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Your Responsibilities if Your Credit Card is Used Fraudulently

If your credit card information is used to make unauthorized purchases, you are only responsible to pay a maximum of $50 under federal law. Many of the major credit card companies exempt you from even those charges if you act responsibly to report the unauthorized charge.

However, the ability to dispute has some limitations. You can only dispute the charge if ALL of the following criteria are met:

Criteria for Disputing Credit Fraud

1. You haven't paid the amount billed to your credit card yet.
2. You have tried in good faith to resolve the dispute with the seller.
3. The dispute involves $50 or more.
4. The dispute arose within the state or within 100 miles of your credit card billing address. (Purchases via the Internet can cause legal uncertainty as to where the dispute arose.)
5. The seller of the goods is not the issuer of the credit card that you used to purchase the merchandise from. For example, if you bought goods from XYZ department store with a XYZ department store card, the above rules would not apply.