topic Re: Credit card disputes for purchases paid now but received months later in Credit Cards

Credit card disputes for purchases paid now but received months later

ramdom — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 04:07:17 GMT

Normally if you pay with a credit card and if things go legitimately wrong (i.e., assume it is clearly the fault of the vendor/service provider), and the vendor refuses to compensate you, then you could initiate a dispute with the credit card company. I've done this a couple of times successfully and gotten my money back for what were effectively scams.

However, there are things like special order items that take months to be delivered, prepaid reservations that are months in advance, event tickets, other items where you can't initiate the dispute within 60 days as I believe you're supposed to (i.e., the order itself may happen 3-4 months down the road).In all these situations, you are charged immediately upon purchase but you get the goods/services months later. So supposing that happens months out and something goes wrong, would a card company still entertain this dispute? Which cards would be ideal for this sort of thing though I'm curious about behaviours across the top issuers.

Thanks!

Re: Credit card disputes for purchases paid now but received months later

Shooting-For-800 — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 04:04:30 GMT

Amex is probably your best bet.

Re: Credit card disputes for purchases paid now but received months later

CorpCrMgr1 — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 05:38:31 GMT

@Shooting-For-800 wrote:
Amex is probably your best bet.

Definitely agree!

Re: Credit card disputes for purchases paid now but received months later

ptatohed — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 07:31:53 GMT

60 days from the time the charge shows on your statement is typical for error disputes. For products and services disputes, you may have up to 120 days.

Re: Credit card disputes for purchases paid now but received months later

JoeRockhead — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 12:24:17 GMT

It's really up to each issuers policy in which not only the circumstances surrounding the dispute, but also the classification of the dispute (fraud, services or product never delivered, etc), influence, or determine the length of time they'll issue a charge back allowing the ensuing rebuttal (if there is any)

For instance, if it were a dispute due to fraud, or a stolen card it would likely be a much shorter window (say 60 days) in which they'd allow a dispute. This prevents people from claiming all of a sudden, say 6 months down the road, that the charges are fraudulent.

In contrast, lets say you ordered a custom made widget from a widget maker, you paid in full, waited what anyone would consider more than a reasonable amount of time for said custom made widget, but, they never delivered it, you asked for a refund, they refused the refund because it was made to order.

In this scenario, I've personally seen AMEX accept a dispute and subsequently issue a charge back 18 months after the purchase was made. In this case the customer had signed a purchase agreement acknowledging it was custom made, with no promise of delivery date, but most importantly, they were not entitled to any refunds once production had begun. They lost the dispute and the money was returned to the widget maker (or merchant).

Had there not been that signed agreement (in some cases even a signed CC receipt) the dispute would have stood and the charge back to the merchant made permanent. However, that still wouldn't prevent the merchant from filing a report of theft to the local police, or Sherriff's office. In many states, charging back a credit card payment for products or services provided based on a loop hole (no signed credit card receipt), or false pretenses is a felony.

Re: Credit card disputes for purchases paid now but received months later

Horseshoez — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 13:50:11 GMT

@ramdom, I had your exact scenario happen back in the early 2000s; I ordered and paid for a fairly expensive birthday gift for my wife in earlySeptember from a shop which only accepted PayPal, so I ran the PayPal charge through my AMEX. They gave me with a promised ship date of mid-October (her birthday is early November), by Halloween it hadn't arrived. I called them and they said there had been shipping delays and it would be in their store by Thanksgiving, so I decided to shift that gift to Christmas and went out and bought her something else for her birthday. Early December, no gift. mid-December, no gift, week before Christmas I called them and they said their shipment was due the next day and they promised to overnight the gift at their expense.

Yeah, you guessed it, Christmas came and went and no gift. When I called to cancel my order and requested my money back they refused saying I had never paid for the item; I faxed them a copy of the PayPal payment and they said I then needed to take it up with PayPal to get my money back. I called PayPal and they said, "Sorry, it has been over 30-days, no refund for you." Okay then, time for the nuclear option, I called AMEX and they instantly credited my account and charged it back to PayPal. A PayPal representative contacted me and asked why I'd disputed the payment and requested I recind the dispute. I refused; the representative continued claiming I should have come to PayPal first; I hung up on him. Ever since then my PayPal account has been unable to make any payments, even though it still exists.

Re: Credit card disputes for purchases paid now but received months later

pizzadude — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 15:27:04 GMT

My experiences with AMEX have been similar in that they'll almost always take the side of the customer in disputes / chargebacks. Consequently if I have a large purchase I'll try to make certain to run it thru AMEX, especially if I think there's a chance something might go awry with the transaction.

Re: Credit card disputes for purchases paid now but received months later

ramdom — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 20:35:29 GMT

Thank you everyone for responding. Looks like Amex is the winner here, I'll have to keep that in mind. I appreciate all your informed responses.

Re: Credit card disputes for purchases paid now but received months later

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 20:50:11 GMT

@ramdom wrote:
Thank you everyone for responding. Looks like Amex is the winner here, I'll have to keep that in mind. I appreciate all your informed responses.

Yes, but take @JoeRockhead post to heart as well. I had a somewhat similar experience with a Visa card, almost the first thing they look at is the merchant's terms and conditions for refunds. (This was a concert event and my case wasn't particularly convincing but still!)

So use Amex but if you have a choice of merchants, check for the one with the least restrictive policy.

Re: Credit card disputes for purchases paid now but received months later

Shooting-For-800 — Sat, 02 Mar 2024 04:58:17 GMT

Just to add to my Amex answer...

I ordered two rolls of stamps from USPS online.

My mailman delivered an empty bag to my mailbox.

I started nice with USPS and got pretty nasty with them weeks later.

I had security cameras showing that the bag was flat when it was deliverered.

Anyway, one call to Amex and they credited my account $120 based on my word.

I find that most merchants also understand Amex's position. I have told more than one less than fair merchant to look at my "member since" date (2002) and asked them who they think Amex is going to side with. Don't say it often, but it works when I do.