Fabfurnish.com — Damaged product received and no response on return request

Chargeback is a process that allows debit and credit card holders to reverse transactions when there is a problem with the goods or services they've purchased using their cards.

Card companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express run the process so that it applies to any card with their logo: credit, debit and even prepaid.

Although it's organised and run by the card companies, customers wishing to use chargeback must go through their card issuer - usually a bank or building society.

It's up to the card issuer to try to recover all or part of the money, provided that there is evidence of a breach of contract.

Breaches covered under chargeback include situations like the following:

The cardholder has bought a TV. As soon as they get it home they realise it has a serious electrical fault but the retailer refuses to help.
The cardholder orders an item online but it never arrives and the retailer refuses to refund the cost.
The cardholder was overcharged for an item as the result of a technical fault.
The cardholder looks at their statement and sees that there's been a clerical error: the account was debited twice for one purchase.
There's an unexplained and possibly fraudulent charge to the account.
The trader goes bust before they can provide the goods already paid for.
It gets our money back

Simply put, chargeback can get us our money back when other attempts have failed or are unsuitable.

As should be clear from the examples above and below, it's most likely to be applicable in situations where a retailer refuses to admit fault.