Does Your Credit Card haveThe Chargeback Feature

Did you know you could be reimbursed for certain things like theft, bankruptcy of a retailer, damage, if the item was purchased with your credit card?

Your credit card can actually help you out in a jam if something like this happens to you:

Last year my digital camera was stolen from my house while I was on vacation.  I had received the digital camera a couple of months earlier as a Christmas gift and because my husband had charged the purchase to our MasterCard we were reimbursed for the stolen camera because the theft had occured within the 90 day time limit of our credit card policy.

There was very little to do other than file a police report, give the incident number, receipts for the camera and fill out some paperwork with our credit card company.

The Chargeback feature is offered by many major credit cards. 

How does it work?

• you must try to resolve the issue with the merchant if you're having problems with a purchase
• if that fails, you call your credit card issuer within a certain number of months that the charges appear on your credit card statement and ask for assistance from the disputes or chargeback department
• after receiving all relevant information to your claim, the credit card company will launch an investigation
• as long as the dispute is legitimate the chances of success are generally pretty good for your money to be refunded to you

Check with your credit card company to see if you have this feature on any of your credit cards and what the process is to make a claim!

The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada website at: www.fcac.gc.ca/eng/consumers/rights/CreditCards/RightsCreditCards_3_e.asp?pm=1  discusses Credit Card fraud, Fraud Protection and E-Promise.

More information on E-Promise can be found on Visa's Web Site at: www.visa.ca/en/personal/securewithvisa/liability.cfm