Money Recovery Glossary
The terms behind getting your money back, defined in plain language.
- Billing error
- A mistake on a credit-card or revolving-credit statement that the law lets you dispute — including unauthorized charges, charges with the wrong date or amount, math mistakes, charges for goods you did not accept or that were not delivered as agreed, and payments or credits the issuer failed to post. U.S. Federal Trade Commission
- Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA)
- A U.S. federal law that sets out the process for disputing billing errors on credit cards and other revolving credit, including the requirement to notify the issuer in writing within 60 days and the issuer's duty to resolve the dispute within 90 days. U.S. Federal Trade Commission
- Chargeback
- A reversal of a card payment initiated through your card issuer or bank, returning disputed funds to you. It is the escalation step when a merchant will not resolve a billing problem directly.
- Duplicate charge
- The same purchase billed more than once — for example from a retried payment or a checkout glitch. Being billed twice for the same thing is a billing error you can dispute. U.S. Federal Trade Commission
- Price adjustment
- A partial refund of the difference when an item's price drops shortly after you buy it, offered under some retailers' price-protection or price-adjustment policies. You keep the item and get back the difference.
- Reimbursement
- Money paid back to you for an expense you covered — such as a work expense, a canceled service, or a returned product — that should appear as a credit on your statement.
- Provisional credit
- A temporary credit a bank or issuer may post to your account while it investigates a dispute, so you are not out the money during the review. It becomes permanent if the dispute is resolved in your favor.
- Breakage
- The industry term for stored value — such as gift-card balances — that is expected never to be redeemed. Unused balances are money you already paid for but have not gotten back.
- Unclaimed property (escheatment)
- Money or accounts a business turns over to the state after a period of inactivity — a process called escheatment. States hold this property and return it to the rightful owner on request, searchable for free through NAUPA's MissingMoney.com. National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators