Credit card legalities. Advice?

[trof]

From the "billing rights" clause in my agreement with Discover Card:

Special Rule for Credit Card Purchases: If you have a problem with the quality of goods or services that you purchased with a credit card, and you have tried in good faith to correct the problem with the merchant, you may not have to pay the remaining amount due on the goods or services. You have this protection only when the purchase price was more than $50 and the purchase was made in your home state or within 100 miles of your mailing address. (If we own or operate the merchant, or if we mailed you the advertisement for the goods or services, all purchases are covered regardless of the amount or location of purchase.) Note: I have satisfied all of the underlined requirements.

If you purchase a "tangible" that is either not delivered or is defective, it would seem to be cut & dried. You don't have to pay. Unless of course the merchant says the goods were delivered (mail order/internet) and you say you never received them. Then what?

If you paid for "intangibles" (services) that were not performed, or were inadequately performed, how do you prove that?

Next question: Who decides if the services were adequately performed? The buyer? The vendor? The credit card company?

Last question: In a head-to-head disagreement between the card holder and the vendor that cannot be resolved, where do the legal "loyalties"(?) or responsibilities of the credit card company lie? I pay off the balance every month, so they get no income from me. Their income is paid by the vendor.

Thanks in advance for any light you can shed.

[amazona]

1. i've saved thousands this way

The rules are simple: You must report the problem IN WRITING within 60 days of receiving the bill to contest the charge. In reality, sit down and write the letter ASAP spelling out the problem. If you have any proof, include photocopies. Otherwise, just explain what occurred in writing. Keep in mind that you want to phrase things so that they will sound perfectly reasonable if your letters are ever read out in court. Send the first letter telling the problem Certified Return Receipt Requested so you will have proof that the credit card company received timely notification of the problem. It is OK to send follow-up letters by regular first class mail, but always mention in the follow-up that the company received the originally notification on such-and-such-date, certified letter # such-and-such, signed for by illegible-scrawl-mailboy. In this way, they have no wiggle room for claiming you failed to notify them.

The first seven or eight or 12 times you send a letter, the credit card company will claim you have no basis for contesting the charge, and they will put it back on your bill. Be prepared to file further complaints with planetfeedback.com, your local "people helper" at your local newspaper or another consumer helper site, and also you need to contact the federal authorities who oversee credit card companies. I am on vacation and don't have their address with me, but you can get it easily. Search for "fair credit laws" "Your credit rights" etc. on "google" to get the correct address. Depending on the state where the event happened, you can also file a complaint with your state attorney general AND the state attorney general of Delaware, where the credit card company is likely incorporated because Delaware has an EXTREMELY poor record of taking care of consumer rights.

In most states, if the amount in dispute is less than $2,000 (sometimes it's $5,000), you will be able to file for damages in small claims court. Before you take this step, inform the credit card company in writing that you are taking steps to file. Or, if you have a friend who is an attorney, let her write a letter to the credit card company.

I have never had to actually sue a credit card company, and I have saved thousands of dollars over the years getting errors corrected and getting charges reversed for poor service. I even got charges reversed from COntinental Airlines, and I was told that no one ever gets money back from rude, inconsiderate airlines.

But...you MUST be patient. And you must NOT lose your nerve. While the dispute goes on, you will receive threatening letters and phone calls. Save the letters and the recordings of these calls if you have recordings -- extortion is illegal and trying to make you pay money you do not owe under the Fair Credit Act is extortion. So be patient, be polite, and each time you are contacted, sit down and send out another letter explaining the situation. NEVER discuss the matter on the phone -- a phone discussion does NOT preserve your rights. Many people lose their right to contest a charge because they are B.S.ed by a telephone customer service rep -- these people are very good at telling you the problem will be taken care of to delay you. If for some reason, you do speak to them on the phone, ask for a follow-up letter -- and immediately send a follow-up letter describing your understanding of the call.

Good luck. I know this works. I've done it many times, and my credit rating is A-plus, because when they end up acknowledging you are correct, by law they have to remove all erroneous claims from your credit report.

Go get 'em.

[NicoleM]

2. I used to work disputes for a Visa card issuer.

All of the credit card companies have to follow the same provisions of the Fair Credit Billing Act (I think that's what it's called). IOW, there is a baseline amount of protection that they have to give you per federal law. They can give you more protection than that if they want to. That's my disclaimer--I don't remember the provisions of the law and I never worked for Discover. HOWEVER,

1. If you order something from Amazon, for example, and they never deliver it, you can dispute it with Discover. The burden is generally on them to prove that it was delivered.

2. Services not rendered--it depends on the service to be rendered. For example, we got a lot of car repair disputes. In that case, you would probably be required to submit a letter from a like merchant stating that the service was not rendered and what should have been done.

3. I've got to use Visa for this one. You file a dispute with your Visa card issuer (usually your bank). Your issuer temporarily credits your account and sends your complaint to the merchant. The merchant has the opportunity to present a rebuttal. If their rebuttal is, for example, something from UPS signed by you indicating that you did receive the package, that would "cure" the dispute and it would be resolved in the merchant's favor.

4. If their rebuttal does not "cure" the dispute per Visa rules, you get a chance to respond to their rebuttal. If the merchant still does not accept your dispute, it would go into arbitration with Visa and they would make the final decision. It is in their best interest to retain both you and the merchant as customers, so they try to be as fair as possible.

Also, WRT the hundred-mile rule, the idea is that if you purchased something in person, you had an opportunity to inspect the merchandise before you bought it, so you can't dispute it for poor quality. I think it's a stupid rule--if you buy a toaster at Target, you won't know if it works until you get it home and plug it in. But it's in the federal law, IIRC.

If you have a specific dispute, I can give you tips on what to tell your credit card company. The most important thing is that you dispute it in writing as soon as you notice it--if you haven't disputed it within a timeframe that varies with the type of dispute but is usually 120 days, you can't dispute it anymore.

[trof]

3. Thanks for your input.

This has to do with the negligent treatment of our dog by the vet clinic/boarding kennel. I posted the story earlier.

I wrote the first letter as soon as we understood out how badly she had been (mis)treated. I sent a copy to the kennel. Discover removed the charge pending investigation. The vet at the clinic sent a rebuttal to Discover. They sent a copy to me. It was basically blowing smoke and claiming no responsibility, in fact inferring it was our fault. Based on her reply, Discover said it was apparently a valid charge and is putting it back on my monthly statement.

I just wrote a rebuttal to her rebuttal, and told Discover I was registering a formal complaint with the state vet board. I explained that this was between me and the kennel and asked Discover to step aside and it will be settled between me and the kennel, one way or another.

Wonder what the chances the credit card co. will back off?

[NicoleM]

4. those ones are tough.

I never had a vet dispute but some of my co-workers did. They are really, really hard for a cardholder to win. They usually come down to "he said, she said" and in those cases the credit card co. will almost always treat that as a valid charge.

If you do a lot of business with Discover or whoever issues your Discover card, you may be able to get your money back from them regardless of what the merchant does, if you throw a big enough fit or bug them about it enough. We had a write-off budget every month, and sometimes we would refund somebody for a dispute that we couldn't win, just to shut them up. :)

[trof]

5. Thanks, Nicole

In the second letter I pointed out that I have been a cardholder since 1986 and this is the FIRST time I've disputed a charge.

Part of it is "he said-she said" between my wife and the receptionist about meds to be given. Hard evidence is photos I took of the 2" open bedsore our dog came home with. That plus the fact that we took her to our regular vet the day after we got her home and he said quote-What the hell happened to her?-unquote. She had also dropped 6 pounds in the two weeks she was boarded.

[NicoleM]

6. Can you get

your vet to write a letter to Discover stating that your dog was mistreated? Also, when did this happen and when did you send the first letter to Discover?

These pet cases are hard but not impossible. I remember my co-worker had a case once where somebody took their cat in to have its teeth cleaned and the vet removed all the cat's teeth instead. I'm pretty sure we won that one.

[trof]

7. Our vet is a nice guy

but seems to be a little reluctant to be an outspoken advocate. We've filed a formal complaint with the state vet board, mailed it yesterday.

I'm sure he'll testify to the facts as he knows them if it comes to that. I don't think he wants to get involved with my credit card dispute.

My wife called the kennel the day after we got Nasha home and they basically blew her off. I then called Discover and they said the charge hadn't come in yet. They notified me when it did, and I wrote the first letter.

[amazona]

8. it's almost always he said, she said, so what

I would not expect your vet to get involved in your credit card dispute. Even nice guys turn skittish when the possibility looms of being involved in someone else's legal questions. I would assume it is highly unlikely your vet will testify to anything if he can possibly avoid it. But don't get discouraged if you find out I'm right. You don't necessarily need anyone else's testimony.

The only people you can really expect to help you in most credit card disputes are yourself, consumer protection agencies (who really know only what you tell them) and, if need be, your attorney or local small claims court.

Credit card companies rely on people lacking persistence. If you are unsure of your facts, if you are turned down three or four times and have the charge returned to your billing statement three or four times...most people break down and pay, even though they are in the right and shouldn't have paid the money. Then, cha-ching, the credit card company wins. And the incompetent/fraudster/liar wins. It's one of the reasons I have become so frustrated in helping friends and family dispute credit card errors. They do not persist, and they are just wasting my time if they are going to give up after three or four rounds. Many times, it has taken up to a year -- 12 months or 12 rounds of exchanges of letters detailing my complaint -- to get my account properly credited. You have to be realistic about what you are getting into. The credit card company doesn't know, and never will know, who is telling the truth -- your wife or the kennel. Nor do they care. You just have to be honest, be patient, be persistent, until they finally throw up their hands and concede the issue.

It bothers me that you have never before disputed a charge. That tells me that you may lack the persistence to get what is owing to you. I generally discover 1-3 billing errors each year. Stating you have never contested a charge before MAY send a message that you are a "good" customer; more likely it sends the message that you may be a pushover. I would not necessarily lean on that point. I would lean on the facts, including the photocopies of the photographs you have proving your contention.

You can do this if you are persistent. But do not expect the credit card company to immediately grant your wish. This rarely happens, and I've had it happen only when the contested amount was under $100. For bigger charges, as I said, expect up to a year of dealing with this issue...more, I suppose, if you do have to take it to court.

Please don't pay money you don't owe for service you didn't receive. It encourages more bad service, more sick dogs, blah blah blah. Stay strong. Best wishes to you.

[NicoleM]

9. If you can't get a letter from your vet

you probably aren't going to win with the credit card company. It might be something to take to small claims court.

I would also probably start using a different card, and I would tell them why. I worked for a company renowned for its terrible customer service (that's why I don't work there anymore, couldn't take it) but Discover's service sounds worse than where I worked.