At Consumer Justice Law Firm, we help you recover from the harmful consequences of Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA) violations by upholding and protecting your rights under federal and state law. While this federal law plays a key role in many identity theft scenarios, it is also a standalone practice area that warrants exploration all its own. We enforce your rights under the FCBA and do everything the law allows to hold financial companies accountable for the reckless way they handle your data.
Justice for credit card fraud victims looks like this: Making financial and credit reporting companies (1) fix fraudulent transactions, (2) fix their mistakes, (3) pay you compensation for the harm they caused, and (4) pay for your legal bills because you had to force them to do the right thing.
What FCBA Violations Are
The Fair Credit Billing Act is federal legislation that gives you legal rights when disputing unauthorized or inaccurate charges for credit cards, charge accounts, and lines of credit. FCBA violations can include things like: (1) fraudulent charges on your credit card, charge account, or loan statement; (2) charges for undelivered goods; and (3) inaccurate amounts on billing statements, including double entries and over charges.
How FCBA Violations Harm You
FCBA violations harm you in two ways: (1) The primary harm caused by the immediate credit card fraud, unreceived goods, or inaccurate statement. This looks like more money owed, debt-to-asset ratios thrown off unfairly, loans and credit cards maxed out, etc. (2) The continuous, slow-rolling hits that just keep coming when FCBA violations aren’t fixed. This can mean these fraudulent, unauthorized, or inaccurate charges showing up on credit reports.
- Maxed out accounts. Fraudulent activity or statement errors can lead to credit cards, charge accounts, lines of credit, and more, being (or appearing) maxed out completely.
- Credit statements riddled with bad data. Unauthorized credit checks, fraudulent transactions, unapproved loans, all get reported on your credit statement as if they’re yours.
- Bad credit reports and a credit score drop. When your credit statements aren’t corrected following fraud, the info ends up on credit reports, damaging you credit worthiness and unfairly dropping your score.
- Debt collections. If a lender refuses to clear fraudulent or inaccurate charges, those accounts could unfairly end up in collections.
- Reputational damage. Financial and credit reporting damage rarely stays between you and the agency reporting it. In fact, credit reports are made to be used by decision-makers. Anyone seeing yours while it’s full of data generated by fraud or inaccuracies will assume the worst.
- Mental and emotional distress. From missing out on long-awaited opportunities to losing sleep due to worry or being plagued by anxiety, the toll these violations take is real.
Steps To Take After Discovering FCBA Violations
Step 1 Let the credit & finance companies know
Carefully review your billing statement from every credit card company or loan you have access to, along with your credit report from each credit bureau. Note every instance of wrongful or inaccurate data, no matter how small. Notify the fraud department about the bad data or unauthorized activity as soon as possible. Freeze your credit. Your credit card will be canceled and reissued.
Step 2 File a dispute with the credit card company
Notifying the fraud department is NOT a dispute. You still have to file a formal dispute of the bad data or unauthorized activity in writing. File by certified mail and keep copies of everything, including the mailing receipts and all documents sent. You have 60 days from the date on the billing statement on which the disputed charges were posted. But the sooner, the better.
Step 3 File a criminal report & get an attorney
It’s a good idea to file a police report as close in time to the discovery of the fraud as possible. While the police may decline to pursue an investigation, filing a criminal report helps establish and lock down the facts in an official document. If your dispute doesn’t help or you need guidance through the whole process, a credit card fraud lawyer is the help you’re looking for.
How An FCBA Attorney Leads You to a Full Recovery
Not every FCBA case ends in a lawsuit, but many do. Litigation usually becomes necessary when financial companies and consumer reporting agencies simply fail to do the right thing. Seemingly simple things, like being notified of fraudulent or unauthorized credit card charges, that should have a relatively straightforward solution, become prolonged and painful battles.
Knowing when, how, and who to sue is everything. Here’s how we help you:
- We know the law. We know the laws that protect you and how to go after these careless mega-corporations using every possible legal option available.
- We know the problems. We’ve seen, heard, and handled every type of consumer fraud and credit reporting problem and put our full knowledge and resources into everything we do.
- We know the tricks. We know the tactics used by these companies to delay doing anything to fix financial or reporting mistakes. They’d rather convince you it’s a lost cause. We know otherwise.
- We provide legal guidance. We help you gather necessary data and evidence, craft and file legally sound disputes, and advise you of your rights and best practices along the way.
- We file a lawsuit. If the fraudulent charges aren’t removed or the credit reporting errors aren’t corrected, we file a lawsuit to hold companies accountable. We might sue companies that (a) failed to use adequate methods to prevent, investigate, or correct bad data generated by fraud, (b) engaged in harassment (such as unscrupulous debt collectors) for non-payment of fraudulent charges, loans, and accounts, (c) failed to act within the legal time frame for investigating and fixing disputed data, and (d) received notice of fraudulent credit card charges but continued to report the false information anyway.
- We get you money. If you’ve been harmed by errors and bad data and you’re entitled to compensation, we know how to maximize it.
The Role of the Fair Credit Billing Act
Credit card fraud and credit billing mistakes have consequences that can spread through your full credit profile quickly. Because these types of errors are part of a persistent, systemic problem, and because they cause genuine harm to people every single day, the federal government passed an important piece of legislation- the Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA) to try to protect you.
We rely heavily on the FCBA (along with the Fair Credit Reporting Act) to build the best possible cases and get the best possible outcomes. The FCBA gives you critical consumer rights, including the right to:
- dispute fraudulent or incorrect charges that are $50 or more (within 60 days of the fraud posting to your billing statement)
- face limited liability for confirmed unauthorized charges (usually only up to $50)
- dispute charges for undelivered goods and inaccurate amounts
- dispute the results of a lender’s investigation if they stand by the charges or errors (within 10 days)
- file lawsuits against the responsible parties
- hold disputed payments in forbearance while the charges are being investigated (meaning, you don’t pay while they look into it and you can’t get sent to collections)
- receive a response to your dispute within 30 days and a resolution within 90 days
- make the credit card company prove that disputed charges are valid
How to Dispute FCBA Violations
- Act quickly to dispute fraudulent charges, transactions, and loans. There are critical statutes of limitations involved in disputing fraud, and typically the date that sets everything in motion is the statement date on which the criminal activity is first reported. Once you notice something is off, jump into gear getting things locked down and disputed.
- Review your credit reports and financial statements for mistakes and unauthorized activity.
- Gather any evidence and documentation you have to support your dispute. This should include the police report (if filed) and any communications with the companies (such as notes from when you filed a fraud alert).
- Follow the rules for the specific financial company whose data you’re disputing.
- Write a thorough and clear letter explaining exactly which information in your credit report or financial statement is wrong and why.
- Mail your letter, along with copies of the supporting documents, via certified mail to the credit reporting and financial companies. This preserves your rights and leaves an easily traceable trail. Avoid using online dispute platforms.
- Keep a copy of the letters and documents for your file, along with the mail receipts.
- Track the days. Credit bureaus and lenders holding credit cards, charge accounts, and lines of credit have 30 days to respond.
- Don’t give up. If they don’t respond, don’t investigate, don’t fix the errors, or claim that their investigation confirmed the bad data and fraudulent activity, you need a lawyer NOW.
How Fee-Shifting Makes the Wrongdoer Pay Your Legal Bills
One of the most important and least known facts about embarking on the FCBA violation recovery journey is that you don’t have to pay out of pocket for legal help. Under the FCBA and FCRA, you are not expected to spend your own money or take on debt just to dispute unauthorized charges and reporting errors and demand corrections of your data since you didn’t create the problem in the first place. The ones who made the problem have to pay to fix it.
At Consumer Justice, we respect this fee-shifting provision for the role it plays in our legal system, especially since it serves as an equalizer, bringing justice to everyone, including those who otherwise couldn’t afford to work with an attorney. We value each and every client and every case, and appreciate that the law has carved out a way to center equity and fairness in legal representation for consumers harmed by big business data errors.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I cancel my credit card after discovering credit card fraud?
For most people, the answer is a clear and easy yes. However, in our experience, some people do not have access to any additional credit or payment options. For instance, you might be a single parent who relies on your credit card to manage bill paying in a way that works with your pay schedule. You might only have one credit card and you use it for everything. In this instance, canceling your credit card outright might leave you completely stranded or at risk of not being able to pay some of your bills. If you’re in this situation, we recommend discussing this with the credit card company and speaking to a lawyer.
Can I fight credit card fraud without an attorney?
The answer to whether you need an attorney is always no. You are free to tackle any legal situation on your own, including credit fraud and bad credit reporting. And, for some people, reporting fraud or errors and getting it cleared up with the lender or credit bureau is an easy process. However, for others, every possible roadblock to justice shows up to make the journey to recovery nearly impossible. If the fraud is particularly extensive or you’re finding the companies are unresponsive, uncooperative, or untrusting of you, then working with a lawyer is the best and safest bet. Luckily, you can begin working with a credit card fraud attorney at any point in the process. If you encounter resistance, refusals, or ridiculousness of any kind, reach out right away.