Fair Credit Billing Act ensures that you are able to take action against errors in your credit card statement and things like that. Everybody makes mistakes, and this includes the credit card companies as well. If you have a credit card, which most people do now, then you would have definitely found one or two instances where there are errors. These errors are actually more common than you think. The fact is that, almost every credit card owner has seen such errors in their cards. Of course the statements are not created manually. If they were, then we would all see many more errors. But there are errors still, even though they are system generated. That’s where your Fair Credit Billing Act comes in – to protect the interest of the consumer or the credit card user.
What It Feels Like When You See an Error in the Credit Card Statement
You will surely be flustered when you see an error in your credit card statement. Of course you will call up the company to point out the error. But sadly, often, the company will just pass it on to a merchant. You will be asked to talk it over with the merchant to solve the issue. But when you try to do this, the merchant will simply tell you about his helplessness, and will even say that the matter related to the credit card company. You will be pushed around like a shuttle cock in the game of badminton. That’s when you don’t really know what to do. You might eventually decide to just make the payment to avoid any more hassles. Moreover, if you don’t pay up, then your interest keeps mounting.
Fair Credit Billing Act was passed to help consumers in all such instances. Fair Credit Billing Act will ensure that you will never have to make a payment for anything that never purchased. However that’s not all. This Act covers a lot of other things as well, like simple errors in the billing process. Let us take an example to understand this better.
Let us assume that you made a purchase, but returned the item for whatever reason. The reasons could be a product you are not satisfied with, something that was never shipped to you, a wrong price entry in the statement and others like this. If you have returned or never received the item, then the purchase should not be showing in your statement. And if there is an error in the price, then it needs to be corrected. The Act will help you in all these instances. It can also help you if the credit card company fails to send the statement to your entered address before the due date, which sometimes happens.
To get protection under this Fair Credit Billing Act, you have to send a letter to the credit card company in writing through normal US mail. Remember, you should not be sending an email or a fax. Credit card companies are legally bound to take action once the letter is received under your Fair Credit Billing Act.
