There's a Charge on My Credit Card I Didn't Make. What Are My Rights?

If a charge appears on your credit card statement that you did not authorize, federal law gives you strong and specific rights. The Fair Credit Billing Act, enacted as part of the Truth in Lending Act, establishes a dispute procedure that protects you from paying for fraudulent or erroneous charges, caps your liability for unauthorized use, and requires the card issuer to investigate and resolve disputes within strict deadlines. The most important thing to know is that these rights are time-limited. The 60-day dispute window starts running the moment the statement is transmitted, and missing it can cost you the statutory protections.

Credit Card Charges Are Governed by Different Rules Than Bank Debits

The first thing to understand is that credit card disputes and debit card disputes are not the same, even though they often look identical on a statement. Credit card charges are governed by the Fair Credit Billing Act at 15 U.S.C. § 1666 and related sections of the Truth in Lending Act. Debit card transactions and other electronic bank transfers are governed by the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, which we address separately in our article on unauthorized charges on bank accounts.

The practical difference matters. When someone charges your credit card without authorization, you are disputing money the card issuer has extended, not money that has already left your bank account. That structural difference is why credit card protections are generally stronger than debit card protections: you have leverage because the issuer has not yet been paid.

The 60-Day Rule: The Most Important Deadline You Have Not Heard Of

The single most important provision in the Fair Credit Billing Act is the deadline to dispute. Under 15 U.S.C. § 1666(a), your written dispute must reach the card issuer within sixty days after the issuer sent you the first periodic statement that showed the error. The clock starts running from the date the statement was transmitted. It does not start when you receive the statement, when you open the mail, or when you notice the charge.

This means that if a fraudulent charge posts in January and appears on a statement mailed on February 1, you have until early April to send a written dispute that complies with the FCBA. Missing that window does not necessarily mean you cannot recover, because most issuers will still investigate as a matter of network rules or internal policy. But the statutory protections in the FCBA, including the ability to sue the issuer for failing to follow the dispute procedures, generally require that you acted within the 60-day window.

The dispute should be in writing. Phone calls may be a useful first step, but the FCBA's formal protections attach to written notice. The notice must identify you, your account, and the specific amount and nature of the error.

What the Card Issuer Must Do After You Dispute

Once you send a timely written dispute, the card issuer has two separate deadlines it must meet under 15 U.S.C. § 1666(a) and its implementing regulation at 12 C.F.R. § 1026.13 (Regulation Z).

Acknowledgment within 30 days. The issuer must acknowledge receipt of your dispute within 30 days unless it has already resolved the issue by that point. The acknowledgment confirms the dispute is being investigated and starts the substantive resolution clock.

Resolution within two billing cycles, capped at 90 days. The issuer must complete its investigation and either correct the error or explain in writing why it believes the charge is correct, within two billing cycles or 90 days, whichever is shorter. If the investigation concludes the charge is legitimate, the issuer must give you a written explanation and, on request, documentary evidence supporting its conclusion.

While the investigation is pending, 15 U.S.C. § 1666a imposes additional obligations that are often overlooked:

• The issuer cannot require you to pay the disputed amount or any finance charges connected to it.
• The issuer cannot report the disputed amount to a credit bureau as delinquent.
• The issuer cannot take any collection action on the disputed amount.
• The issuer cannot close or restrict your account based on the pending dispute.

If an issuer rushes to mark the disputed amount delinquent, reports it to credit bureaus, or pursues collection while the FCBA clock is still running, that conduct is itself a separate violation.

Your Maximum Liability for Unauthorized Use: $50, Often $0

For unauthorized use of a credit card, 15 U.S.C. § 1643 caps your personal liability at $50. That cap is the federal statutory ceiling, and it only applies if the issuer has satisfied several preconditions, including giving you advance notice of the potential liability and a means to report loss or theft of the card. If the card issuer has not complied with those requirements, your liability is zero.

In practice, your liability is often zero regardless. When a card number is used without the physical card being lost or stolen, which is the typical pattern for online fraud, data breach misuse, or cloned numbers, the $50 cap does not apply at all and your liability is zero by statute. Most major issuers also voluntarily waive the $50 through their zero-liability policies. But the key point is that these are layered protections. Even in the worst-case scenario where every contractual waiver fails, federal law caps your exposure at $50.

The burden of proof on unauthorized use also belongs to the card issuer. Under 15 U.S.C. § 1643(b), if the issuer seeks to enforce any liability for a disputed charge, it must prove either that the use was authorized or that all the conditions for imposing the $50 liability were satisfied. You are not required to prove that you did not make the charge.

What Counts as a "Billing Error" Under the FCBA

The FCBA covers more than just unauthorized charges. A "billing error" under 15 U.S.C. § 1666(b) and 12 C.F.R. § 1026.13(a) includes:

• An extension of credit not made by you or anyone authorized to use your account, which covers typical unauthorized charge fraud.
• A charge for goods or services that were not accepted by you or that were not delivered according to the agreement.
• A charge reflected on the statement in the wrong amount.
• A charge that was reflected on the statement but that you do not recognize, where you request clarification or documentation.
• A failure by the issuer to credit a payment or other credit properly.
• A computational or similar error by the issuer.
• A failure to mail or deliver the statement to your current address, provided you gave the issuer timely notice of the address change.

The "goods or services not delivered" category is broader than most consumers realize. If you paid for a product that never arrived, arrived damaged, was materially different from what was promised, or was a service that the merchant did not actually perform, that is a billing error you can dispute directly with your card issuer rather than chasing the merchant.

For many disputes with merchants, 15 U.S.C. § 1666i provides a separate and powerful right: you can assert against the card issuer any claims or defenses you have against the merchant, for purchases over $50 made in your home state or within 100 miles of your billing address. That means the card issuer can be required to absorb the loss when a merchant takes your money and fails to deliver.

What to Do Right Now

If you see a charge on your statement that you did not authorize, or that is otherwise wrong, the order of operations matters.

• Confirm it is actually unauthorized. Check with anyone who has access to the card, including authorized users and family members. Review subscription services that may have renewed automatically. Merchant names on statements are often abbreviated or routed through parent companies and can look unfamiliar even when legitimate.
• Call the issuer immediately. A phone call puts the issuer on notice, freezes the card if necessary, and often starts a provisional credit process under the issuer's internal procedures. Get the representative's name and note the time and date.
• Send a written dispute. Within 60 days of the statement that first showed the charge, send a written dispute to the address the issuer designates for billing errors on your statement or website. Include your name, account number, the amount, the merchant, the date, and a clear statement that the charge is unauthorized or otherwise a billing error.
• Keep proof of the dispute. Send the letter by a method that creates a record, such as certified mail with return receipt, or a dated upload confirmation through the issuer's dispute portal. Save screenshots, receipts, and reference numbers.
• Do not pay the disputed amount. You are not required to pay the disputed charge or finance charges on it during the investigation. Continue paying the undisputed portion of your balance to avoid legitimate late fees on the rest of the account.
• Watch your credit reports. If the disputed amount is reported as delinquent to a credit bureau while the investigation is pending, that is itself a violation. See our credit report errors practice page for how that plays out.
• Document everything. Save the original statement, all correspondence, the dispute letter, the acknowledgment, any resolution letter, and evidence of any harm the error caused (late fees, finance charges, credit report damage, missed payment on other accounts).

What Damages May Be Available

When a card issuer fails to follow the FCBA dispute procedure, two separate consequences apply.

Forfeiture of the first $50. Under 15 U.S.C. § 1666(e), a creditor that fails to comply with the FCBA's dispute procedures forfeits the right to collect the first $50 of the disputed amount, plus finance charges, regardless of whether the underlying dispute has merit. This is a bright-line remedy that applies to any non-compliance, not just to cases where the consumer ultimately wins on the merits.

Civil damages under TILA. Separately, 15 U.S.C. § 1640 provides civil remedies for FCBA and TILA violations, including:

• Actual damages for out-of-pocket harm, including wrongful finance charges, late fees on other accounts, damage to your credit score, and lost opportunities.
• Statutory damages of $500 to $5,000 for individual actions involving credit card violations, without a need to prove specific financial harm.
• Attorney's fees and costs paid by the creditor if you prevail. This fee-shifting provision is what makes these cases economically viable for consumers and is why most consumer protection attorneys handle them on a contingency basis.

When a dispute is handled badly enough that the creditor reports false information to credit bureaus, additional claims may arise under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. When collection calls continue after dispute, claims under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act may also come into play.

The Bigger Picture

The FCBA was written to shift the risk of credit card billing errors from consumers to the institutions that are better positioned to prevent and investigate them. Your obligation as the consumer is narrow: notice the error, dispute it in writing within 60 days, and keep records. The creditor's obligations are broad: acknowledge quickly, investigate thoroughly, refrain from collection while the investigation is pending, and resolve the dispute in writing within statutory deadlines. When a card issuer cuts corners on those obligations, the law provides specific and enforceable remedies.

At Rausa Russo Law, we represent consumers whose credit card disputes were mishandled, whose credit reports were damaged by creditors reporting disputed amounts as delinquent, and whose card issuers ignored FCBA deadlines. We also handle claims under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act for debit card and bank account errors, and we often see these claims appear in combination. Consultations are free, and for most consumer protection cases, there is no out-of-pocket cost to the client.