Unauthorized credit card charges should be reported immediately

The credit card has become the most used financial tool for many people. It’s easy to use, provides a handy bill listing all of your purchases and it protects you from having to carry a lot of cash. But sometimes, the bill shows up and it has some purchases listed on it that you know that you did not make. What can you do about this? What should you do about this? We will have a look at unauthorized purchases and see what you can do to protect yourself.

There are several reasons for why an unauthorized purchase might appear on your credit card statement. It could be a simple mistake; they are rare but they do happen. Or it could mean that you card number has been stolen. This is a common problem that often precedes a bigger one - identity theft. If someone obtains your credit card information, they might try a small purchase or two to see if the information is valid. If it is, they may proceed towards full scale identity theft. After that, you could find yourself the owner of home loans, car loans or other large financial obligations that you don’t even know about.

You do, however, have some options if you find a charge on your statement that you know that you didn’t make. First of all, you are protected with a limit of $50, maximum,. for charges that you did not make on your credit card. This $50 limit is guaranteed by the Fair Credit Billing Act. But there is some fine print to that; you only qualify if you actually notify your card issuing bank. If you don’t tell them about the problem, the charges may ultimately be yours. So the first step is to contact your bank as soon as possible to notify them about the problem. They will tell you about their procedures for unauthorized charges.

At this point, you should probably head to your file cabinet and pull out all of your charge card records, including those of other accounts. Check all of them for the past few months to make sure that there are no other charges that you don’t recognize. Far too many people just open the bill and write a check without actually looking to see what’s on it. That’s a bad idea if your card number has been stolen. You should also check your credit report; you might even want to get a copy of your report from each of the three bureaus to make sure that you don’t have any other obligations that you don’t know about.

If it turns out that your card has been compromised, your bank will probably issue a new one to you with a different number. They will then cancel the old one. This will protect you from further unauthorized purchases on the old account. The investigation into the disputed charges often takes several months; it would be a good idea not to use that card again until the dispute has been resolved.

Copyright © 2005-2007 by Retro Marketing. All rights reserved.