Ok, relax. The laws are absolutely in your favor and just because Chase claims you owe this money does not necessarily mean its true. The (FCBA) Fair Credit Billing Act provides protection and makes using your credit or debit card a safe way to pay for goods and services.
Your liability for un-authorized charges is limited to only fifty dollars, even before you notify your bank. The "F.C.B.A." Fair Credit Billing Act gives you the right to dispute charges and either withhold payment or seek a refund for a billing error.
The law lays out rules for the investigations that are required by the card issuer. Issuers must resolve your complaint within two billing cycles or 90 days, whichever is less, and they cannot report to a credit bureau that you are late because you are withholding payment on the disputed amount during that period of investigation.
You have the right to dispute a credit charge if you are not satisfied with the quality of what you bought. The quality claim, however, comes with many restrictions. You must have attempted a good faith effort to resolve the problem directly with the merchant before disputing the charge. The charge must be at least fifty dollars and the transaction must have occurred in your home state or within 100 miles of your current billing address. The transaction location depends on your state and other laws, which complicates matters, especially if you make a purchase over the Internet, by phone, or through the mail. The geographic restrictions and the fifty dollar rule do not apply if the card issuer or close business partners sold you the product or service and also do not apply to billing errors. You say your the unauthorized charges were made in another state from which you live in. You can get around the geographic rule on problems like this by disputing a charge as a billing error.
Important Tip: Keep all documentation and notes about the conversation you had with Chase. This includes certified mail return or domestic certified mail receipts, phone records and anything else related to the charges.
This is what you should do: Your liability for unauthorized charges is only fifty dollars or less no matter what, you must dispute billing errors within 60 days after the bill containing the error was mailed to you. (Use the billing statement closing date as your guide.)
1. Complain to Chase by certified mail, return receipt and mail it to the Chase's address for "billing inquiries," not the payment address. The number one mistake most consumers make is they call up the creditor to complain about a billing issue instead of putting it in writing. You must put it in writing to protect your rights.
2. Pay any charges not in dispute. While the issuer can't impose finance charges on disputed amounts, it can bill you for them retroactively if the dispute is not resolved in your favor.
3. If you suspect the charges to be fraudulent, you need to file a police report and send it along with an ID theft affadavit to Chase Manhattan.
If your bank violates the rules or doesn't resolve the dispute to your satisfaction, complain to your state's banking regulators, the Federal Trade Commission and your state Attorney General. If your credit-card company violates the law, you may be able to keep $50 of the disputed amount even if the charge is legitimate. If you successfully sue, you can collect damages and legal costs and double any finance charges between $100 and $1,000.
Here are the names and addresses of who regulates these laws:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Division of Consumer and Community Affairs
20th & Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20551
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
Division of Supervision and Consumer Protection
550 Seventeenth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20429
Office of Thrift Supervision
Consumer Affairs Office
1700 G Street, NW
Washington, DC 20552
National Credit Union Administration
Office of Public and Congressional Affairs
1775 Duke Street
Alexandria, Virginia 22314-3428
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
Customer Assistance Group
1301 McKinney Street
Suite 3710
Houston, TX 77010
Federal Trade Commission
Bureau of Consumer Protection
Office of Credit Practices
Washington, DC 2058
You can find out more information about consumer financial laws here:
http://www.expert-credit-advice.com/con ... rights.htm Hope the info helped!
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