the dispute or to request additional information. You will receive a letter from us and/or a message sent to your Secure Message Center. If needed, we may also contact you by phone.
- We may request copies of all documents related to the dispute, such as a receipt, credit slip or other items. We may also contact the merchant for information related to the charge.
Bottom line
I’ve had the good luck of not having to dispute that many credit card charges in my day, and for that matter not having to deal with too much credit card fraud. I found it interesting that Chase doesn’t make it easy to dispute a charge directly on the account summary page (unless I’m missing something), but rather you have to go to a separate page. Fortunately once you’re there, the process is quite easy.
Now I guess I’ll see how long it takes for this situation to be resolved.
If you’ve disputed a charge with Chase, what was your experience like?
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