SulaHow to dispute a charge on your card
A chargeback is a real right, not a favor from your bank. But it works best when you use it in the right order — after the merchant has had a fair shot, with your window and your evidence in hand.
Filing blind wastes the strongest tool you have. Banks reverse chargebacks that turn out weak, and jumping straight to one can cost you goodwill you might have needed. Work these four steps in order.
1Try the merchant first
Ask the merchant to fix it before you go to the bank. A chargeback can be reversed if the merchant contests it, and many issuers will ask whether you already tried to resolve it directly. A short, dated written request also becomes evidence for step three if the merchant refuses or goes quiet.
2Know your rights and your window
For a credit card, the Fair Credit Billing Act covers billing errors, and you generally have 60 days from the statement date the error appeared on to dispute in writing. For a debit card or electronic fund transfer, Regulation E gives you 60 days from the statement to report it. Separately, card-network chargeback rules commonly allow around 120 days from the transaction or expected delivery date, but the exact window depends on the reason code and your issuer. Don't wait for the outer limit — act fast.
3Gather your evidence
Pull together the receipt or transaction record, the merchant's own policy that applies, your written request to them, and their response or the fact that there wasn't one. A dispute backed by dated documents is far harder for the bank to deny than a phone call with your memory of events.
4File with your issuer
Submit the dispute through your bank. The exact path differs by issuer — Chase, American Express, Bank of America, Citi, Capital One, and Wells Fargo each have their own flow, and most now offer an online dispute form in the app or website that's faster than the phone. Give them the evidence from step three. If your bank won't help or mishandles the dispute, escalate to the CFPB at consumerfinance.gov/complaint.
How Sula helps
Reading a merchant's policy on the page you're on and seeing your dispute window is free. Before you file, Sula Pro ($6/mo) runs a chargeback-readiness check: it looks at what you've got and tells you whether your case is ready or whether you should try the merchant first, then walks you through the steps for your specific issuer.
Sula does the reading and the drafting. You file the dispute. It takes no cut of anything recovered and never acts as your legal agent — the opposite of services that keep 35 to 60 percent of what they win for you.
Free to read the policy and see your window. Works in Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc, Opera, and Firefox.
Add Sula to your browser