What is an efficient chargeback?

All the time someone gets an unrecognized charge on their statement they have two options. One of them is to call your credit card company asking them for the phone number of the Company that incurred the charge and a second option is to simply dispute it.

If you are unsure what the Company stands for (what services they provide or what they sell) it is strongly advised to give them a call. This because some companies don`t display their store brand name next to the charges but some third party processor.

Now if calling that number helps remember the Merchant and you know it was a legitimate charge then there is no need to dispute it as most probably, if they have a cbk department in place, you will loose it on a Visa and Mastercard.

Companies with large amount of sales have a chargeback department and they can respond and win back the charge that you disputed in the first place. This not only results in lost time and money but also will give you a hard time if you intend to make any more purchases with that company in the future.

On the other hand if calling the toll free and still not recognize the Company or you haven`t purchased with them then go ahead with a dispute mentioning what your reasons are. It is usually a good idea to provide as much information as possible about the time and date, the possession of the card at that point and the missing/ unrecognized Amounts.

You will have to receive then what is called the conditional credit which means the charged amount is set back into your account and will stay as conditional until that company responds or x number of days (usually 14) have passed and no response came from the company. This usually means they acknowledge the charge was fraudulent.

A last piece of advise on this matter would be to use it moderate and be careful with your cards as a charegeback dispute on a reason of fraud will automatically incur the cancellation of that cc and additional fees and time for issuing a new one.